Per the bylaws, November's chapter meeting is the Annual meeting at which a new board is elected and the budget set. This will begin after breakfast this coming Saturday, November 3rd.
The current slate for the election has, for officers, Greg LePine as president, Bob Pegg as VP, Rob Meyer as treasurer, and Karl Kleimenhagen as secretary. For directors are Andrew Barth, Tim Coverstone, Ian Kempf, Dan Talbott, and Ron Wright. Greg would like to relinquish his position as president. Please consider serving in this position.
For 2018, both income and expenses were below budget, but more so the income. A large, one time expenditure for an air compressor system in the hangar added to the expenses column. On income, airplane storage fees were below usual as were donations. Many generous donations were received in the form of equipment, but these were all deemed worth keeping in the chapter inventory, as opposed to being sold off for cash.
To bring the 2019 budget into balance, several fee increases are proposed. Hangar utilization fees are $10 more per month, both planes and projects. Breakfasts will be raised $1. Membership dues will be $35 per year with no separate category for family. This is the first increase in dues in 7 years. These will be voted upon at the meeting.
December
There is no chapter meeting in December. Instead there is the annual banquet, to be held this year on Saturday December 8. We meet at 6:00 and supper will be at 7:00. Again this year, we're at Bernardi's in the Lake of the Woods Plaza, at the north end of town on Knoxville Ave.
As in the past few years, I'll be taking a break from my web and newsletter duties, so this will be the last issue of the newsletter for this year. I'd like to thank everyone who contributed an article or write up. These make my job much easier.
VMC and IMC Club
The VMC Club meets this Sunday, the 4th at 6:00 pm in the hangar. Attendance at these has been poor. Let's make something of this service.
Tom O'Toole provided a summary of the recent activities of the chapter's IMC Club:
We held the IMC meeting on October 14, with a light attendance. There was no standard video presentation, however, Terry Moushon talked to the group about his experience with finishing up his instrument training in Minnesota. After 2+ years Terry passed his instrument rating (first attempt), and is the second member of EAA 563 IMC Club to earn their rating in 2018. Also, Terry is in a very elite group of EAA pilots having built his own instrument certified RV-10 and then earn his instrument rating in it. Carl Wilbur is the other member who earned his instrument rating (first attempt) during the summer. Kudo’s to both gentlemen to what many in aviation would claim to be the hardest of all flight ratings.
On October 26 the EAA 563 IMC Club attempted a short notice (two weeks) fly-out to KUIN Quincy, IL to gather at the Blue Haven Cafe. The idea behind this fly out was to invite 5 other EAA IMC Clubs to join us, two clubs from Illinois, 2 from Iowa, and 1 from Missouri. None of the invited clubs were able to participate, but the process has been started to coordinate a better effort in 2019, to encourage a network of exchanges with other clubs.
Carl Wilbur and I did however fly the Bradley Flying Association C-172 from KPIA KUIN KPIA on the 26th. I flew the first leg to the ILS 04 into KUIN, and Carl flew the second leg to the ILS 04 into KPIA. The weather was mostly solid IMC, and unfortunately no other EAA members were able to join us at the Blue Haven Cafe. I highly recommend the BLT. Despite the low ceilings and visibility, the WX gave us smooth flying conditions, to which Carl and I agreed had turned out to be a great day to put our IMC skills to use.
Their next meeting is Sunday, the 11th at 6:00.
Donations
If you're interested in a new Nomex flight suit in size 44-R, contact Greg at the hangar.
Members
An RV-10 Journey, by Terry Moushon
Having participated in many EAA "How To" seminars at Oshkosh, I decided to build an airplane. I chose the Vans RV-10 because it had the best fit for the travel my wife and I want to enjoy.
I spent most of September 2012 getting my build area ready with benches and tools, and my kit arrived in October 2012. Building in your garage has many more advantages than disadvantages and allowed me to make significant progress mainly because of its proximity. (Travel to and from your project can greatly reduce hands-on time.)
I was fortunate to have the support of the local EAA. Sam Sisk who was then Chapter 563 President is also an A&P mechanic. Sam was a good sounding board and provided seven full EAA sponsored Technical Reviews during my 3½ year build.
