MSU Denver Aerobatics Team wins fifth national title in eight years
Roadrunner pilots also sweep top three 2024 individual awards as the squad continues to dominate in collegiate competition.
Metropolitan State University of Denver’s Aerobatics Team has won the 2024 Collegiate National Aerobatic Championship, the University’s fifth national title in eight years.
MSU Denver topped runner-up University of North Dakota and third-place Air Force Academy, cementing its status as one of the most dominant aerobatics squad in the nation. Three Roadrunner pilots — Tien Luu, Braeden Giltinan and Alex Trautmann — placed first through third in the individual collegiate standings. North Dakota’s Forrest Scholin tied Trautmann for third place.
Founded just nine years ago, the Aerobatics Team, part of MSU Denver’s nationally recognized Aviation Program, competes with other collegiate teams in a series of competitions throughout the year, compiling points for loops, spins, barrel rolls and other maneuvers completed in an “aerobatic box” — 1,000 meters cubed at 4,000 feet of altitude, marked only by ground indicators.
The pilots are graded by judges not only on the difficulty and performance of their maneuvers but on their ability to stay strictly within the confines of this invisible box.
“We are taught to ‘always stay ahead of the aircraft’ when executing aerobatic maneuvers — to think several steps ahead and plan meticulously before making any moves,” said Luu, the first-place individual award winner. “Everything we do as aerobatic pilots is a complex dance between preparation, execution and awareness. But when everything clicks, it really is one of the most satisfying experiences ever.”
Greatest gift
Although their trophy case is already crowded with collegiate championships in 2017, 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2024, as well as numerous individual awards, the flying team’s competitive prospects grew even sunnier last summer.
An anonymous donor gifted them a brand-new GameBird aerobatics plane, a top-of-the-line two-seater with a carbon-fibre airframe and a price tag of $620,000. It’s a technically advanced, high-performance machine that Dagmar Kress, the team’s coach and a lecturer in MSU Denver’s Aviation and Aerospace Science Department, says is among the best on the market.
“It is an extraordinary airplane,” she said. “They don’t break, and they don’t quit, so it has been a total game-changer in helping our students rise to a new level of proficiency and success.”
RELATED: New airplane helps MSU Denver’s championship aerobatics team soar to new heights
Another bonus: The new plane’s eye-catching design and sleek performance have been impossible to miss at competitions, boosting the team’s profile nationally and even internationally throughout the close-knit aerobatics community.
“Everybody has been talking about it,” Luu said. “It’s now known worldwide that MSU Denver is the only university that’s equipped with a state-of-the-art GameBird.”
Safety first
Having a dependable, super-speedy new plane has meant more frequent and productive practice sessions for the student flyers. Which is handy, given some of the grueling aerial maneuvers they need to perfect.
For those eyeing a career in aviation, aerobatics competition practice is particularly invaluable. Developing a range of advanced skills such as performing rolls and learning how to fly upside down so early on makes them better pilots.
RELATED VIDEO: Figure skating in the sky
But just as important, the students also have critical safety procedures drilled into them. With any kind of flight, there is always the possibility of a plane stalling. Unless a pilot knows how to recover their aircraft, it could fall into an uncontrollable spin.
That’s why, during aerobatic training, MSU Denver’s student pilots repeatedly climb their plane vertically, then intentionally fall into a stall so they can recover from it.
“We go straight up until the airplane stops going any further,” Kress said. “We stall and spin the GameBird every day. Because it’s this kind of hardcore learning that will make our students super-safe pilots once they’re flying planes professionally.”
As for the question Kress often gets about her young program’s meteoric rise in the sport?
“Well, how do musicians get to Carnegie Hall?” she said. “It’s practice, practice, practice. Our secret is having dedicated students who really put in the hours and committed coaches who train them well.”
