Students on the Precision Flight Team of Metropolitan State College of Denver have won the Loening Trophy, the oldest and most prestigious collegiate aviation award.

The U.S. Air Force Academy is the only other college in Colorado to land the trophy. Other winners include Stanford University and Kent State University.

“This team excelled in a tough competition,” said Peter Bro, a representative of the National Intercollegiate Flying Association, which presented the award. “They ranked the highest.”

The award represents excellence in academic skills, community involvement, aviation skills and a comprehensive safety program. It was created by aviation pioneer Grover Loening, the first aeronautical engineer hired by the Wright Brothers to manage the Wright Aircraft Co. in 1913.

Made of pure silver and designed by Tiffany & Co., the traveling trophy was first awarded to Harvard University in 1929 in a competition judged by experts such as Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart.

The aviation and aerospace science program at Metro State “produces graduates who are competitive with the very best in the country,” said Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia at the award ceremony Monday.

Colorado has the third-largest aerospace economy in the country, and 75 percent of graduates from Metro State work in the state, according to president Steven Jordan.

Its aviation and aerospace science department, about four decades old, is considered one of the top professional aviation schools in the country. Many of its students land jobs as pilots, air-traffic controllers and flight planners. They spend countless hours training on flight simulators or working on space-mission architecture in the college’s Robert K. Mock World Indoor Airport.

The department’s latest focus is training students in space commerce. Because the fields of aviation and aerospace have become so blended, they are positioning students to become “space entrepreneurs” focusing on “space tourism and space mining,” said Jeff Forrest, chair of the aviation and aerospace department.

Students Samantha Sizemore and Shaun Lee are studying to become professional flight officers, with a minor in space commercialization.

“It’s like back in 1969, but instead of going to the moon, who knows?” Lee said. “The possibilities are endless.”

They’re studying things such as the ethics of space commercialization, and a project in the lab is tracking all sorts of space junk so that billion-dollar spacecraft can avoid collisions.

“I met Grover (Loening) in 1969, so I was one generation removed from the founders of aviation,” said Bro, facility director of the Mukilteo, Wash.-based Future of Flight Foundation. “These guys are two generations removed, on the cusp of a whole new technology.”

Colleen O’Connor: 303-954-1083 or coconnor@denverpost.com

