The mid October breakfast was a benefit for Tammy Smallwood, the gal who has kept 3MY running smoothly the last several years. She's been away on medical leave for surgery on a brain tumor, which fortunately proved to be not malignant. Bills, though, don't wait for healing to complete, and so our effort to raise funds for her.
The chapter supplied the materials and the space. The airport authority passed on our flier to all the renters at 3MY and provided extra chairs and tables from their operations hangar. The Lynch's put on extra sides with this breakfast and were kept very busy the entire two hours. Runners had to fetch more food supplies by 9:00 after the chapter's stores fell short.
Several generous donation checks were received, and there were upwards of 200 guests for the $20 per plate breakfast. Despite recovering from surgery, Tammy was able to attend the breakfast, along with several members of her family. To close the morning, the chapter tallied the income and was able to present her just over $4900.
Congratulations to all who helped bring those tears to Tammy's face.
Chapter Meeting
The October chapter meeting started with a short discussion from the Flight Club at Dunlap High School, given by the Club president. They will be working on a rocketry project this year, as well as the GAMA Challenge. The rocketry competition is to take an egg to 800' and return it to ground intact. One of their members is building an r/c airplane, with help from the Peoria R/C Modelers.
Volunteers are requested to give brief presentations to their club, Fridays 10:00 to 10:30, on certain weeks—watch for dates in upcoming newsletters. Their finances are in good shape.
We have reserved for them a slot at the Air Academy next year. They are interested in taking a field trip to OSH, perhaps in the spring, or maybe even during AirVenture. Kent Lynch will make inquiries with national about a museum tour for the group.
A budget for 2020 was also presented at the October meeting. Basically the 2019 income and expense budgets were used with an extra $500 padded to them. All present agreed to this proposal, to be voted upon at the Annual Meeting this Saturday.
It was suggested an officer or two attend the leadership presentations in OSH next year. It was proposed that if officers do attend, they be reimbursed for their travel expenses, although no formal vote was held for this.
The Annual Banquet was also announced. As last year, it will be at Bernardi's, on 12/14 (a Saturday) from 6-8. The Lynch's volunteered to provide table decorations again this year.
Annual Meeting
Rich Gilbert made inquiries for volunteers for next year's board. All current members agreed to accept their positions again for 2020. Greg LePine has noted that national encourages officers to keep their positions for several years to provide stability to operations. The current board agreed to this slate of candidates, and it will be presented for a vote at the November Annual Meeting, this Saturday. The budget will also be voted upon at the Annual Meeting.
Please attend. Your vote is needed to conduct business.
Renewal envelopes will be available at the meeting. Pick up yours and save the chapter the postage.
VMC and IMC Club
IMC Club has upwards of 20 attendees off and on. About a half dozen are not (yet) chapter members. Tuesday 11/5 at 6 PM at Byerly will be a presentation by Garmin, and everyone is welcome to attend. There will also be a presentation from a PIA controller at their next meeting Sunday 11/10 in the chapter hangar.
WiFi woes sent the October VMC meeting to the FBO lobby. Their next meeting is Sunday 11/3 and is tentatively to be in the FBO again. The next presentation from Pilot Workshop is:
What looks like a perfect partnership in a Cessna Cardinal gets a bit rough over unforgiving swampland. How will you resolve an engine issue and personality conflict when it’s not your airplane—even though your backside will be in just as much trouble if the motor quits completely? The alligators below await your choice.
Youth Programs
A Young Eagles event for the Dunlap High School Flight Club was to be held 10/31, but weather has delayed this at least one week. Please contact Kent Lynch if you can volunteer to pilot.
Congratulations to Jayson Presley, the chapter's Ray Scholarship recipient for 2019, who has passed his FAA written exam. His final task is the FAA flight exam. He now qualifies to receive a free Lightspeed Zulu 3 ANR headset. The chapter has received $8000 in Ray scholarship funds so far, and about half this has been spent. This money is, of course, in a separate tally from normal chapter operating funds.
National has 20% more money from the Ray Foundation this year. We will apply for a scholarship position again, but only about half of the chapters approved last year got a scholarship, so there is no guarantee we will get another grant. National has provided more information on the expanded program for 2020:
The $1 million core fund will continue to work the same way it did last year, with EAA chapters able to apply for a $10,000 scholarship grant to fund a qualifying Ray Scholar’s flight training. The chapter application will be open from November 1 to January 31, 2020, and scholar nominations will open March 1, 2020. Scholars must be nominated prior to November 1, 2020.