In April of 2016, I traveled to Oregon to fly with Mike Sieger, an accomplished transition flight instructor. Mike's challenge was to get me as comfortable in the RV-10 (which I had never flown) as I was in a Piper Archer, which I had several hundred hours in. Mike has done this for years, and I completed my transition training in 10 hours of flight.
My FAA Airworthiness Review was conducted at the end of April by a DAR who had flown in for the review from a hundred miles or so north of Peoria. My local FSDO did not have time in her schedule for months, and suggested I hire a DAR for the review. My RV-10 was awarded an Airworthiness Certificate in April. With the confidence and training to test fly my RV-10 and the FAA approval for flight, I picked May 2nd as first flight day and the start of Phase 1, a 40-hour test period. Many changes/tweaks/challenges popped up in the 40-hour test phase, but none that kept me grounded very long. Also, during this time frame, I gathered performance data for inclusion in my POH which had to be written prior to Phase 2.
In July 2016, I traveled to the Springfield Flight Standards District Office to finalize my request for "Repairman" status of my build. Even though I built my plane, once it was declared Airworthy, repairs/alterations to it had to be completed by either a "Repairman" or an A&P mechanic. After a thorough review of my build, I was awarded "Repairman" status.
In July 2016 I completed my Phase 1 testing and entered Phase 2. Over the next year, I made several minor modifications and studied the installed avionics.
After flying for about 150 hours, I attended Instrument Training Ground school in Atlanta. After passing the FAA written instrument test, I now had 24 months to get the training and endorsement for IFR flight. I started my instrument flight instruction with Almond Aviation. It did not take long to get used to my hood and I spent many, many hours doing ILS, GPS and VOR approaches.
With a solid understanding of what is required for IFR flight, I made a 2½ hour VFR flight to Venture North Aviation in Cloquet, Minnesota to complete my training. The instructor assigned to me was a "glass expert" with a proven record and a syllabus to get the job done. His technique was simple: Brief the weather, file, fly, land, close the plan, debrief (capture pluses and minuses of the flight) then 30 minutes of oral review, and do it all over again. That was most of the week. Lots of repetition, lots of solid IFR review.
At 9 am Saturday, September 22, I met with Bill Stone, FAA Designated Pilot Examiner (DPE). After about 2˝ hours of Oral review, he laid out a flight scenario and asked me to assemble a flight plan with all the elements, from weather to NOTAMS, fuel consumption to weight/balance for my plane. After a full discussion, we flew that scenario as my qualifying test flight. The flight lasted almost two hours and included unusual attitudes, all types of approaches, tracking, holds, missed approach techniques, procedure turns, circle to land approaches, auto pilot coupled approaches, emergency procedures and communication techniques. It was a thorough and exhausting review. I passed. About three hours later, I filed my first solo IFR Flight plan and flew 2½ hours home to 3MY.
Other Projects
Greg LePine's scaled F4U has attracted one admirer from afar:
Steven Wilkes (a fellow member of the Replica Fighter Association) and his wife stopped in today for a build visit. Steve has been following my build in the RFA magazine that's published twice a year, plus the rumor wall at the RFA building during EAA Oshkosh. Steve was impressed seeing a plans build project and was surprised at the aluminum detail. The plans call for a foam fill and all fiberglass exterior (3 lay ups). Steve is a mechanical engineer who worked at Boeing and is retired; he will build a 3/4 scale Bf-109 (German WW-II plane).
He is also a member of a Kansas City EAA chapter with about 12 active members and was surprised at our club house and planes. He almost fell over when I told him we have 65 members and are growing.
October was another slow month for Karl and Kip Kleimenhagen in their RANS S-20 build:
More parts from RANS to replace some of the defective ones shipped with the kit were received in the last week of September, and we've nearly finished the trim tab. We have yet to get a sufficient bond with our Oratex test strips; we'll be ready to test the most recent one tomorrow. Kip received word from UIUC it would be best for him to begin classes there this January, nearly eight months earlier than we had planned. My daughter Beth has been shanghaied to take his place full time.
Airport
Havana
The Havana EAA chapter continues its fly-in / drive-in lunches this month. It's Saturday November 10 from 11:00 until 1:30.
