Young Eagles Event at Mahlon Sweet Airport This Saturday!
I just received a text message from our sister chapter, Chapter 1457 , pleading for help at this coming Saturday’s YE event. As we all know, it’s tough to get enough planes/pilots to support these events. Any of you who can help fly YE’s this Saturday PLEASE call Bruce Gustafson at 541-505-6081 or email him at BruceandLexy@gmail.com. They’ve helped us in the past. Now it’s time to help them!
President Gary
Chapter 31 September Meeting Notice
Our next regular chapter meeting will be held on Wednesday, September 2 with a BBQ at 6 p.m. and the meeting at 7 p.m. I just received a confirmation from Lauran Paine, Sport Aviation magazine columnist (Plane Talk) that he will be our featured speaker at this meeting! Those of you who are also members of Chapter 1457 should get the word out to your members that Lauran will be coming. I’ve heard him speak before and he is excellent. He’s also hard to book so this is a good time to come hear him speak. He’ll also be looking at our RV-3 project to write a future article in Sport Aviation about our restoration activities. For those of you not familiar with Lauran’s background, he is both a former military pilot and a retired airline pilot. If you don’t regularly attend our meetings, this is one you don’t want to miss!
President Gary
I finished drilling the cowl hinges onto the cowling and moved the RV-3 back to the clubhouse yesterday. Those of you who are doing any work (or want to do any work) on the project can now have free access to the plane. As I understand it now, Alan Wieder is working on the horizontal stabilizer and empennage junction fairing; Dave Eason is working on the propeller mounting hardware; Virgil Pratt is working on the windscreen and canopy; Ray Morse is working on the main landing gear strut fairings. Thanks to all who are helping on this project!
President Gary
We’ll have our next breakfast this coming Saturday, August 15 starting by 9 a.m. Bridget and Virgil will not be available so some of us will have to become cooks. If you can help, please show up around 8 a.m. to help with the preparations. We likely will have a few cars from the sports car club that came to the breakfast last year. Hopefully, we’ll also get some fly-in traffic as well. Hope to see you there.
I was up in Portland last Friday so I stopped by Van’s Aircraft and picked up the prop spinner and back plate for the RV3 project. We need to engineer and build the propeller mount now that the cowl is in place. It’s getting closer to looking like an airplane!
President Gary
Hey, temperatures have cooled. It should be a great evening for our meeting! Bask in the pleasant temperatures while you enjoy our 6 p.m. BBQ and an entertaining meeting at 7 p.m. Alan Wieder is our featured speaker discussing ADS-B. We’ve got a good chapter video that discusses the DeHavilland Mosquite and the in and outs of spark plug maintenance. I hope to see you there!
President Gary
The August Chapter 31 regular meeting will be held this coming Wednesday, August 5 with a BBQ beginning at 6 p.m. and our meeting starting at 7 p.m. Our own Alan Wieder will give us a presentation on the ins and outs of ADS-B. Even if you don’t have an airplane, or don’t plan on installing ADS-B hardware in your plane, the presentation should be really interesting to you. We also should have time for this month’s EAA Chapter Video. The weather forecast for our meeting date is a high temperature around 84 degrees so it should be reasonably plesant in the clubhouse by meeting time.
Progress continues on our RV-3 project. Alan Wieder and I pretty much finished up fitting the cowling to the airframe today. I have a request into Van’s Aircraft to find us a prop spinner. We’ll shortly begin fabricating an assembly to mount the propeller refinished by Virgil Pratt on the airframe. Since we won’t have an engine under the cowling a special, simple, assembly will need to be designed and mounted to hold the prop in place.
Bill and Dee Dewey and Doug Kindred have completed the installation of the Honor Plaza sprinkler system. Very timely due to our very hot weather! Bill managed to get the National Guard to dig the trench for the sprinkler line. Doug then installed the sprinkler system and Bill and Dee filled in the trench. Great job and a big thanks, guys and gal! Now it’s up to Randy to get our next order in for bricks. He will order two bricks in memory of Dave Heisley (one from our chapter and one from the Lane County RC Modelers), and is planning to see if Shelley Humble is ready to order bricks for Jug and Crash.
Don’t let the heat get you down. Come to the meeting and spend some time with some really COOL people!
President Gary
As I figured might happen, I forgot to mention an important contributor to our Young Eagle Day event so I would like to heartily thank the adult leaders and cadets of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) who spent the day helping with crowd control and other thankless but important functions!
President Gary
JULY 4 YOUNG EAGLES DAY SUMMARY
It sure seems to me that we had a really successful YE Day! We flew a total of 101 kids. Ninety-six flew as Young Eagles and five flew as Civil Air Patrol (CAP) Cadets. The following pilots, listed in alphabetical order, participated: DON COLE (C-182), BILL DEWEY (C-172), BRUCE GUSTAFSON (C-120), GARY LUDEKE (RV-6A), VIRGIL PRATT (C-172), RANDY STOUT (J-3), ALAN WIEDER (RV-9A).
Four pilots participated in our traditional parade fly-over at 11:00. They were: JIM BEAL (RV-9A), GARY LUDEKE, RANDY STOUT, ALAN WIEDER.
At the risk of leaving someone out (if this happens I’m truly sorry!) the following people played key roles on the ground to make everything happen as safely and as efficiently as was reasonably possible:
BRIDGET PRATT handled the unenviable task of seeing that all the YE forms were filled out by the parents/guardians of the YE’s. She also produced all the YE certificates and saw that each YE received a certificate and YE logbook.
KEN SCHMIDT was responsible for getting all the YE’s matched up with a pilot/airplane. I’m sure this can be a very stressful task since some kids want to fly in a particular airplane; some want to fly with a sibling or a friend, and some want to fly but may be extremely fearful of going up with a total stranger, particularly if they are a first time flyer! Then there’s the stress of finding the kids in the crowd when it’s their turn to fly!
TOM CUNNINGHAM again used his airplane as the parade float representing EAA Chapter 31 and promoting the Young Eagle program. Tom also did a lot of “behind the scenes” work such as representing the chapter at Creswell Chamber of Commerce July 4 coordination meetings, preparing his airplane (Kolb Firestar) by getting it washed and mounting our Young Eagles banners on the wings. He also towed the plane in the parade (using Hal Skinner’s generously offered vehicle), then moved it to the car show for display, and then brought it back at the end of the event.
And finally, there are all the people who just stepped forward to help in any way they could. A probably incomplete list includes JIM BEAL, DAVE EASON, STEVE RILEY, CHARLIE WALKER and my wonderful wife SANDY.
The list would not be complete without a special thanks to Airport Manager SHELLEY HUMBLE and our airport aviation fuel supplier, WORLD FUEL SERVICES, who provided $500 worth of aviation fuel for the Young Eagle pilots!
A sincere thanks to all! I’m sure we changed the lives of some young people for the better. I am very honored to be serving as your President!
Gary
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