Next Meeting

Our next meeting will be Mondy June 21st at 7:30pm at the chapter hanger at Gundy’s.

Table of Contents

• Words from the President
• Riveting News for June
• Souhtwest Regional Fly-in
• Concord Last Flight
• The Spinner Trip
• Bi-Plane Expo
• Mary Jones
• Tulsa Fly-in
• Top Ten Causes...
• EAA 10 "It Aint Going To Rain" Poker Run
• Calendar of Events
• Snack schedule
• Web page newsletter

Words from the President

by Bart Dalton

Only two months till Oshkosh. Good flying weather is upon us and aviation events are everywhere. You can just about go to some aviation event every weekend somewhere close.

June Program

We will be having our regular monthly meeting this month with a program change from what I announced in last month's newsletter. We will still have John Hudec's Waco as a program but not till November. He ended up having a conflict for this month with his work. This month we will have a program on Gyros. This is not the food type of gyro but the rotor-craft version. We should have several show up for a demo and then the program. I am very excited about the program.

We will still have the pancake breakfast this month on Saturday after the meeting. I also hear that "Loo" is planning a poker-run in the near future. I have noticed that we have had a great amount of rain here lately and so I know that the poker-run is neigh.

Local Flying

Biplanes had a somewhat soaky weekend but they still had a great turnout. I want to thank all of you who donated your time to help with this event. Speaking of events; Claremore had an aerobatic contest a couple of weeks ago. The ceiling was a little low but there was still a great amount of twisting going on in the sky. One of the highlights was when one of the judges took to the skies to show everyone how it is done. This person just happened to be world champion Debbie Harvey. Deb is a very humble person and I am glad the contest was able to bring her up from Houston. Our May picnic was also a great time to be had by all too. A few people flew in but several were stuck in the fog at the Southwest Regional fly-in in Texas. Brent W. did make it back in time for lunch as he exercised his great flying skills in coming back IFR.

Everyone please make plans for the meeting on the third Monday this month and the next time you take to the air remember this little quote from Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh. "The engine is the heart of the aero plane, but the pilot is its soul."

Tailwinds

Bart

Riveting News for June

by Craig Loomiller

Mojave, California-That's right! I am currently in Mojave again. This is my fourth trip out here in the last two years and every time I come here there is always something new. I tried to get a tour of Scaled Composites yesterday, and again I was denied for the fourth time. Someday I'll get a tour if I am patient enough. I've been out here since Monday and I swear that the wind has not dropped below 40-50 knots the whole time. It doesn't seem to bother the people who work and fly here though. Yesterday a F-22 Raptor did touch-and-goes for an hour with a 40 knot crosswind that was ninety degrees to the runway. Later on, a Boeing 767 did a pretty good crosswind take off under the same wind conditions. I was impressed. I didn't see any small aircraft flying though; it must have been the wind, I guess. We were out there all day taxiing a Fokker 100 all over the airport so I had a pretty good front row seat on these activities. I am here to qualify several mechanics to operate the engines on our aircraft parked there. The last time I was here was September of 2003 and there were about 150 aircraft being stored here in the desert. The aviation industry must be doing better because the aircraft count is way down. There are probably 60-70 aircraft parked here currently. Everybody out here is excited about the attempt to claim the X Prize scheduled for June 21st. The people at Scaled Composites are going to launch their home-built rocket plane and take it up to an altitude of 60 miles above the earth. If they can make this trip twice within a two-week period, they will receive the 10 million prize. I was hoping to see it before I left but it is currently under lock and key.

Picnic

Last month we had our annual Chapter 10 picnic. On Friday and Saturday the weather was just awful; but Sunday ended up being pretty nice once all the low clouds burned off. We had a pretty good turnout despite the conditions. I counted approximately 90-100 people in attendance. We had some competition from the SWERFI event down in Texas and the Muskogee Fly-in on the same day and still had a good turnout. I know everybody who came had a good time. Plan on attending next year.

I have been reading in the paper this week that the Tulsa area has been receiving a lot of rain while I've been gone; so that got me thinking about scheduling one of my famous poker runs. We are going to have a poker run right after the pancake breakfast this month. I feel this one will be a success since it will be following the same route that one of our most popular runs took place on four years ago. We've only had two successful runs in all, but who's counting. So come on out for some pancakes and then stick around for some spirited poker competition. Please see my flyer elsewhere in this newsletter for more details.

