EAA Chapter 10
This newsletter in printable PDF format.
Tulsa Fly-in volunteer form.
Another month has past and the
We will be making our volunteer sheets up at the meeting and fitting people into slots for shifts at various jobs. This will include aircraft parking, transportation, registration, and ramp safety. Please make plans to attend so we are able to fill all these slots. If you have never stayed for the Saturday night meal and program this year will be a great year to start as we will be having some great entertainment. This year we will have Craig Loomiller and his band.
We are planning a big ten year finale for October. We will be discussing all these aspects for the big event. I hear that Channel 8 wants to do another feature about what we and the program are about so hopefully we will be able to finish the program out better than any event we ever had.
Our meeting this month will be on the history of the
Our monthly meeting will be jam packed with many things so please plan to attend. See you there and please don’t forget to bring snacks for those of you who are supposed to. (Last names starting with Q, R, or S, are up this month.)
Bart
On the 19th and 20th of this month is the 47th annual Tulsa Regional Fly-in. As always, Chapter 10 will play a significant role in helping bringing it off. Located in this newsletter is a volunteer form. Please fill it out and either mail it in or just bring it to the next Chapter meeting. Our chapter is in charge of registration and ramp security this year. The more people that volunteer, the easier everyone’s job becomes. So come on out and take part, there is plenty of work to go around.
In addition, I guess Bart and I will emcee the awards
dinner that will be held Saturday night. This dinner will be catered by Dinks
Barbecue based out of
I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
Friday evening there will be a dinner on the field with
Colorado KoolAid and
Award winners will be selected from among registered aircraft by ballot. Aircraft Registration is $5.00. Admittance will be by donation; suggested donations are:
Adults: $7.00
Students: $3.00
Children under five: No Donation
Children 14 and under will not be admitted unless accompanied by an adult
What a beautiful time of the year for flying. What else can I say? It was a very welcome change in the temperature. I myself have not been doing any flying (the RV 8 is not yet done) but I have talked to a few people who have done some flying and they all say the same thing. It’s wonderful. Take advantage of this weather and hit some of the local flying events this month. We still have the Tulsa Fly In and the Airmen Acres Bean dinner this month and probably some that I don’t know about.
I have several name tags that need to be picked up at the hanger at the next meeting, so if you ordered a name tag I probably have it. If anyone else would like a name tag, drop me an e-mail or see me at the meeting. Name tags are going up 50 cents to $7.50 next month so get your order in before October 1st. My e-mail address is on the back of the newsletter.
We had another first flight in
the month of August. Jim Quinn’s RV-6A went into the wild blue sky on
See ya at the monthly meeting.
Jeff
I hope you enjoy this month’s newsletter. It is sometimes
amazing and always refreshing to see how vibrant aviation is in
As with any volunteer run organization, the success of the chapter is critically dependant on active participants who help bind together a membership that otherwise might lose its focus and drift apart. I hope I’ve done my part to continue the success of EAA 10. As many of you are painfully aware, we’ve recently had something of a crisis with the chapter website. Our webmaster has moved out of state and with all the difficulties that presents in addition to a new job, we haven’t been able to keep the website up to date.
Bart asked me if I would be willing to take over that job and I was immediately thrown back to the time when I volunteered for this job. I think I can do the job. It would be a great way to contribute to the chapter. I know I’ll be learning some new skills. Before I could say yes, there is one thing I had to address. There is no way I could do timely justice to both the website and the newsletter. So, this month will be my last as newsletter editor while we get the website back up to date. Lorin Wilkinson will be taking over as newsletter editor and he’ll no doubt have more to say for next month’s newsletter. For now, continue to send me your contributions and I’ll forward them on to Lorin pending publication of his contact information.
Before I give up this forum, let me ask for your patience
while I come up to speed with the website. My first priority is getting current
newsletters onto the site. Later I want to work on better organizing the site
and adding additional content beyond the newsletter, such as more and better
photos than we can do with the newsletter and builder project pages. If you
have something you want to contribute to the website, let me know and we’ll see
what we can do.
