NIFA team cruises to 21st straight Region X team title in Chesapeake

Liberty University’s National Intercollegiate Flying Association (NIFA) flight team captured its 21st consecutive Region X SAFECON Championship Oct. 7-10 at Chesapeake (Va.) Regional Airport with strong performances across both flight and ground events.

Liberty won the Flight Events Championship, scoring 166 points and beating out Navy (144) and Elizabeth City (N.C.) State (137). Liberty also prevailed in the Ground Events Championship with 160 points compared with 66 for Elizabeth State and 49 for Navy.

Several of its student pilots earned top honors, including senior Isabella Hauri, who was named Region X Top Pilot and the first female Top Pilot.

“It was a dominant showing from Liberty’s flight team, and I believe the spark that made this team click was its dedication to the team and the hard work put in before competition,” said Zeke Erickson (’26), a member of last year’s NIFA team and current assistant coach along with Jacob Melanson (’26). “From the beginning of the year, our main focuses have been excellence and dedication, and our team demonstrated both at regionals. Our event coaches also put in a tremendous amount of work preparing their teams, ensuring each competitor was ready for the competition.”

With the title, the team qualifies to compete at the SAFECON National competition set for May 10-15 at the Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

“Looking ahead to nationals, achieving a top-10 finish will require even more practice, dedication, and hard work, particularly in the ground events,” Erickson said. “Our coaches will play a significant role in that preparation, continuing to invest time and effort into developing their competitors and ensuring the team is ready to perform at the highest level.”

Beyond the competitive results, Liberty also received the Team Sportsmanship Award, an honor voted on by participating team members. The award recognizes the team that best represents NIFA’s values of professionalism, mutual respect, safety, camaraderie, and aviation excellence.

“I am incredibly proud of these students, not simply because of what they accomplished in competition, but because of how they represented Liberty University throughout the week,” said Steven Brinly, Dean of Liberty University’s School of Aeronautics. “The Region X championship reflects their hard work and preparation, while the Team Sportsmanship Award speaks to the character with which they competed. Together, those accomplishments reflect what it means to pursue excellence as Champions for Christ.”

In the Aircraft Preflight Inspection category, sophomore Caeden Murray finished second, junior team captain James Martin took third, and senior captain Dylan Baker landed in fourth. Murray later won the Aircraft Recognition competition followed by Baker (third), senior Jacob Hanson (fourth), and Martin (fifth).

Junior Christopher Reynolds, Ty Letbetter, and senior Chloe Leonard swept the top three places in the Computer Accuracy event before Hauri, Baker, and Murray did the same in the Ground Trainer competition. Hauri also placed first in the Short Field Landing event and was followed by teammates Murray (second) and Martin (third) in the Top Pilot standings.

Murray also finished first in the Power-Off Landing competition, ahead of teammates Martin and Baker, and he was named the Outstanding Team Member.

While Navy swept the top four places in the Traditional Navigation category, Liberty had the top two tandems in the Unlimited Navigation event, with Leonard serving as pilot and Donjun Yang as safety observer on the first-place team and Hauri piloting the second-place duo with Hanson observing.

Complete results are available online.