Upgrade makes UVSC plane-happy

PROVO — Aviation students at Utah Valley State College took to the air Monday in four new planes.

The planes replace aircraft damaged by an Aug. 1 storm at the Provo Municipal Airport, headquarters of the college's Global Aviation Science Department.

But the planes also are part of a fleet upgrade that was in the works before the storm hit, said Mario Markides, associate chairman of operations for the aviation program.

The planes and three new flight simulators cost more than $3 million, said Rick Vincent, associate chairman of academics in the aviation program. The money came from insurance claims filed after the storm, the aviation department's savings and the college's Board of Trustees, which gave the department $1.45 million on Aug. 11 in an emergency meeting requested by the aviation department after the storm.

The school purchased four single-engine Diamond DA40s and a twin-engine Diamond DA42 Twin Star, which has not yet arrived from the Diamond Aircraft manufacturing plant in London, Ontario.

The school was selling some planes and replacing its fleet with planes all manufactured by Diamond Air when the summer storm hit. Wind speeds, measured at 105 mph before the anemometer broke, caused more than $500,000 damage to 17 planes parked at the airport. Planes were parked outside of the hangar because students were using them for training.

Aviation program officials told the Board of Trustees they were losing $3,000 a day since the storms hit. About 400 to 500 students pay to train in the airplanes in fall and spring semesters. The money is used to fund the program.

Aviation department employees were unable to get all the planes inside because they only had a 15-minute warning before the supercell microburst struck the airport, according to materials the department provided to UVSC's Board of Trustees.

Officials in the aviation program were able to fix all the planes but a Piper Seminole and two Piper Warriors.

Other planes in the fleet have been sold, and the updated fleet will have 32 planes, down from 36 planes. But the updated fleet will feature better technology and will be consistent because all of the planes will have been made by the same manufacturer.

That's easier for student pilots, Markides said.

The new planes have "glass cockpits," vastly different than classic gas gauges. The screens on the glass cockpits can show terrain, weather maps and satellite information, said Dallas Harper, a UVSC flight instructor.

"It's a lot of twisting knobs and pushing buttons (on glass cockpits) versus reading (gas gauges)," said Chris Williamson, a UVSC student who flew a DA40 from Canada to Provo.

"It's light years beyond the stuff we've been flying," said Mike Dommer, a student who also flew a DA40 from Canada to Provo. "It's the stuff you're going to see once you get to the airlines."

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