Flying a plane is easier than driving a car for Rae Niedfeldt.
As a member of the Utah Wing Drill team, the 15-year-old student from Provo spent the last three years learning about aerospace history and how to land a plane without "crashing and dying."
"When I was landing an aircraft for the first time, I was approaching everything fine but turned the yoke (steering wheel) the wrong way," Niedfeldt said. "The plane was going off to the side instead of landing forward. I was sure I was going to flip the plane and die."
But it's not all about maneuvering through the skies for Niedfeldt and other members of her drill team. Niedfeldt, along with 12 other Civil Air Patrol cadets, spent more than 500 hours over the last three years training and practicing in aerospace knowledge, drill and other procedures. It paid off — the team recently took home first place in the National Drill Team competition in Evergreen, Ore.
To prepare for the competition, the volunteer team of 13- to 17-year-old students from around the state gathered weekly during the school year to train, which included four to five miles of running and practicing drill commands. They also organized summer CAP encampments — a boot camp-style training for young cadets. Instead of working or spending time with friends this summer, Niedfeldt and fellow cadet Jared Healey consider their volunteer work for CAP a full-time job.
"It can be very tiring," said Niedfeldt, who is the deputy commander for her squad. "Sometimes you reach that point where you want to stop, but all of this training is good for us. So you don't."
But winning first place trophies against more experienced teams across the nation made it all worth it.
The cadets, who finished first for the first time in 58 years, were neck-and-neck against a team from North Carolina, competing in volleyball, mile run, panel quiz, written exam, uniform inspection, standard drill and innovative drill.
"These are people who work their guts out from 7 o'clock in the morning, running their routine, reading about a lot of aerospace and current events in anticipation of the quiz bowl," said Utah Wing Commander Col. Robert Bost at Hill Air Force Base. "They personally spent extra money to make sure clothes are tailored for the inspection."
And the Utah team, which took third place in the national competition last year, are making its mark against bigger and better teams, Bost said.
"Utah has always been the underdogs. We don't have 2,000 young people to pick from like a lot of the East Coast teams that win," he said. "We only have 560 wing members here. And a lot of our young people are committed on Sunday with other things. They have to juggle their commitments."
And not all have dreams of going into the military or becoming a pilot.
Team chief Cheston Newhall, who recently graduated from Park City High School, said he initially joined the team five years ago to improve his resume for application to a military academy but then stayed in because of the friends who "become family over time."
"We had one kid last year who drove from Cedar City each week to get to practice in Salt Lake. It's a five-hour drive," Newhall said. "You don't see that kind of dedication too often."
But as a family they strived hard for the national competition, and when they heard the team from North Carolina take second, knowing then who would take first, they burst out cheering. The team went from taking eighth place and not even making it past the regional competition to being No. 1.
"You can achieve anything you set your mind to," Newhall said. "As a child you say, 'I want to be an astronaut, yada yada yada,' but this is surreal. It's hard to comprehend that my fellow teammates and I are national champions."
e-mail: lgroves@desnews.com