An additional $200,000 of funding from the Ray Foundation will be available to chapters that have successfully mentored a Ray scholar in 2019. These chapters will be guaranteed $5,000 in funding for a 2020 scholar if they commit to providing $5,000 in matching funds. In addition, these chapters can nominate scholars beginning on January 1, two months earlier than those participating in the core fund. Chapters interested in opting into the matching program may do so between November 1 and December 31.
The intent of the two funds is twofold. EAA hopes to enroll more qualified chapters into the program in 2020, without taking away slots from chapters participating in 2019. The matching component will allow successful chapters to guarantee their slot, while also opening up additional slots in the core fund.
Other changes to the program include a simpler scholar nomination process for easier processing for chapters. Additionally, chapter review of scholar applications will be streamlined. Also, a new program handbook will be created to help break down barriers and address other questions that came up throughout the year.
Treasury
The extra $4000 in income from hosting the EAA B-17 this summer allowed the chapter to expand its funding of youth activities to $2500 including $1000 for the Lincoln Land mechanics scholarship, $800 to send a kid to the EAA Air Academy, $500 for the Allen memorial flight training fund at Marshall County, and $200 to reserve a spot at next year's Air Academy in OSH.
Donations in various forms brought roughly $3400 to the chapter, and $700 of this is eligible for Caterpillar matching gifts.
Investments are stable, and the treasurer reports the finances are in good shape for the year.
National
HQ would like you to take their annual survey of the chapter membership.
They have also released a new web site to assist in organizing Young Eagles flights. Have a look and get involved.
Our web site is hosted on a free service provided by national at Webs.com. There have been several problems with this service, and EAA will be moving to a new hosting service in the spring. Until then we will limp along with Webs, who now refuses to support these sites. One noticeable problem is the presentation of the newsletters. Webs is incorrectly filtering out formatting information from the HTML file which is the newsletter. This makes the presentation cramped and difficult to read. Back-ups of all the files Webs has corrupted will be loaded to the new site once available.
Hangar
Marty's C-172 has been moved to the chapter hangar in place of his twin.
The new WiFi repeater for the hangar has already failed, and a replacement is on the way.
The tool program from national was mentioned again at the last Chapter meeting, but there was no agreement on what new tools might usefully be purchased.
Members
Welcome new member Joe Troglio. Joe has a 172 at 3MY and will be helping Ron Wright with the repair of the Kitfox damaged in a ground loop.
The chapter e-mail has received notice of a Kitfox Series 7 for sale, apparently by the daughter of a fellow who didn't get it finished. It's partly assembled, comes with a used Rotax 912ULS engine, and is in Ida MI with a rather high asking price. Contact me to receive the fliers she sent.
Greg LePine filed an update on his half scale, metalized W.A.R. F4U Corsair project:
June: Aileron weight balancing arms mocked up in poster board, thin plywood finally transferred to aluminum, completed and weight added with perfect balancing with just a little weight heavy. All linkage completed and installed.
July: All wing and spar ribs bolted and torqued to main and rear spar with some minor adjustment for final finish alignment. Wing tip alignment checked and rechecked. Wing attachment bolts installed after wing dihedral final checked then bolts were torqued. Wing was rotated using single top forward bolt; however, this is not very practical at this time. Maybe this would be another winter project. Plans are made, but put aside at this time. Wing tip light wiring was run through thin tubing (bulk head wing split to outer wing bulkhead wire terminal strip) which makes wiring so much easier. Actual Corsair Pitot tube installed and tubed to proper gauges.
August: Installed both ailerons with linkage all adjusted. Tedious work between pinning control stick and going back and forth or left and right, lots of up and down movement by me. Formed up aero piece of metal for the aileron control linkage that protrudes the bottom skin. The first ones turned out to be too short and not deep enough. Ok, so I have some extra scoops. Installed corner bracing for the aileron inner wing bulkhead transfer control paddle.
Aileron linkage fairings with forming blocksSeptember: Bottom and top wing sheets cut out, fitted, trimmed, deburred and clecoed in place for final fitting. Finally, leading edge sheets were pre-radius rolled and strap-formed in place. All sheets started with silver 3/32” clecos and were final drilled for 1/8” copper clecos and rivets.
Wing skins clamped in place
Airport
PIA
Last year the Collings Foundation tour of nicely restored WW-II airplanes stopped at PIA to offer flights. Sadly, the B-17G from that group has crashed and burned in Connecticut. It has been reported the NTSB has determined both engines on one side were feathered, one fully and apparently dead, the other partly.
Havana
The Havana chapter is on schedule to have their new shower facility ready for overnight campers next spring. The lunches they offer on the second Saturday of the month are over for the season and will resume in the spring.
