The unofficial online home for fans of the Western Michigan University Broncos. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

Went fishing on Gull Lake today. While we were out a sea plane landed. It was painted WMU gold, and had WMU on the side. Didn't know if it was a private plane or one that belonged to the flight school. Does the flight school have a sea plane?

This link shows one. http://wmich.edu/aviation/aircraft.html

(07-26-2014 03:01 PM)BaldingBroncoFan Wrote:  This link shows one. http://wmich.edu/aviation/aircraft.html

Looks like the same one. Kind of cool that our aviation program has one. Have to believe there aren't lot of aviation schools where you can get trained in a sea plane.

Thanks

Were they rowing it or flying it?

^
Hahahaha.

Please win this year PJ!!!

That piper looks old, like the one I went up in when I was a little kid on a lake up in the Northern Lower. First plane ride ever, very memorable and cool. Then I had a ride in a 150 like the one pictured as well, a family member owned it (aunt, in the 60's if you can imagine that at the time), quite the year for a little kid.

edit: That's a Super Cub, I went up in a Piper Cub back then. Good times!!

If somebody (Dunn on Skype?) told Fleck about our renowned Aviation Department, would we have a more appropriate "mantra" for our Football program?

Or maybe Fleck thinks aviation IS nautical.

(07-26-2014 03:27 PM)chipfan Wrote:  Were they rowing it or flying it?

I ran into a CMU alum while I was out there. He tried to sell me the wax worms, but I just needed a coffee to stay awake on the lake.

Hey Dan, thanks for rolling over for us.
Just so ya know, we're here for you when they fire you.
Go Green.

You saw our Piper Super cub on floats! Affectionately known as "rubber ducky" it is in fact one of the only amphibious (both land and water) Piper Cubs flying in the midwest region.

The aircraft isn't painted in WMU yellow, it's painted in Piper Cub yellow. The classic color for the aircraft. We land it on Gull Lake (as well as several others in the area) all the time.



Our Piper (super) cub was actually bought and restored by our maintenance students and is now used for an optional seaplane rating at the CoA. It's a 1962 model. The Super Cub is a derivative of the Piper J-3 Cub that was produced from 1938-1947 when over 20,000 of them were built. The Piper Cub was the aircraft that trained pretty much all aviators of the time to fly.

When I get home on my computer I'll try to upload some more photos of our Cub, but for now here are some general pictures:

Typical Cub paintjob


Very simplistic cockpit. The fuel indicator is actually just a bobber inside the tank that you can see from the cockpit

Flyboy - Does the college still own the Extra aerobatics trainer and the Robinson helicopter? Haven't seen either one in a long time.

No, we got rid of our Extras and the helicopter a long time ago.

We now have a Super Decathlon for aerobatic training