Vol 26 No. 3
March 2003
Getting Started
Matt Thompson
Well, it’s amazing how fast a month flies by! Many thanks again to Jim Massengill for telling us about his Glassair last month. This month’s pro!gram comes from a friend of Art Storm, John Loofbourrow. John is working on a Defiant. He’s in the midst of the final assembly work at Morristown and hopes to be flying later this year. He’s got the Defiant equipped with 180 horse Lycomings, equipped with the Ellison TBIs. He overhauled both engines himself. John’s project is a long-term labor of love, now in it’s 18th year. He’ll be bringing digital photos on his laptop, so there should be lots to look at. In addition, I’ll have the information on flying into Sun ‘n Fun 2003, which promises to be especially interesting this year as the inaugural event for the Wright replica that will be flown in December. We can wrap up with that if time permits.
I continue to do my part to keep Continental solvent and my gold card current. This month I got another ride on the corporate jet – this time from the West coast to the East coast. Even with the stop in Albany to drop off my boss, I st!ill beat the door-to-door time I would have had on a commercial non-stop flight by almost 3 hours by virtue of flying out of a local airport that’s not served by a carrier (a much shorter ride to the airport) and the walk up, board, and go nature of a private jet (no TSA). Talking to the crew I found out that they operate under Part 91, just like we do. They’re really very nice and down to earth. It’s lots of fun to partake in hangar flying on the flight deck at FL370. The Chief Pilot, Dave Thompson (no relation – he claims he’s never met a pilot named Thompson who could fly worth a darn) also has a home down on Smith Mountain Lake and from his description of where it is relative to the airport, may be a neighbor of Barry Palmer. As my mom would say, “it’s small world”.
As you might imagine, my work schedule has precluded me from doing much of the analysis of the data on the EAA national members and pilots in our locale as potential fu!ture chapter members to target via a mailing. I’d like to see if we can get a couple of volunteers to form a membership committee and take a look at the information that’s been collected and then develop the mailing that we will send out. I thought we had really good attendance at last month’s meeting. If this is a trend for 2003, I’ll look into moving us into the Chase Room in the future. If we continue with the interesting programs, I’d like to get our meetings listed in the Madison Eagle, which might be another way for us to attract new members
On the RV6, I finally started closing up the left wing. Barry Palmer and my six-year-old son helped with the riveting. Barry drove, I bucked, and my son’s job was to place the rivets in the holes. Finished up what I could with my son. We did the first practice pieces where he operated the gun and bucked some rivets on his own. He almost has the strength and coordination to do it! Realizing how !heavy the gun was, we did some rivets on the real wing with me holding the gun and the bar and him operating the trigger. The activity certainly generated a big grin! Looks like I may have a new member to bring to the meetings in another ten years of so…
Given that I got current in the Super Cruiser last month, I’ve been out and about again, this time with my six-year old co-pilot. My son is really interested in helping out. His job on preflight was to untie the tailwheel and plug in the headsets. Lots more questions than the last time that I flew with him – “What’s this for? What’s that for? Can the tower hear me? Are the controllers in that yellow building? Why do you always say 1-9-mike?” On the post flight tie-down activity, his job was to guide me so that the tailwheel stayed on the yellow line, install the tail covers and clip the canopy cover straps that loop under the fuselage. Basically, anything that’s low was somethi!ng he owned and expected that I’d have him do. I’m encouraged that I may have a flying and building partner. Expect to see us at the Warwick Fly-In on May 18th.
I know, everyone’s tired of hearing about it, but I’m still looking for programs! I expect that we will do a program on Sun ‘n Fun next month. I’m planning on going for a couple of days. Perhaps a group of us could do a tag-team program. We can discuss that possibility Monday night. That’s all for now. Start time is still 7 PM. At our new location, the Historical Society Room at the Madison Public Library, 39 Keep Street, Madison. See you Monday night!
Off & Closed…Brakes and Contact!!!
REFLECTIONS
Ed Chenevey
Spring is here, I know because I woke up the other day and found the sun shining
on my face. That means that Sun-n-Fun is just around the corner. T!hey changed
it this year to put the weekend at the end of the show rather than at the
beginning to emulate Oshkosh. That shifts the window for guys who only stay a
few days from the beginning of the show to the end and it may make camping space
more of a premium. Anyway, I plan to be there, camping in about the middle of
the south shore of the pond with my orange and blue tent under a silver canopy
where I have been ever since we've driven rather than flown. Stop by; we should
have a half dozen or so guys from Chapter 7 if we can save them enough space.
In the Target ad this week they have a 400 w 12 to 120 v inverter for $25, about
$10 less than I paid on sale last year. I use mine to recharge my camcorder
batteries rather than tap into the refreshment stand power as I did for years. I
think it's a good deal since 400 w will run any electronic equipment that you
may want.
Cygnet Chatter Alvin Sager
As Ed said, Sp!ring is here. The recent warm weather melted all but the largest mounds of snow. This past weekend’s weather was too fine to sit and wonder how bad the mud was at the airport. Back when there was a foot + of white, I ran up the engine and checked out the Cygnet. Without skiis, the ropes were not coming off. Saturday was different, even though the surface was soft, the ground supported my weight without me sinking. I walked off the area that I had to taxi through, and picked the best line. My smallish wheels really felt the soft areas, but I was able to plow through leaving a 1 1/2” deep track. It is amazing how hard it is to move through that. I seriously doubt that I would be able to takeoff a field that soft without a very strong headwind to get the weight off the wheels. The sky was definitely as nice as it looked from the ground.
It appears that I may be confined to the traffic pattern for a while. An EAA bulletin gave me a link to the ADIZ th!at just went into force. I have to read the fine print, but without a transponder I don’t know if I can legally get outside of the mode C veil, all 3 miles of it. Well maybe..... if the traffic pattern got so crowded that it extended outside of the zone....just a thought. I will have to read it over carefully.
Marie and I were able to attend a program at McGuire AFB a couple of weeks ago. A tour of a KC-10 (tanker version of the DC-10) was given by its pilot. Quite a piece of machinery. With an empty weight of 250,000 lb and a gross of 590,000 it can be loaded with fuel and/or cargo. Quite a workhorse. While being bussed between presentations, through a partly open hangar door, I am sure I saw the tail of a P-38 in polished aluminum with blue Star and Bar. Anyone know if I was imagining it?
Happy Flying
