Jolene Miller's Ray scholarship has progressed to the second phase, and HQ has sent another $4,000 to her account. She's sent a note to introduce herself to the chapter:
With the J-3 being repainted
Hello there! I am beyond excited to be this year's Ray Scholar! The amount of support I have received from all chapter members has been overwhelming in the best way possible! This opportunity has been so amazing and a step in the right direction for my future.
I started my training in September of 2020, and plan on completing my training by the end of this summer. On March 5th, I completed my first solo. This is a huge accomplishment, and I am excited for all my accomplishments going forward.
My goal is to become a CFI. Since I was younger, I had always wanted to be a teacher. When I fell in love with flying in middle school, it only made sense to combine my two loves and teach people how to fly!
Again, THANK YOU!!! I am excited to share my future with you all, and I am so blessed to be chosen for the Ray Scholarship!
Jolene was also at the May chapter breakfast where she helped on the food line and received a Ray Scholar tee shirt and other items from the program.
For June, the VMC Club will be discussing high density altitude departures and the effects of turbocharging. Starting this month, we'll be meeting a half hour later than before, at 6:30 in the hangar. The June meeting is on Sunday the 6th.
The IMC Club meets the following Sunday, the 13th, and the following Thursday they have planned a fly-out lunch to the Eagle Creek Airpark (KEYE) in Indiana. The restaurant is Rick's just across the road from the FBO and next to the Eagle Creek reservoir (which supplies Indianapolis to the southeast).
HQ is calling for volunteers to staff the Blue Barn both before and during OSH this summer. Those who work at least 20 hours will receive a wristband to attend the 2022 OSH. As of press time, only a few sign-up slots remained.
At the chapter e-mail, a listing for a Cozy Mk IV project for sale was received. It's in the Chicago area, and he feels the airframe is about half complete. Pictures of the project are available on the web, and he's currently asking $7,000. Contact the chapter secretary for more information.
Tim Coverstone has moved from the area and resigned his place on the board. Greg nominated Andy to replace him, and the board approved this in May. Tim provided the rest of the story:
In late March my life situation changed. My wife got a new job and started working out in northern Arizona. I put the wheels in motion and was able to get our house in Illinois sold and moved out to Arizona to join her at the end of April. So, though I hope to see many of you at Oshkosh and other aviation gatherings, this will be my official goodbye to the chapter.
EAA 563 is a great chapter filled with quality people with "their heads in the clouds," and I have enjoyed being a part of the chapter. After I finished my flight training and instrument rating I was out of money, and the cost of renting certified aircraft made me think that I would have to give up flying. Then I discovered experimentals. Experimental aviation brings a real sense of freedom to find the right aircraft, the right maintenance plan and the right flight plans. Flying my Vans RV-9A has made me a better pilot, who can fly more frequently and troubleshoot more effectively. That sense of freedom within experimental aviation can be intimidating to a newbie like I was a few years ago, too. The freedom to experiment means there is not just one right way to do things and it takes a deep reserve of knowledge and experience to determine the right way to move forward.
That is where EAA chapter 563 has set itself apart. I have been helped, taught and mentored in every step that I needed to conquer. Rob Meyer introduced me to the world of building. Greg LePine, Tim Threw, and Bill Larson (to name just a few) have been so generous to me in working on my plane, suggesting the right tools and techniques, and refining my maintenance plan and knowledge base. Extended contacts of our chapter, like Josh Bardell have become good friends who have improved my flying. I have improved as a pilot and mechanic and am safer in the skies because of their time and expertise. I would encourage each of you to be generous with your time in helping new members learn maintenance steps, learn flying techniques, and learn the joy of experimental aviation. If each member of the chapter invests in that way in another member of the chapter, the sky is the limit for the future of aviation.
Now, as I head to Arizona, I will need to improve in mountain flying, high elevation techniques, and unimproved airstrip landings. I can only hope that the EAA chapter I find in my new locale is half as good as the aviators of EAA chapter 563. If you're ever out in northern Arizona, look me up; we can go fly the Grand Canyon VFR corridors together! Thanks.
Tim's RV-9 will remain at 3MY until he finds a place for it in Arizona.
David Cook has passed away at age 95; he had been a chapter member for the past 41 years. His gentle, smiling self was found at most of the AOPA Safety Seminars in the area. He served in the Navy in the war and became an electrical engineer after. He took up work in Peoria first at LeTourneau and later Caterpillar. When his mother was 101, he took her flying in his Cessna, and he was still flying an Ercoupe at age 92. The obituary posted by his family includes a slide show of photos from his life. The visitation and memorial service will be this Saturday, the 29th, at United Presbyterian on Northmoor.
You might recall Andrew Barth, who was a Director at this chapter while he was earning his degree in mechanical engineering at Bradley. At one chapter meeting, he demonstrated a centrifugal turbojet he designed and machined at school. On leaving Bradley, he took a job with Scaled Composites in Mojave, CA. In mid May, he was in town to visit family and stopped by the chapter.
