Aviation View April 2023

8 AVIATION VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 3, ISSUE 1 to a small town. The airlines mainly serve Gainesville through Charlotte, NC, and Atlanta, with only a handful of flights a day. Reaching even neighboring states can take over five hours by car or airline – and often an entire day traveling to the rest of the country. “Having our own planes gives us so much freedom to get places we need to as fast as possible,” said Spiegler. In two days, the Phenom 300 might take coaches to visit players in New York, Illinois, Wisconsin and Texas. Or they may fill its eight seats, dropping off coaches at half a dozen destinations, then picking up each coach later the same day on the return to Gainesville. The Phenom 100 usually flies out-and-back to nearer destinations. QUICK TURNS During recruiting, flights may leave as early as 5:30 a.m., and a technician is on hand for every departure and arrival. “We don’t want to delay anything for maintenance. If something happens, we’re here,” said Director of Aviation Maintenance Tim Ryan. “And we meet every arrival, because we don’t know when that next flight is, the schedule changes so much. We do our checks, and within an hour, we get the plane ready to go out again.” Just as coaches are limited to traveling during the contact period, players have limits on how many coaches they can meet with. They may commit to a different school, or de-commit and suddenly become available. As a result, the flight schedule often changes with less than 24 hours’ notice. “Sometimes, the schedule changes the same day,” said Adams, “Sometimes, the coaches will arrive at a scheduled stop, call us from the airport, and tell us that visit just cancelled, and they need go onto the next one.” though, it’s nonstop. Those few weeks, we don’t take time off. It’s all hands on deck.” FIVE STATES IN ONE DAY The sprint starts in late November, when athletic department staff call Adams with a list of recruits. From there, she starts building a flight schedule that is sure to change many times. For each prospective student-athlete, “Kim just gets an address. She takes that, plugs in airports within our safety limitations, and we start looking at weather around the country,” said Clint Wilde, director of aviation. “Then, the next two weeks, we’re flying every single day, both airplanes. Our record: We hit five states in one day.” Often, the coaches are flying from Gainesville