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Words From The Presidentby Bart DaltonI I would like to thank everyone who showed up for the January meeting. We had a very informative program on the new EXP‑360 engine by Superior Air Parts. I was unable to make the pancake breakfast on the following Saturday but I was told that we had a great turn out. It is this event every month that we use to raise funds for the scholarship for the EAA Air Academy. So please make sure and attend this months also. February programThis month’s program will be another very interesting one as we will have an expert in the field of heat treating be on hand to inform us all about the truths and myths. If you ever were interested in taking something to have it heat-treated this will be an interesting program to attend. We will also have some interesting hanger flying stories too. You do not want to miss the February meeting. Upcoming programsAs you are receiving this newsletter I will have already inspected Jack Kearby’s SE 5 biplane. I have seen it all together once and it is a sight to behold. This will be our program for the March meeting. Jack will bring it over to our hanger for a “drooling” session. I have talked to several other builders who are real close to having their projects finished. It looks like there will be many new planes flying this spring and summer. Ask the DAREach month I will try to address a question that has been presented to me that I think might be of interest to everyone. This month I will begin with a question that deals directly with homebuilding certification. “When my Operating Limitations were issued there was a statement in Phase one that contained the following statement: No person may be carried in this aircraft during flight unless that person is essential to the purpose of flight. Does this mean that if I deem it necessary during my testing to have some help with my aircraft in flight that I am legal for this?” This is something that cannot be decided on the spot by the builder. If an additional crewmember is required for a particular test function then that requirement should be specified in the applicant’s program letter when applying for the special airworthiness certificate and listed in the phase one operating limitations. If this is deemed necessary after the limitations have been issued then one must have a new set of limitations issued to do so. This is assessed on a case-by-case basis depending on the need. I hope this clears up any misunderstanding on the matter. Keep those questions coming. I do check my email at least once a week. I hope your plane has a great heater if you are out flying this month. Make sure and check to see if your name falls in this month to bring snacks. Last month’s snacks were great. Tailwinds and we will see you at the meeting.
Treasurer's ReportBy Jeff WedmanNo report this month.
What I Did Over The Holidaysby Craig LoomillerAfter watching Bob Thrasher's presentation last summer, I decided that I wanted to play with the glider people for a while. The only problem was that I wanted to do it in my own glider, and not just any glider, but in a Schweizer 1-26E. I had to have the E model because I'm fat. It was easier to get a glider with a high useful load than it was to lose weight. I almost purchased one up in Toronto Canada, but I discounted my offer too low because of the hassle factor involved. It would be a pain in the rear importing an aircraft into the US. I had several e-mail conversations with a guy who owned one in Pennsylvania that was for sale. I finally got a phone number out of him and submitted an offer. Unfortunately, somebody else beat me to it by a day. Oh, well. I found another one in the Los Angeles area, but the price was too high. A couple of weeks later he came down in price by quite a bit. I called him up and shot him an offer that he accepted. I flew out to LA over the Thanksgiving holiday to look it over and I liked what I saw. Meanwhile, I had AOPA do a title search on it and it came back with a lien on it dating back to 1986. To make it even more complicated; the bank that held the lien had been bought out by another bank that then got bought out themselves by another bank. That was probably why he came down in price. He was the 3rd owner since the lien was issued, and he didn't know it existed until he tried to sell it. Let me tell you, The people at AOPA Title Services are great. I put the owner of the glider in contact with them, and for a fee of $250.00, they got that lien cleaned up pretty quickly. All it takes is money. So now the glider is mine, I just had to get it home from California. It came with its own trailer, so that was no problem. I left Owasso the day after Christmas and drove to Kingman Arizona that night (1135 miles in 16 hours). The next morning I drove to a location 75 miles north of LA on Hwy 5, hooked up the trailer, and drove all the way back to Winslow, Arizona that night (960 miles in 16 hours). I made it all the way back home the next day (891 miles in 15 hours). I had driven 2,989 miles in 3 days while pulling a 25-foot trailer half of it. It is now safely in my hangar, and I can't wait to fly it when the weather warms up. Time in the