USU Aviation Maintenance Team Takes First Place at National Competition
Stephen Colton (left) and Chase Baune (right, behind Colton and not seen) work on a challenge at the competition.
Five students from Utah State University’s Aviation Maintenance Management program recently took first place in the School Division of the 2016 Aerospace Maintenance Competition (AMC).
AMC is an international competition in which students, professionals and military teams compete in timed events. USU students Autumn Allinson, Chase Baune, Kendall Chapman, Stephen Colton and Justin Young travelled to Dallas for the event and took first place out of 22 school teams in the competition
“This competition is all about teamwork and working in a high-pressure environment,” said Allinson, the team captain. “As a team, we were prepared for that.”
The competition was broken down into 25 timed events. Tasks included removing and replacing a starter from a turbine engine, answering questions about aviation history, extracting lost screws with a borescope and more. Every task or test was given a time limit, with possible penalties for not following directions, failing to adhere to industry practices or incorrect test responses. USU came out victorious with the lowest combined time among the schools. In addition, in the airspeed indicator troubleshooting event the USU team took second place overall, coming out ahead of professional and military teams.
“This was a tremendous learning activity for the students,” said Chris Bracken, professional aviation practice instructor and the team’s faculty mentor. “They were able to use cutting-edge technology and work side-by-side with potential employers, who were obviously impressed as several of them made a point of inviting our students to apply for jobs. The USU students shone on the stage in front of major companies and made all of us proud to be Aggies.”
Last year, USU placed third in this competition. In an effort to better prepare students, Bracken created an elective class in which students perform timed activities and study a variety of aviation subjects. The five top-performing students in the class were selected to represent USU at the competition.
The team members each received a first place trophy and a bag of tools from Snap-on. Students were also involved in finding sponsors to help pay for travel to the competition and received support from Gossner Foods, American Airlines and USU’s Department of Applied Sciences, Technology and Education.
To learn more about the Aerospace Maintenance Competition, visit its website. To learn more about the aviation program at USU, see the program’s website.
Related links:
USU School of Applied Sciences, Technology and Education
USU College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences
Contact: Chris Bracken, 435-797-3328, Chris.Bracken@usu.edu
Writer: Shelby Ruud, Shelby.ruud@usu.edu
PHOTO: Competition_aviation-mech-team-UST - Caption: USU's Aviation Maintenance Management team won the 2016 Aerospace Maintenance Competition’s university division. Team members are (L to R) Stephen Colton, Kendall Chapman, Justin Young, Chase Baune, Autumn Allinson.
Autumn Allinson and another student working at the competition.
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