Member Richard Lahood located a donor who will provide their surplus concrete picnic tables at nominal cost. We plan to have a local Scouts chapter handle the details of setting these up at the FBO.
Over the past month, several members have given brief talks on aviation related topics to the Dunlap High School Flight Club. The Flight Club has begun work on this year's GAMA Challenge, which is to redesign the RV-10 in software to try to optimize it for a particular, short range flight with increased payload. Chapter members are attending each meeting where the kids work, to answer questions they may have and give suggestions.
At the last board meeting, there was some discussion about adding drone activities to the club to draw in more youth. Most present felt this was outside the current scope of the chapter, and that our work with the Flight Club is already helping in that regard.
Treasury
There are 57 paid memberships so far this year. There are no significant changes from last month in our position.
Hangar
Tim Threw reported on air compressor costs to the board. His committee recommends a Quincy 2 stage, 3 hp unit, which is relatively quiet, has an optional extended warranty, a 50000 hour estimated life, and is $1300. It could run off the same power receptacle as the welder. The extended warranty was deemed unnecessary. The board voted 6-2 to recommend we spend no more than $2000 for a compressor for the chapter hangar, and this will be brought to a vote at the next chapter meeting.
VMC and IMC Club
Morrie Caudill continues to host the VMC Club with Rich Gilbert assisting. The next meeting will be Sunday 5/6 in the hangar at 6 PM. I've found useful the information presented so far and encourage all members to try a few of these meetings.
The IMC club is now running 7-8 members each week. Carl Wilbur has access to a $20/mo subscription to IMC scenarios useful to the Club. The board voted to reimburse him for the rest of the year, as a test of its usefulness to the Club; this will fit in the "educational" slot of this year's budget. The next IMC meeting is Sunday 4/8 at 6 PM in the hangar.
Breakfasts
The sign up sheet for 2018 breakfast cooks remains available in the hangar. We have cooks through May signed up so far.
Doede Barth looked into health department rules which would have to be followed should we expand our kitchen services. It is unlikely we will pursue this beyond upgrading our current kitchen procedures to more closely follow their guidelines, including better monitoring of temperatures and perhaps a sanitizer tub.
National
Greg LePine has received a paper flyer regarding accommodation at the dorms of the University of Wisconsin in Oshkosh during the national fly-in. Send an e-mail to the chapter if you'd like a scanned copy forwarded.
Members
Welcome Roy Paget who has rejoined the chapter and introduced himself at the March chapter meeting. He's bringing a Globe Swift to the field.
Two of the projects in the hangar
Bill Larson has his Sonex in the hangar and has performed an enginectomy on his AeroVee Turbo conversion. He already has the new engine mount installed and on the mains and his new Jabiru 3300 cc six cylinder motor is mounted. His AeroVee is for sale in either the turbo or non-turbo configuration, and it includes his beloved AeroInjector carb, which it turns out is a trifle too small for the new engine. He has acquired the current model of the larger AeroInjector.
In the background of the photo one can see Rich Gilbert has the engine mounted with his RV-6 project (the wings are on, too), and Morrie Caudill has been helping with the installation of the new fiberglass cowl.
Greg LePine has the aluminum skinning mostly finished on the fuselage of his Corsair and has begun work on the wings.
Karl and Kip Kleimenhagen are awaiting delivery of their crated RANS S-20 kit in mid April.
The Talbott brothers are still preparing their workspace in the southeast corner of the hangar.
Airport
3MY
Greg LePine attended recent Airport Authority board and finance meetings. No rent increase or new fees are scheduled for 3MY this year.
Havana
Saturday April 28 is the meeting of five 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 chapters will briefly discuss their current activities. Mutual chapter interests will also be discussed, of course. The chapters attending are Havana, Peoria, Bloomington, Canton, and Jacksonville.
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.
For those who've not flown into Havana (9I0), it's a grass strip 2235 x 100 ft. In the river valley, the sandy soil drains well, but after an extended period of heavy rains the water table can rise and leave the field soft. They report RVs, Glasairs, and Sonexes have flown in before, but be mindful of the weather leading up to the date.
March fly-in lunch
The Havana chapter is holding fly-in lunches each second Saturday from 11:30 to 1:00 in the warmer months. The March event was well attended, with at least 15 aircraft arriving, including several homebuilts. The turf runway was in good shape.
Pekin
Sad to say, but the new EAA chapter there has already folded.
