Sycamore High School graduate wins National flying award at SAFECON 2022

SYCAMORE – Sycamore High School graduate Matthew Cleveland captured a national title for his aviation skills recently.

The National Intercollegiate Flying Association conducts competitions known as Safety and Flight Evaluation Conferences, and Cleveland, who graduated from Sycamore High School in 2020, participated in the SAFECON 2022 event recently.

Cleveland, who is a student at the University of North Dakota John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences, finished first in the nation during the navigation competition and placed second in the flight computer accuracy event.

Each year, collegiate aviation programs have the chance to send competitors to regional and national competitions, and Cleveland was one of them. Cleveland’s father, Tom Cleveland, is the former manager of the DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport.

“Throughout the past two semesters, SAFECON 2022 was always on my mind,” Cleveland said. “There were countless early mornings spent practicing and untold hours studying all while I held a full courseload and was progressing forward in my flight training.”

The navigation competition is defined by the National Intercollegiate Flying Association as a cross-country flight over a three-to-five leg course between 70 and 120 nautical miles.

Each contestant must submit a flight plan before takeoff, which includes estimated time for each leg, total elapsed time and fuel consumption. The contestant with the lowest penalty points wins the competition.

Each second that a contestant is off of their planned time results in a two-point penalty, Cleveland said. He and Fitzgerald won the event with a score of two points. The next best score was four.

“In the case of both navigation and computer accuracy, it was incredibly rewarding to see everything come to fruition,” Cleveland said. “There were many early mornings and lots of studying necessary in order to be competitive on a national level, and I could not be prouder of the outcome.”