DesertI was back only a couple a days when I had to go back out to California again. I had a two-week work assignment at Mojave airport out on the high desert. What a neat place! This place is a hotbed of aviation activity. There are several hundred Airline aircraft stored there. Everything from DC-6's, 707's, 727's, and every other type of commercial transport all the way up to 747's. None of the Airlines are making any money except Southwest (You Go Bart!), so they are parking them anywhere there's enough ramp space. There were over 350 on the ground at Mojave. Working for an airline, it made me sad to see them sitting there. All of these aircraft should have been in the air where they belong Burt Rutan has his Scaled Composites facility there. I tried to get a tour, but they wouldn't let me in. Something about top-secret research, or something. They had a big trailer parked outside the hangar that was full of rocket fuel though, so something must be going on. The Orbital Sciences Corp. has their aircraft parked at the airport. It's called Pegasus. Man, is that a weird looking airplane! It is supposed to be able to fly at an altitude of 45,000 feet for a week at a time or something like that. At least that's what they say; all I know is that it is one of the strangest looking aircraft I have ever seen. The Ford Truck commercial currently on TV was filmed there, you know the one I mean. They pull some WWII bomber (I don't know what kind it is, probably a "C" something or other) down the runway with a pick-up truck. The guys I worked with told me that the truck pulled the plane a grand total of about 10 feet, the rest of the commercial was all computer simulation. And I had thought that they really did it. Tourism Points for Pilots in MojaveEdwards AFB is just down the road from Mojave. I tried to go to the NASA Museum there, but the entire base has been closed to civilians since 9-11. Maybe next time. I did get to go to this little bar south of Edwards out in the desert called "Wing And a Prayer". It was dive bar but it had a couple of things that set it apart from most other dive bars. The first thing was that it had a Cessna 152 tail boom sticking out of the roof at an angle that made it look like that's where it had crashed. The entire inside of the bar was some kind of test pilot museum. On the wall were pictures and memorabilia of just about every experimental military test pilot that ever worked at Edwards in the 50's and 60's. It was really neat, and the beer was pretty good too. I stayed a hotel in Lancaster California called the Essex House. This hotel is where all the aviation types stay when they have to visit the Mojave area. During my visit, the entire F-22 flight-test team also stayed there. Oh, I heard a sonic boom while out there. I haven't heard one of those since the 70's. I didn't know what it was a first, I thought they must have had a quarry nearby (old Owasso joke). All of the walls in the lobby area are covered with pictures of exotic military aircraft and each carried the autograph of the test pilot who flew the first flight in it. It was pretty neat. They also had a free Happy hour each night from 5:30 to 7:00. So it was pretty rough staying there. On both sides of Main Street in downtown Lancaster were memorials to every test pilot that had lost their lives while flying out at Edwards. They were 12-inch diameter bronze plaques mounted on poles situated about every 50 feet along the sidewalks. Each had a little history of the test pilot memorialized on it. It was very interesting but also kind of sad because there were quite a few of them. I’d rather be flyingI got to do a little flying while I was out there. I took some glider training at Tehachapi California. Tehachapi is famous for 2 things. The first is that there are over 6,200 windmills surrounding the city. These windmills generate electricity whenever they turn which is all the time. Did I say that the Mojave area was windy? Some of them are huge. The biggest ones are mounted on poles 100 meters tall turning a 3 bladed propeller 40 meters in diameter. The guys at work told me that you weren't supposed to go up near them, but I did anyway. Who's going to know? I thought that they would be quite noisy but they weren't. They didn't looked like they were maintained very well though. Over half of them had leaky hubs, there were oil stains down the whole length of each blade. Man, there were a lot of them. Tehachapi is also where both U.S. altitude records for gliders were set. There is a wind condition called a mountain wave that allows glider pilots to rise thousands of feet in them, and this place is one of the premier sites in the world for this type of condition. The current U.S. record for absolute altitude is 49,009 feet and the record for altitude gain is 42,305 feet. These were set in aircraft with no motors! Both of these records were flown here in Tehachapi area. While I didn't get that high when I flew there, I could have if I wanted to. Yeah, right. Most of the time I was a couple thousand feet off the ground flying back and forth along the same ridge that a lot of those windmills were on. It was one of the most enjoyable things I have ever done with my clothes on.
