AM All V VV Am Ah A Ak w a 0 a 0 a 2B Wednesday, November 2 2011 // The Statement Wednesday Novemeber 2 2011 // The Statement 7B the statement MagazineEditor: Carolyn Klarecki Editor in Chief: Stephanie Steinberg Managing Editor: Nick Spar Deputy Editors: Stephen Ostrowski Devon Thorsby Elyana Twiggs Designers: Maya Friedman Hermes Risien Photos: Jed Moch Copy Editor: Hannah Poindexter The Statement is The Michigan Daily's news magazine, distributed every Wednesday during the academic year. Ta cantact The Statement e-mail klarecki@michigandaily.com. LIKE US. ON FACEBOOK THEJUNKDRAWER random student interview by kaitlin williams Welcome to the random student interview, where we hold one student hostage for four min- utes for your enjoyment. Do you have a minute? How long is this minute really? Oh, you caught me. I actually need four minutes. OK that's fine. Great thanks. First off, do I have any chocolate on my face? No. Teeth? No. Thanks. So, did you go trick-or- treating last night? No I did not. Why not? Well, my friends and I already went out all weekend, and I didn't want to wear my costume again. Where do you live? West Quad. Where do you plan on living next year? Not sure. Not sure? Or has no one asked to live with you? It's OK, you can tell me. I really haven't thought about it. OK. Well, just an insider's note here, people tend to pair up by early November. And it's November so... OK. Well I'll probably live in a dorm. What dorm? Do you aspire as high as to live in North Quad? No. Pretty fond of West Quad? Yeah. It's fine with me. How you you like your room- mate? Not bad. Medium well? He's not my best friend but... What's the weirdest thing you've heard about that's hap- pened between roommates in the dorms? Like involving me? No. Just the weirdest story. I'm sure there's something floating out there. Oh. Like does it have to be appro- priate? I don't really care. Preferably inappropriate. So, one of my friends, well they're both my friends, one had a girl spend the night with him and apparently the other one woke up and heard-them having sex while he was in the room. Oh. That's very Jersey Shore of him. He didn't say anything, but I bet that was horrible for him. Awkward. So are you 18? Yes. Are you registered to vote? Yes. Do you plan on voting Nov. 2? No. Why not? Those campaigns about voting being sexy must not be working. Is it because there isn't a presidential race this year?. Yeah, it's kind of an off year. I haven't voted yet, and it isn't really high up on my list of things to do. My dad is really into politics. He's trying to rub it off on me. Do you think anyone has ever gotten laid for voting? I'm sure it's happened, but I don't know. Do you think it's appropriate to call voting sexy? Umm, it's kind of weird. Weird. Well, if getting laid and your dad can't get you to vote, I'm not going to try. What would your voting slogan be if you gave a damn? Umm... "Vote for what you want." Even if that means not vot- ing at all. That's pretty good. Very free attitude. What's your favorite snack? Flaming Hot Cheetos. Oh. Spicy. So it's been four min- utes. You're free to go. Thanks. - Austin is an LSA freshman first flights. "There is no more colorful, adventurous chapter in the history of aeronautical engineering at the University of Michigan, than the one recounting student efforts to fly," wrote Thomas C. Adamson, Jr., professor emeritus of aero- space engineering at the University, in his 2002 history of the department. Had Adamson, Jr. not expelled aviation outside of the Department of Aeronautical Engineering from his survey, the early years of the University of Michigan Flyers might have challenged the 1910s as the most illustrious flying chapter by University students in Ann Arbor. The Flyers, founded in September 1969 by five students as a flying instruction club, remained unaffiliated with the University unlike previous flying groups. However, like the Aero Club before it, the club also matured during a turning point in the history of aviation atop the postwar boom in the field when the prevalence of local airports was excep- tionally high and the costs of aircraft and fuel were rela- tively low. For the young founders of the Flyers, the confluence of circumstances was both helpful and harmful. As two of the club's founding fathers, David Fradin and Mark Wag- ner, recounted, gas prices as low as 43 cents per gallon kept operating costs low during a start-up period when the club flitted between McKinnon, Willow Run and the Ann Arbor airports to save money. "In the 1970s you could (fly) on a newspaper boy's sal- ary," Wagner said. "Nowadays, it's like the cost of a college education." Fradin especially appreciated the affordability of fly- ing. During his time at