Bob
The other evening, Jeff and I were sitting around watching
a little TV when he looked over at me and asked me to do him a little favor.
Being what time it was, I figured that he wanted a bowl of ice cream or a sandwich,
so I said “Sure. What do you want?” Next time I’ll ask before I agree because
what he wanted was for me to write a little bit about my perspective of
building a homebuilt.
It has been a long and expensive five years.
That about sums it up! Really it hasn’t been that
bad. The best advice I can give anyone with a family is don’t time it
when your children are in college. We’ve eaten a lot of bologna sandwiches
over the past few years. Now I am looking forward to those $100 hamburgers.
All in all we managed not to have many heated discussions
during the process. I had to bite my tongue a few times to keep from saying “I
told you so.” or “If you had only listened to me in the first place.”
I can’t tell you how proud I am of Jeff for seeing this
project to completion. He has done a beautiful job and I am looking forward to
many hours of flying with him. He installed minimum equipment in the back for
me so I can get in on a little of the fun and be involved in part of the
flying.
So if any of you wives are getting discouraged, just remember, there is an end in sight.
Jana
by Craig Loomiller
It’s been a couple of months since I have submitted an article for the newsletter. I’ve been doing a lot of traveling with my work. On one of the trips, I ended up back in Mojave California for a week. For the most part, Mojave is pretty much a hole in the wall. I thought that this trip was going to be more of the same, but then something really neat happened.
As I was sitting outside the classroom on a Wednesday
morning waiting for someone to come and unlock the door, I saw a jet powered
Starship take off. I thought that this was pretty cool, especially since I didn’t
know there was such a thing. I had always though that the Starships were all turboprops,
but not this one. A few minutes later a Duchess took off which was no big deal.
What followed after that was very much out of the ordinary: Burt Rutan’s entry
for the X PRIZE had just taken off.
For those of you who don’t know, the X PRIZE is a contest with just a couple simple rules. Design a vehicle capable of carrying 3 passengers to an altitude of 62.5 miles, launch it, recover it, and then do it again in less than 2 weeks. The first team to accomplish this will receive a check for ten million dollars. There are about 20 teams out there right now competing for the prize. So far, none have been successful.
Burt Rutan’s X PRIZE entry is an even-money favorite to
complete this task. His plan is to launch a conventionally powered mother ship
called the White Knight to an altitude of 50,000 feet with the space ship attached
to it. The space ship is called Space Ship One. (Hey, it’s their name, not
mine.) Once released, it will fire its rocket motor, which will then carry it
up into space. I believe it is the only entry to use a mother ship for launch
instead of a ground-based launch.
It turns out that this was to be the second test flight of the mother ship and its cargo. The Starship and the Duchess were chase planes. This was way more important than any kind of class that I was teaching, so we all adjourned outside to watch. It took them a while to get up to altitude. All we could see were two sets of contrails: one set from the starship, the other from the mother ship. But then, nothing happened. It turned out there was a glitch, and they were headed back down to figure it out. So we went back to class.
White Knight takes off with Space Ship One on belly.
Click image for larger photo.
A couple of hours later, we heard the news that the glitch was repaired and they were set to go again. After the chase planes were launched, the white Knight took off with its load. Again, we were looking at two sets of contrails up very high. I was told a little later that they were at an altitude of 47,000 feet. This time, though, we actually saw them release the Space ship one and at the same time one of the contrails turned dark brown and then disappeared. It turned out that on release, one of the two engines on the mother ship had flamed out. We then spent the next fifteen minutes or so watching the space ship glide on in. It has a very short wingspan, not more than 25 feet or so. From my perspective, it looked to be a pretty good glider. I’m an expert now, you know! It had shallow glide path with what looked liked a lot of control. It touched down on its main gear and, after a lengthy rollout, touched down on its nose skid. For some reason, Burt has never like nose gear on his aircraft.