Andrew was wearing a tee shirt with an image of the project on which he's now working. Asked about the semi-annular intake on this jet, he could only comment it has advantages he couldn't discuss but was also creating some headaches with the engine's compressor. Besides advanced engineering on a variety of aviation projects, especially with composites of all forms, work at Scaled involves frequently covering one's ears as F-18's light off on the runway a hundred yards away, and there are the sundry sonic booms, too. Scaled offers a one-half subsidy on flight lessons, and Andrew plans to pursue his license in the coming year.
California is noted for insane housing prices, but in Tehachapi, where Andrew lives, apartments rent for little more than in Peoria. The hills surrounding Tehachapi offer many hiking trails. Not far is the famous Tehachapi Loop where the first railroad to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles crests the pass between the Central Valley and the high desert of Mojave, before descending again to the L.A. basin.
April Nicolaides has donated the Stolp Starduster Too biplane her father and two friends built decades ago. He had begun a restoration of the airplane, but after his death, both the airframe and the engine remained disassembled in a storage locker in Wenona, IL. Greg LePine organized a U-haul truck for this move, and Rich Gilbert, Bill Larson, Karl Kleimenhagen, Bob Pegg, Tim Threw, and Ron Wright assisted in the loading and unloading. Disposition of this project will be a subject at the June chapter meeting on Saturday the 5th.
While Wenona doesn't have an airport, it does have an old fighter jet, a Republic F-84F sitting with its tailskid embedded in the asphalt of a parking lot near I-39. Work on the F-84 began during the war. The swept wing F model tried but failed to duplicate the success of North American's famous F-86 Sabre. Chapter member Dewey Fitch flew the F-84.
Last month, it was reported chapter members were helping Roy Paget repaint his J-3 in WW-II colors. That project was finished by mid May, and the J-3 has left the hangar. The rolled on, matte green paint looks surprisingly good even up close. Roy will be delivering this J-3 to North Carolina, and given the roughly 70 mph cruising speed, he plans to select a day with a good tailwind.
With Jeff Meyer's Onex out of the shop, Rob Meyer has begun construction of a new airplane, a Zenith 750 Super Duty. He found the factory airplane enjoyable to fly and is pleased with the quality of the kit so far.
Kip Kleimenhagen has returned home for the summer, and we have resumed work on his RANS S-20. The landing gear assemblies are finished and work on the fuselage stringers and the seat upholstery has resumed. The builder's log shows 500 man-hours has been passed, less than half of which is actual assembly and fabrication operations—the Learning Curve.
As this newsletter is getting long, only a part of Ron Wright's story of the Pazmany PL-4A the chapter worked on many years ago will be given this month. The rest will follow in the July issue.
This particular experimental aircraft, that I acquired in mid 2011, was designed and built by Ladislao Pazmany and associated builder friends of his, in 1972. That's right, this plane was the "factory" prototype used to develop, test, and re-engineer what would eventually be available to experimental aircraft builders who purchased the plans, from Ladislao Pazmany, to build their own version of this model. Wow!
Briefly, this PL-4A was "marketed" throughout the U.S.A. and Canada by being flown to various aviation fly-in events. Ladislao was a very generous and trusting aviation type guy and would lend out this particular plane to numerous friends and others to the point that after Ladislao's untimely death, in 2006 (due to natural causes), his wife lost track of who had the plane or where is was located.
Now jump to mid 2011, when Ted Lambasio (of Canton Airport fame) alerted me to the fact that there were several aircraft in a hangar there that were being offered for sale by the widow of a recently deceased local pilot. Ted was assisting this widow, to sell these various planes as soon as possible. Ted knew that I was always looking for orphaned experimental aircraft projects, and he indicated that there were two projects now available at Canton.
Alerting my new and capable aircraft-project-builder-buddy, Greg LePine from EAA Chapter 563, we made a trip to Canton to view the goodies. After a quick inspection, Greg said that he thought that the decrepit, very dirty, covered, forlorn, orange colored experimental project we were viewing was in fact the one and only Pazmany PL-4A prototype that had disappeared way back in 2006. Holy moly, Batman, what have we found?
So, after negotiating, through Ted, with the widow, I ended up purchasing this find, and we made arrangements to haul it back to our Chapter hangar and skunk-works to get a closer look and to evaluate exactly what we had.
After a lot of discussion between Greg and myself and after fully inspecting this plane, we decided that we needed to restore this Heirloom back to it's original condition, as much as possible, and to make it airworthy again.
Sadly, the TBM Reunion in Peru was rained out this year. In June, the annual Cavalade of Planes at Bolingbrook's Clow airport is on, but as it stands, tickets must be purchased in advance.
Beautiful weather mid May had enough people flying to create a queue at the fuel pump.
There was an unusual visitor to the field again this month, a Short 330. The owner was in the area for the TBM Reunion and stopped to visit a friend near here. Those who flew commercially out of PIA back in the 1980s may recall the noisy ride these offered, as well as the turbulence an unpressurized airliner encounters at the altitudes it travels.
