In Training: Air Show Intern

In the context of collegiate aviation, ?internship? usually means a student spends a semester or so working in an airline flight department, gaining experience (and contacts) that will increase his or her knowledge and help further his career. Typically, the intern learns a lot about administration and paperwork, and if he?s lucky, can get some stick time on some of the airline?s simulators.

Flying a Piper Arrow around the nation, from air show to air show, with the Northern Lights, an aerobatic demonstration team, doesn?t sound like work ? or an internship. But it is. It pays money, and it?s available to one lucky student who attends the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences at the University of North Dakota.

Eric Haagenson, a UND graduate and member of the Northern Lights, helped establish this unique internship. The team needed a ?multipurpose? pilot to fetch and carry parts and people, and to fulfill a number of other duties. The team needed this person during the air show season, which happens to coincide with the collegiate school year. Haagenson thought this position would give a student some good experience, so he called UND and ?got the ball rolling.?

UND saw the internship?s value, both to the student and the school, says Tom Kenville, UND?s director of marketing and business development, and established the program in 1997. UND ?gives? the intern a Piper Arrow, and between April and October the pilot and airplane belong to the Northern Lights.

In the inaugural year applicants had to possess a CFI, but UND revised the pilot qualifications to a commercial certificate and instrument rating for the 1998 season. In addition, he says, the applicants must have an ?outgoing personality, because they not only work and fly for the Northern Lights, they represent both the team and UND.?

Between 30 and 40 students applied for the 1998 internship, Kenville said. UND winnowed the applicants to the top five and forwarded their applications to the Northern Lights, who make the final selection. They selected 26-year-old David Szabo, a first-generation American of Hungarian descent who graduated from UND in 1997 and then went to work for the school as a flight instructor.

Burned brown by the air show sun, Szabo doesn?t stay in one place for long. The responsibilities of his internship don?t allow it. ?When something needs to be done, I?m the guy who does it,? Szabo says, as he and two bystanders recruited from the EAA AirVenture ?98 crowd push one of the Northern Lights? Extra 300s from the Lycoming exhibit (Lycoming is one of the team?s sponsors) to the performers? ?ready area? adjacent to the show line.

Protected by seemingly opaque sunglasses Szabo?s eyes scan the hemisphere around the German aerobatic Extra, making sure it will make it safely through the parting crowd, and that the volunteers don?t push on something that shouldn?t be pushed. With an ever-present smile, he says, ?This has been the greatest summer of my life.?

That he received the internship is almost as surprising as his being a pilot. ?I?ve wanted to be a pilot since junior high school, when I watched Minnesota Air National Guard F-4s scream over a lake near Duluth, where we had a summer cabin,? he says. Investigating colleges in the upper Midwest, he decided on UND, and earned his private pilot certificate in his first year there. Then, he stopped flying.

?I did the college party and frat thing for a year,? he says, adding that he ?came to my senses in my junior year.? Flying almost constantly, he added his commercial and instrument, and did all the flying for his CFI in less than four weeks. Szabo says he had no aspirations to be a flight instructor, but he earned the certificate as a way to keep flying. And that?s the reason he applied for the Northern Lights internship ? to keep flying.

And fly he has. ?When I started in late April I had around 400 hours,? he says. ?Now, I have more than 650, and I?ve gotten more experience than I ever dreamed of. Before the internship my longest flight was from UND [in Grand Forks] to Minneapolis, to Bismarck, and back to UND, a trip of about 750 miles. My first flight on the internship was to Fort Lauderdale, a 1500-mile trip.?

Since May of 1998, Szabo has flown ? in order ? from Fort Lauderdale, Florida; to Montreal, Canada; to Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania; to Riverside, California; to Winnipeg, Canada; to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; to Davenport, Iowa; to Battle Creek, Michigan; to Muskegon, Michigan; to Elyria, Ohio; to his present location at EAA AirVenture ?98 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

In addition to all the cross-country time, Szabo says he?s learned from a multitude of other experiences such as passing through customs. But as the summer progressed the new challenges have become routine. ?Now, the controllers and customs people know the Arrow?s N-number ? N810ND.?

One of Szabo?s aerial responsibilities ? photo flights ? will never be routine, he says, at least to him. But they will always be fun. On a photo flight the Northern Lights join up on the Arrow, which is the lead aircraft; and they move in and out as the photographer requests. For the camera, the team flies some of its various formations such as its trademark Crazy Diamond.

?The Northern Lights fly formation for a living and being within arm?s reach of each other is ?normal? for them,? Szabo says. ?And it?s become ?normal? for me, too? well, almost. Seeing four airplanes in the Crazy Diamond, where they are right-side up, upside down, and in different degrees of sideslip, not more than 20 feet or so off the Arrow?s wing will never be ?normal.??

Szabo says he always felt safe, however. ?Flying formation is how they make their living, and they are very good at it.? Two pilots, Mario Hamel and team leader Andre Lortie, are former members of the Canadian Forces Jet Demonstration Team, better known as the Snowbirds. Michele Thonney is a Swiss aerobatic gold medallist, and Haagenson was the 1996 International Aerobatic Club champion.

Whatever the team?s aerial mission, safety is always the first priority. ?When I joined the team, Andre said they would ask me do things that would be beyond my flying ability,? Szabo says. ?But Andre made it quite clear that as the Arrow?s pilot in command, I would make the go/no-decision. I?ve decided not to fly several flights, and no one said a word to me, other than to support my decision.?

Szabo says only one task still unnerves him ? announcing a Northern Lights performance. His first time behind the microphone was at an air show in Louisville, Tennessee, in April 1998. ?It was worse than any checkride,? Szabo says. Having a prepared script didn?t help because he could see the half-million people who?d hear his words.

Announcing the shows became easier as he learned the team?s routine and helped revise the scripts. (Szabo also participates in the team?s post-performance critique.) Several professional air show announcers, such as Danny Clisholm, have given Szabo tips, and he?s learned how to improvise. ?After this,? he says, ?interviews will be a snap, but when announcing, I?m still more comfortable when I can?t see the crowd.?

Besides flying and announcing, Szabo does whatever the team needs, from moving and ?ragging down? (cleaning and polishing) the airplanes to helping crew chief Pierre Vermette maintain and repair the Extra 300s and the UND Arrow. ?That?s been a real good learning experience, too,? Szabo says. ?We had to change the prop on the Arrow, and by helping Pierre I?ve learned more than I ever could have at school.?

Normally, UND?s Northern Lights internship runs until the end of the air show season at the end of October. At EAA AirVenture in early August, however, Szabo learned he?d been hired by a regional airline, and that his new-hire class date was the day before AirVenture ended. It wasn?t an easy decision to make, but he went to class.

?I?ve met a lot of people who will be friends for life and made a lot of good contacts. Leaving them will be hard,? Szabo says, looking over the crowd that surrounds him. ?This has been the greatest summer of my life, and it will shape the rest of my aviation career.?