the University, he logged more than 600 hours with the club and worked at a sandwich shop to finance his hobby. For every nine hours he worked, he esti- mated, he earned enough to fly for one hour. "Today, I think the ratios are a little bit worse than that," he said. "If I hadn't found the Michigan Flyers, I probably would not have learned because of the cost," added Ray Wallman, who served as the Flyers' second president from 1974 to 1975. "Back then it was as cheap as goingto a health club today." According to Wallman, from his freshman year in 1971 to when he graduated in 1975, the club's membership grew from a few dozen to more than 350 active members. The figure was, by all accounts, the Flyers' highest ever, yet they still maintained a personal atmosphere, said fellow found- er Dick Hoesli. "It was a social organization as much as technical or pro- fessional organization," Hoesli said. "People would come out to the club justto talk about flying or whatever the topic of the day was." As ideal as the Flyers' early years seemed, the club con- fronted its share of troubles in the beginning, and the hur- dles were more than financial. A lack of affiliation with the University proved unsettling for Fradin, who discovered the University had forged a pact with The Ohio State Uni- versity in which its aerospace engineering program would focus on space flight while OSU's would focus on aeronau- tics, with an implicit understandingthat the two would not compete for students in those areas. "That's part of the reason why the University gave luke- warm support to the flying club," Fradin said. "I always wondered why we couldn't get more help from them over the years. "We trained 4,000 pilots and leaders of aviation world- wide not because of the support of the University of Michi- gan, but almost in spite of it." Apart from inter-university schemes and the lack of sup- port from colleges, the most worrisome threats to aviation today, Fradin said, are affordability and the aging of the profession. The two are correlated. With fuel prices esca- lating to more than $6 a gallon, the cost of airplanes open- ing at the price of a luxury car and the starting salary for a co-pilot stuck at $18,000, it's little wonder young people are less inclined to learn to fly now than they were in the 1970s, he said. For all the problems besieging aviation, however, the University of Michigan Flyers seem to have no conscious- ness of them. Though the club's membership statistics are down, currently it now has 200 to 300 members - of which 60 to 70 are active and 20 to 30 are University students - and its officials admit they are as much a relic of the club's 1970s glory as flour-bombing itself. Whether the narrative holds up or dwindling student turnout augurs a poorer ending, evidence for the former is not out of reach (or, at least, no further than the latter). At the Flyers' Fall Festival on Oct. 22, where Robine and the other flight instructors flour-bombed for only the second time, Flyers Vice President Bruce Williams could recall since he joined in 1998 that the young generation mingled with the old guard over barbecue, "hangar flying," as Hoes- li joked about the club in the 1970s because socializing was cheaper than actually taking off. For now, the Flyers seem content to hangar fly, teach and learn - their only tasks since 1980 or 1981, when the club stopped taking part in intercollegiate flying competitions. From as many as 25 planes during Fradin's reign to only five now, the amount of flying the club does has dimin- ished, too, as the club only gives about six lessons a day. But at least in one respect - the social one - the club has remained unchanged since its founding. "Everybody has a common interest, and we certainly all like to talk about it," Williams said. "Learning to fly is quite an event in all of our lives. And when you're out there and somebody else is kind of going through what you went through when you were a student, everybody just kind of thinks back and smiles and then wants to help that person out." LOOKING FOR A SCOOP? WE DON'T HAVE PRESS CARDS TO PUT IN OUR HAT BRIMS, BUT WE THINK WE DO OK. JOIN MICHIGAN DAILY NEWS AND FALL IN LOVE WITH JOURNALISM. E-mail biron@michigandaily.com and apply today! THE DAILY LOVES TO TWEET. FOLLOW ANY ONE OF OUR MANY. TWITTER ACCOUNTS: @MICHIGANDAILY @MICHDAILYNEWS @MICHDAILYSPORTS @MICHDAILYOPED @MICHDAILYARTS @MICHDAILYFBALL @CRIMENOTES DO YOU HAVE A PERSONAL STORY TO TELL? WE WANT TO HEAR IT. THE STATEMENT IS ACCEPTING NON-FICTION ESSAYS TO PRINT. E-MAIL KLARECKI@MICHIGANDAILY.COM TO FIND OUT MORE. cHRIS DZOMBAK/Daily The University has been home to an aviation club since 1911, when most colleges deemed aeronautical engineering insignificant.