Meeting: April 5, 2005 Tuesday 7:00 pm

Place: Airpark Terminal Building

Inside this Issue:

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President’s Corner

Well folks, after a long cold winter it looks like spring has finally made it. March came in, not like a lion but like a Saber Tooth Tiger. Hopefully she will leave like a lamb. I was not able to make the last meeting due to being up in Cleveland with my daughter. If you thought the snow was bad here, it was ten times worst there.

I hear despite the bad weather there was as good turnout for the meeting.
I would like to thank VP Rick Ramsey for standing in once again for me and John Meriwether for an interesting presentation on his latest project, the Xenos motor glider.

We have a very interesting April meeting lined up. We will be taking a trip back in time, say about 30 years, with Tom Cucarese. Tom is going to share with us his collection of slides on a trip that he took to the Cessna Factory when it was located in Winfield, Kansas. Tom, Dinny Walford and two other friends took a plane ride out to see the factory. Once there, they were taken on tour of the C-172 assembly line from start to finish . Tom will also be taking us on a little side trip to an Aviation Bone yard in Toledo, Ohio.

This year we are planning on some fresh ideas. One is taking a group trip to the Mother of all Fly-In’s, Oshkosh AirVenture, July 25th - 31. Some once in a lifetime events will take place, including a flyby and visit of the White Knight and SpaceShipOne, the paired air/space vehicles that made history last fall and the GlobalFlyer which circled the Earth to complete a record-setting flight on March 3.

Plans are still in the making yet. So get ready to red circle your calendar and please let me know if you are interested in joining a chapter group trip.

Remember, if you know of someone especially if they are young people, who are interested in aviation, invite them to come along with you to a Chapter meeting. Introduce them to your fellow members and make them feel at home. As the days get a little longer maybe we can give them a ride in the Prop Buster Club Airplane.  Remember your first ride and the life long impression it left with you. In the past we have had several young people come to the meetings with some that went on to flight training.

I hope to see everyone at the next Chapter meeting and
I would like to wish all our members and their families a Happy Easter.

Dave T

Chapter Building
Well everyone, we have some good news to report. After a year of planning and searching for the lowest bid contractor, we have finally signed a construction agreement for the new Hanger / Clubhouse. Work is scheduled to begin within 3 weeks.  It has seemed like we proceeded at a snail’s pace trying to make sure everything was done right and at the lowest possible cost to the Chapter.  But it's finally becoming a reality.

The first part of the construction will be the pouring of the pillars and frost wall. Next the contractor will grade the site, then pour and finish the hanger floor. The next part will be putting up of the structure and that's where we come in. A contractor will oversee the construction as we erect the building. He will be supplying us with a crane for the lifting of the pillars and trusses and we are also hoping to have access to a scissors lift.

We are going to need all the volunteers we can get and some ground crew to keep the BBQ fired up and the workers well fed. Let's make this a real barn raising club event.

We waited a long time for this to happen, through many fund raising projects such as the air shows and our recycling project and now we are finally going to see the hard work pay off.  With the building up we'll have a year round meeting place, a place for new Chapter functions, a place for our members to complete the final stages of their aircraft projects and to get them ready for flight testing. It will also give the Prop Buster airplane a new home. Maybe down the road the hanger will become a year round work shop complete with tools; a place to build a chapter airplane project and a chapter home to just hang out at. Hopefully we will be able to include a patio facing the runway for outdoor meetings, friendship and fly-in breakfasts. We already have donations of items such as a refrigerator and microwave.
It is a start of something good, and as time goes on we will be able to do much more.

Wood, Glue, Rivets and Dreams
Thanks again to Jon Meriwether for doing a presentation at our last chapter meeting. Jon is building a Xenos (sonex spelled backwards) motor glider. He talked about construction methods and performance. After installing about 14 thousand rivets, this is where it is at. Time wise this is at least an hour a day for a few months but the rivets are pulled the same as any house hold rivet, with no bucking needed. The pictures don't reveal all the details but the smile on Jon's face says it all. Building is interesting, challenging and certainly educational. The engine parts are in crates on the other side of the room. Yes, Jon is going to assemble that too. Get the full story here of a plane that is easy to build and very inexpensive.

Overheard at a small Australian regional airport.

Regional Carrier XYZ Tower, XYZ, we may be reporting a bird-strike on landing. We're just backtracking the runway to check.

Tower There’s a large bird lying on the runway, so we’re confirming that strike.

Regional Carrier Roger, XYZ. Can you see any damage?

Tower Don’t know yet, we haven’t checked. ...But its not moving