Message From The Editorby Bob Minich Membership DuesIf you haven’t renewed your membership yet, correct that problem now and mail a check along with the handy form (later in the newsletter) to Jeff Wedman. Or, if you prefer, you can also pay up at the next meeting. Story ContributionsThanks to Craig Loomiller for his story of his adventures in gliding and Mojave travel. If you’ve been meaning to go fly but are deterred by snowy IFR conditions and an open cockpit, take some time out to warm yourself up by writing down your memories of your last warm weathered aviation story. The hotter the memory, the warmer we’ll all get. If your writing stinks but the story is good, send it in anyway and I promise to polish it up better. I guarantee a combined effort will be better than anything I make up (or is that remember) myself. The best way to submit an article is sending email to me at: You can also phone me if you’d like. As always, I’ll publish just about anything you send, so take a moment and write up a story on your aviation adventures. Web NewsletterMany of the chapter’s members have opted to forego the printed version of the newsletter in favor of viewing it on the chapter website (www.eaa10.org) every month. This saves us on mailing and printing, helping to keep your dues low. If you’d like to do the same, send Jeff Wedman or myself an email and we’ll stop the paper version and send you a monthly email when the newsletter is posted online. . Discount Annuals Available
Edgar Hellyer has been a member of our chapter for a number of years. He is a retired A&P Mechanic with IA rating and is presently building an Avid Flyer kit plan. Even though retired, Edgar has told that he wants to retain his IA rating for a few more years, primarily because of his EAA activities. To do this, he must perform a minimum of four annual inspections each calendar year. In this regard, as a special service to Chapter 10, he has offered to do four non-complex aircraft annual inspections a year at $100 each. So far this year, two of our members have already accepted his offer, which is made only to Chapter 10 certificated aircraft owners. Therefore, only two more inspections remain for this year at this very special price. They will be available until March 31, 2003. Even though your inspection is not due before that date, you might want to consider having it done a bit early to take advantage of this very special offer. Give Edgar a call at (918) 834-7215 for details. WHO BRINGS SNACKS????Below is a list of who brings snacks for each meeting. I am sure the A-C's will set the standard for the new year's snacks. January A-C CALENDAR1st Monday Each month Board Meeting at the chapter hangar at Gundy's 7:00pm 2nd Monday each month Newsletter Folding at the hangar - Gundy's Airport 7:00pm 3rd Monday each month Chapter 10 EAA meeting at the hangar - Gundy's Airport 1st Saturday each month Ponca City Aviation Booster club Breakfast Fly-In. Saturday after 3rd Monday - each month Pancake Breakfast - Gundy's
Airport
February 17 – Chapter 10 meeting, Gundy’s Hanger February 22 – EAA10 Pancake Breakfast 7:30-9:00 March 1 – Ponca City Breakfast Fly-in March 8-9 – EAA Builders Workshop, Dallas May 16-18 – SW Regional Fly-In, New Braunfels
WEB PAGE NEWSLETTER (note the URL) Our web page address is: Mark will email a notice to each member who chooses to use the WEB version of the newsletter a note stating that the newsletter is ready and on line. Of course those who do not opt for the WEB version will continue to get a hard copy. The chapter encourages everyone to opt for the WEB version rather than the hard copy. Please send me an email to minich@ionet.net stating that you want to use the WEB version of the newsletter if you opt for it. One advantage of the web page based newsletter is that we can finally have good quality color pictures of airplanes and activities. Contact our chapter officers by e-mail President: Bhrent Waddell bwaddell@tulsa.oklahoma.com
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