I made it out to the Bi-Plane Fly-in in Bartlesville last weekend and had a nice time. This event was also impacted by the weather but still managed to have a good turnout. I drove a "people hauler" a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon along with Lynn Coltharp on the other tractor. I was amazed at the number of people who came from the local area to look at the aircraft, and that they were still coming even late Saturday afternoon. The highlight of the event for me was my conversation with two older gentlemen from Council Bluffs, Iowa. They told me about all the trials and tribulations that they experienced in obtaining and then restoring the Fleet bi-plane that they flew down to the show. The basket case Fleet that they bought was spread out all over a small town in Kansas. The tail boom was being used as a base for a windmill, the fuselage was in an old barn, the flight controls were in an old chicken house, one wing panel was up in a tree, and the other panels located in different areas around town. They were able get blueprints from the Smithsonian that covered the majority of the aircraft, but still need the correct dimension for the distance between the upper and lower wing surfaces. They eventually obtained the dimension from what I call an "Oklahoma Blueprint"; which was measuring the distance from another Fleet of the same model hanging in a museum located in the Midwest. When they were finished, it turned out that their aircraft is the only flying version remaining in the world. You could tell that this had been and still is a "labor of love" for them by the pride in their voices. This is what makes this sport so great. Sure the aircraft displayed here are awesome, but the people who build and fly them are equally awesome for both their love and dedication to these old airplanes. I'm glad that they shared their story with me. It really made my day.

See you at the meeting.

Craig

Southwest Regional Fly-in

by Lynn Coltharp

The weather was not much better for flying from Tulsa to New Braunfels than it was last year. Chapter 10 had a better showing than last year so I guess it was a little better. When all the talk was flying around about whom was going it looked like we might have as many as eight planes show. We only had three. Come to think of it that is the same number we had last year so; maybe the weather was the same.

Bhrent Waddell, John Forister and Paul Shireman got their planes down there. I rode with John Forister in his Stinson 108. The seventy-five inch rain the day before kept the taxiway too soft for me to get the Varieze out.

They had a nice banquet downtown and Richard Vangrusven gave a nice presentation on the evolvement of home built airplanes. They said they had about 500 airplanes this year. Last year, which was the first year for SWRFI at New Braunfels, they had about 700. So I guess that says the weather was worse this year.

Things were laid out differently this year so they could accommodate more airplanes. In my opinion they have a great location for a large fly-in here. It was obvious they had been doing some planning to get things organized to handle a large number of planes.

The forums were in a small school next to the airport and made it quite pleasant to attend forums. It was a little hard to get to but was worth the effort. It was quiet inside and air conditioned so we were able to hear the presenters well and there was good audio/visual equipment available.

One of the hits of the show was an Ercoupe converted to a golf cart. I had never seen this cute little thing before and was quite surprised. He drove it around the ramp and played music with it. I had to get a close look to see how it was made. It was made from a real Ercoupe and the guy did a real nice job of it. Here is a picture of it.

There was an excellent selection of airplanes to check out. A good number of each category were there so one could peruse homebuilts, vintage, factory or whatever kind he wanted to look at.

There were quite a few airplanes camping out this year and we were close to the Café so we could get eats quite handily. Last year they had a shower trailer and this year they had constructed a temporary shower facility out of those famous blue tarps. It worked nicely but was a little hard to find.

Maybe next year the weather will cooperate and we can get a good showing from Chapter 10.

Lynn

Concord Last Flight

The Concorde has made its last flight. What a magnificent airplane. Here is a link to some very beautiful and poignant pictures of the Concord's last flight. http://www.catsprn.com/concordes_last_flight.htm

The Spinner Trip

by Lynn Coltharp

As I mentioned in the SWRFI article I had been planning on taking my Varieze to SWRFI but the taxiway was too soft so I flew with John Forister in his Stinson. I knew the Stinson was kind of noisy in the cockpit so I grabbed my Lightspeed noise canceling headsets to take along. When we began our taxi out I realized that one ear pad was gone but figured I could plug up one ear and go on. That worked fairly well so we proceeded on to New Braunfels.

The Stinson performed flawlessly for the entire trip until we began nearing Tulsa on our way back. It seemed to have a slight vibration and we could not decide if it was real or maybe because we were running a different RPM. The vibration did not seem too severe so we continued on into the Tulsa area.

As we began our decent into Gundy's and John reduced power the vibration became more pronounced. We both silently realized it was not our imagination, the vibration was for real. On final, John added a bit of power and it seemed very obvious to me that was not the thing to do. As we taxied to the gas pumps I could see something near the center of the prop that had to be a spinner problem. Sure enough the spinner and backing plate had developed bad cracks and might have left the plane if we had flown much farther with it like that.

Now for the reason I titled this article "The Spinner Trip"! A couple of days after we got home I started my annual inspection on the Varieze. A close inspection of the spinner revealed a small crack in the backing plate under one side of the prop. When I took the spinner off, the small crack showed to be about 6 inches long and another one showed up opposite that one. The backing plate was "toast." I decided to cut out the center of the backing plate to use as a thicker spacer between the prop and the backing plate. As I began cutting out the circle around the part that bolts up to the prop flange it became apparent that it also had cracked almost all the way around.

