At the February chapter meeting, Zoe and Harry from the Flight Club at Dunlap High School talked about the club's progress. Both talked about the past year's work as well as what's coming up. The club now has about 40 kids, up from the original 7, and 563 has provided some of their funding.
Working with the Peoria Area Amateur Radio Club they built an instrumented high altitude balloon. This balloon made it to 103,000 ft, and after launching from near Peoria it was tracked to landing near Danville via a HAM radio signal. The flight was over 3 hours, with 2 spent ascending and 1 descending, all recorded on video with a GoPro. The payload included a Raspberry Pi to log data and launch a rocket, but some of this failed. Clips from the recorded video were shown. You can read and view more about it at a local TV news channel.
They have also assembled a basic RC airplane kit and learned to fly it with the local RC club.
Currently they are working on a kit for a drone racing competition, and they have acquired a basic commercial drone for beginners to practice flying these. They also plan to constuct more RC airplanes for indoor flight and aerial "combat."
This month the GAMA competition begins. Last year the goal was to redesign for X-Plane the C-172 and fly it on a virtual course over which they receive a score on the plane's performance. This score is combined with an evaluation of their report describing the evolution of the design. They are seeking mentors for this year's competition, and three members from 563 are on board. The winning team takes a trip to Glasair to build an airplane kit over two weeks.
Lastly, they thanked us for our donation, which has been used to help purchase equipment for the above work. Ann Lynch requested a look at their accounting, and this will be included when they report on their plans for the next school year, where projects include another balloon launch. Perhaps best of all, they have made presentations to the Dunlap middle school to gather new members for the coming years.
The board has considered offering our services to help spruce up 3MY to make it more inviting to the public. One proposal is to acquire and install picnic tables up by the FBO, and another is a CTAF speaker. Gene Olson with the Airport Authority is agreeable to this, and there's a good chance the picnic table project can be handled by local Eagle Scouts, with assistance from us as needed. Chapter member Richard Lahood has sought tables for donation and has a lead.
Treasury
Lincoln Land Community College sent a thank you letter for our scholarship contribution, which was read aloud at the last chapter meeting.
There are 54 paid memberships so far this year.
Hangar
There is a proposal to acquire a large air compressor for the hangar. Greg LePine has offered to donate a sandblast cabinet to go with it, both to be set up in a corner of the hangar. Riveters, dimplers, shears, etc can all be run off this. A problem might be the sound level, which can run up to 110 dB inside a shop. Greg looked further into this and found ratings which seem safe but might only be anechoic chamber measurements. The cost including wiring will be around $750. This will be brought up at the next chapter meeting.
A carbon monoxide detector has been installed in the hangar, due to combustion and natural gas odors being sensed. However, these odors may simply have been emissions from a recently un-pickled Lycoming.
Publications
The chapter's Articles of Incorporation have been added to the web site under the Documents tab, beside the Bylaws and Standing Rules.
VMC and IMC Club
The initial meeting of the VMC club was held the evening of the first Sunday in February. That this coincided with the Super Bowl might, of course, have hurt attendance, yet there were 4 people present to look over the materials headquarters is setting up for this club. Part of the evening was per Alcoholics Anonymous with attendees discussing VFR flights they weren't proud of. There were also discussions of the digital weather and flight planning services now available to the pilot. I'm looking forward to the next meeting, Sunday 3/4 at 6 PM. Morrie will again be hosting the event in the hangar.
The next IMC meeting is Sunday 3/11 at 6 PM in the hangar.
Breakfasts
Thanks to Ann and Kent Lynch for being the breakfast cooks for February. A mistake on Greg's part put a "southwest" style egg mix on the menu, which Ann spiced up the next time with cheese, mushrooms, and red peppers. This proved quite popular.
The sign up sheet for 2018 breakfast cooks remains available in the hangar.
National
From time to time, a member asks if the chapter might form a flying club around a homebuilt airplane. The short answer is "no" and national recently spelled out why.
Members
John Tillotson has been busy with a new job flying for a regional airline, which has hampered progress on his RV-8, but he recently had this to say:
RV progress has been intermittent. Last summer, I was making good progress on the vertical stabilizer. I was going along at a good pace, and thought to myself, "wow, this is going really well." I think you can see where this is going. After setting ~50 rivets, I realized that I had failed to countersink a spar doubler. I reordered parts, and started the piece over. This build has been very humbling. However, I am back in the shop, and have made good progress in the past week.
Rich and Dan Gilbert have acquired a partly completed RV-6, and it has taken the place of their Glasair in the hangar. Tim Threw's work on his RV-7 is nearing completion, and the Talbott's are busy organizing their corner of the hangar for their AcroSport build.
RVs galore
Airport
3MY
When the south ramp was repaved, the taxi lines were moved west leaving no place for transients to park along there. The was brought up at the January Airport Authority board meeting, but it appears no effort to correct this will be made.
Havana
The migratory bird viewing scheduled for 2/24 has been postponed to this Saturday.
Saturday April 28 is the meeting of 6 central Illinois EAA chapters, hosted this year by Havana Chapter 1420. Our normal chapter meeting for May would be the following weekend and has been canceled, although there will still be breakfast service here that morning. F-111 pilot Rick Davidage will give a talk, and each of the six chapters will present their chapter's current activities. Mutual chapter interests will also be discussed, of course. The chapters attending are Havana, Peoria, Bloomington, Canton, Jacksonville, and Pekin.
The night before, they are holding a cook-out with overnight camping: "Bring something for the open grill or have a Havana Burger on us." The meeting Saturday will begin at 10:00 and from 8:00 to 9:30 breakfast will be available at the field.
The Havana chapter is working with their airport to try to raise funds for a pavilion to host their camping and cook-out fly-ins.
If you're looking for a fly-out, starting March 10 the Havana chapter will be offering lunch from 11:30 to 1:00 each second Saturday of the month. To quote their newsletter: "The menu is fully aerobatic: split-S hotdogs, over-the-top burgers, and sizzling brats, all made-to-order with at least one new specialty each month to keep your palate running at full-rich."