Space Ship One landing behind chase plane.
Click image for larger photo.
This was the second flight of the spaceship and, to me, it
was pretty exciting. One thing for sure though, you can tell it is a low budget
operation.
Speaking of glider flying, I’m proud to say that I flew my
own sailplane this weekend on a flight that lasted two hours and ten minutes.
That’s right. I was in the air under my own power and control for over two
hours. This was a major milestone for me. Every time I go up, I feel just a
little bit more comfortable with this whole soaring thing. I could have stayed
up longer than I did but I had a little problem. I am not used to going around
to circles for that length of time, and I got sick. I mean really airsick! I
almost vomited in my own glider, but decided there was no way I was going to do
that. So I made a beeline for the airport and declared my intentions. Once
safely on the ground after a landing that I hope nobody saw. I jumped out of
the glider and ran to the side of the runway, where I proceeded to deposit my lunch.
I was queasy for about an hour afterwards. It turns out that I was doing
something wrong. After soaring for a while, I started to relax and leaned back
into my seat.
I want to be sure and mention that this years Wing-Ding
will be on October 5th this year at
I just want to remind everyone about the annual Airman
Acres bean dinner. It is held the last Saturday in September (the 27th
this year) and is usually well attended. Just bring your own bowl and spoon and
be prepared to have a good time eating beans. I’ll tell you this – they sure
prepare a lot of them.
The next several weeks in a row will be very busy in the
local community. Isn’t it exciting! This is my favorite time of the year. The
temperature has cooled down some, football is back in full swing and everybody
is out flying. This is what it is all about! I’ll see you flying.
Those that you that saw the Warcoupe out making multiple laps around the pattern last week, there was no need to worry. The Warcoupe was on patrol. I can report that there was no suspicious activity anywhere on the airport during my watch. I’ll keep you informed.
Craig
Editor’s Note: For more
information about the X PRIZE, you can visit their website at
As we get closer to the centennial of powered, controlled
flight
http://www.nationalairtour.com/
http://www.tulsaairandspacemuseum.com/
The following is from the National Air Tour web site.
In 1927 the pilots landed
at McIntyre Field and were taken by automobile to the Mayo Hotel.
During the 1927 banquet,
pilots heard various speeches with the theme, “commercial aviation has arrived
as a sound business proposition.” According to the Tulsa Daily World from
The arrival of the 1928
National Air Tour coincided with the Fourth of July, the dedication of
Encouraging the
improvement of aviation infrastructure was one of the prime objectives of the original
National Air Tours. And the
In 1928, the Tulsa Chamber
of Commerce and the Barnsdall Corporation entered a Stinson-Detroiter piloted
by Eddie Stinson himself. Upon arrival, Tour pilots enjoyed lunches from the
Junior Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club. Tulsa Citizens held a barbeque
at
The stop at TUL is most
appropriate as the
Hi, I am not sure if anyone has contacted the EAA 10
newsletter editor about the formation of a local chapter of EAA Warbirds of
America. Kent Faith, American Airlines pilot and owner of Roadhouse Aviation
out at
We are still in the formation stages and so our meetings
have consisted of talking about what we need to do. We have elected John
Esposito as President, Bill Harrison as
Our meetings move around at this time with rotating hosts on the 2nd Wednesday each month. I have copies of the newsletter for the EAA hangar but have not dropped them off yet. Membership is $5 and is open to all National EAA WOA members. Mike’s email is mikspin@aol.com. Just thought maybe you were not aware of this and would want to include it in the newsletter.
If you missed this one in the news, this is a picture
you’ve got to see, but hopefully you won’t see it out your cockpit window.
Austrian Felix Baumgartner worked his way into the record books with a most
unusual skydiving event. On July 31st Felix exited the jump craft at
30,000’ over