After looking at all the cracks in the spinner on the Varieze it became obvious to me, that spinner would not have survived a trip to New Braunfels and could have created a real problem.

So, let this serve as a reminder to all of us "please check your spinner often for cracks."

Lynn

Bi-Plane Expo

by Lynn Coltharp

In spite of the weather there were around 70 Biplanes that showed for the Bi-plane Expo. Attendance through the gate was surprisingly good considering the poor weather. I still had a good time visiting with folks as we sat around and watched the rain and low clouds. Here are some pictures of our members' planes in attendance:

Click images for full size versions.

Everyone that attended the Thursday night banquet reported that it was a really great presentation and evening. I wish I had taken the time to attend.

I normally like to fly up for the Biplane Expo and camp out in my tent for a couple of nights. With the pending weather I decided not to bring my plane and worry and fret about it during the weather. The next day I brought my tent with me in my car but, decided I would forgo the tent. Sometimes a tent can be a bit unpleasant during rainy and blowing weather. It turned out the weather was not that bad and I regret I did not get to enjoy a night at the airport. Oh well, next year.

Mary Jones

As many of us know Mary has been diagnosed with Lymphoma and has been undergoing treatments. Mary has made several trips to M. D. Anderson in Houston to receive treatments. She moved to the Montereau assisted living center in Tulsa.

Mary is a friend to everyone and everyone cares about Mary. She was a WASP in 1943 and 1944 and has been heavily involved in aviation ever since. We have all missed her for the last year as she has been fighting her illness.

She is unable to accept visitors but she welcomes cards and letters. So let us all send her a card and tell her how much we miss her and wish her will.

Tulsa Fly-in

The Annual Tulsa Fly-In at Bartlesville is scheduled for September 17th and 18th this year. Craig Loomiller has been attending planning meetings for the event and he reports that our chapter will be participating at the fly-in in several support roles.

Mark your calendars and plan on being available to help at the fly-in. I am sure there will be requests for volunteers when we get closer to the dates.

Top Ten Causes

from Canard Aviators Chat

The Top 10 Causes of Piston Aircraft Engine Emergencies (taken from the most recent FAA archives):

Notice that the top 4 items that cause problems are all FUEL related. One would think that if we concentrate on proper fuel management in all it's forms (Top 4), we the pilot community, should be able to eliminate the biggest threats to our safety while flying.

Any thoughts?

For Sale

1959 Comanche 180

total time 4281 hours
engine total time 2347 hours
Kenneth Gates
9biplanepilot1@sbcglobal.net
(918)396-0968 (evenings from 6:00 to 9:00 please)
See picture at www.eaa10.org/chap104sale.htm

1965 172

Good honest airplane that needs some TLC. 4000hr total time, 1300 SMOH.
No radios, paint 5, interior 5, new tires, windshield and corrosionX
Bart Dalton 272-8551
9planenutty@juno.com

Aviation Home at Sandridge Airpark

3/2/2 plus office.
New carpet and paint.
24x34 gameroom/mother-in-law room.
34x84 hangar
Sallie Coltharp 272-7255 or 740-7255
9sacoltharp@cox.net

1 acre lots at Skiatook Airport for aviation homes

Build homes and hangars with access to airport.
$67,900
Sallie Coltharp 272-7255 740-7255
9sacoltharp@cox.net

For buying and selling airport properties call "the aviation home specialist" Sallie
Coltharp

(Please note the "9" preceding everyone's email address in our newsletter. Delete the "9" if you want to email anyone. This is to help deter junk mail that gets picked up on the internet.)

EAA Chapter 10 "It Aint Going To Rain" Poker Run

Saturday, June 26th @ 10:00am
Gundy's Airport Chapter 10 Hangar

1. Participants will receive one sealed envelope at each of the following airports:
   1. Claremore
   2. Vinita
   3. Bartlesville
   4. Skiatook
   5. Owasso Gundy's
2. DO NOT OPEN THE ENVELOPES!
3. Upon arriving back at Gundy's, the last envelope will be handed out and the winning hand will be determined.
4. The entry fee is $5.00 and the winnings will be paid at the end as follows:

   1st PLACE	50% of pot
   2nd PLACE	30% of pot
   3rd PLACE	20% of pot

Calendar Of Events

To add an item to our calendar, get the information to the newsletter editor Lynn Coltharp. See the contact info on the cover for e-mail, phone, and mail addresses.

Recurring events

Who Brings Snacks????

If your last name starts with M, then June is your month to bring a snack to the chapter meeting.

Web Page Newsletter

If you would like to get the newsletter on the chapter website ( http://www.eaa10.org/ ) every month, this saves us on mailing and printing costs, helping to keep your dues low. Just send Jeff Wedman or Bob Minich an e-mail and we'll stop the paper version and send you a monthly e-mail when the newsletter is posted online.