EAA Chapter 563
The Beacon
November, 2022
Please attend the Annual Meeting this Saturday morning, following breakfast. This is the meeting at which members select a Board for 2023 and approve the budget they will work from. We need to meet quorum to conduct this business.
At the last board meeting, the treasurer reviewed the 2022 results. He recommended we retain the 2022 budget for 2023, and the board approved.
The hangar and its utilities are about $1,000 per month total and mostly covered by income from hangar use. Youth programs are the other major expenditure, including two college scholarships and the airplane building for teens.
Typically, about a third of income is donations, but these were down this past year. Donations will be necessary to meet the proposed budget. Gifts to schools may have to decrease.
Do let us know if you will be attending the Christmas party at the Lariat Steakhouse on Saturday, December 17. We must must reserve space at the restaurant. The number in your party is all that's needed now. There's no need to select your meal; your order will be taken there. Contact Ron Wright or use the chapter's e-mail.
Our most recent Ray Scholar, Chase Ehlers, will enter the aviation program at Lewis University, but he'll first spend a year at ICC working on his general education courses. He'll be present at this Saturday's meeting to receive his Zulu headset awarded from Lightspeed and his Ray Scholarship tee shirt.
The Ray Foundation has asked our chapter's program coordinator, Rob Meyer, why our chapter's success rate has been 100%. Rob feels it is the selection committee's process as well as keeping the kids engaged inside the chapter by their working breakfasts, etc, plus frequent communication between the committee and the trainee throughout the flight training.
We have a slot for the Air Academy at the next OSH. You're welcome to nominate a teen ages 16 to 18.
Three kids have joined the program this past month, offsetting those who've dropped out. Work has resumed on the elevator, and with an electric trim motor embedded in it, we've been discussing wiring and connections. Another discussion concerned fuel lines and routing, the fuselage construction having reached this decision point. Inside the fuselage, the control linkages are being fitted.
At the board meeting, the build budget was reviewed. The money remaining will be soon spent on wings and an engine. Funds have come from donors, the Ray Foundation, and factory discounting. Zenith has also given us priority in their production queue, and the firewall forward kit arrives this week, to our surprise. The project has taken one spot in the hangar, displacing some income, and some of the tools employed were purchased by the chapter.
At the most recent build session the teens had a chance to inspect Dave Shipley's excellent RV-14. He'd flown in from Tri-County to visit Ron Wright.
The first formal Young Eagles flight since the pandemic took Paxson Wooden, one of the airplane builders, up for a flight, courtesy of Richard LaHood in his Diamond. Paxson was eager to get his EAA membership and to look into the ground school instruction from Sporty's, both provided as part of such flights. Paxson's mom went along for the ride.
The VMC Club meets this coming Sunday at 6:30. The IMC Club meets the following Sunday at 6:00.
Carl Wilbur of the IMC Club reports on their lunch fly-out in October:
The fly out was a success. We had six planes and 13 people in attendance. Weather was clear, winds calm and unlimited visibility. Rick's Boatyard Cafe is a very nice restaurant, right on the water in Eagle Creek.
(Sorry about that camera angle)
The IMC Club coordinator, Kent Lynch has suggested to the Springfield FAA office their Club meetings might qualify for WINGS credit, and they will look into this.
Welcome goes to new members, this fall, Cameron Gleichman, Jeff Render, Corey Enderle, and Mike Simmons.
Depak Dogra now owns a Cherokee 6. He and a flight instructor he knows from the IMC Club (Jason) flew the airplane here from the west coast. Depak briefly described the cross country trip at the last chapter meeting. The flights included an unlatched door and a failed battery—the joys of airplane ownership.
The airport's been busy the last few weekends, including chapter members. This (zoom) photo has Tim Threw's well traveled RV-7 warming up on the ramp while Ian Kemp's Cessna 140 practices another touch-and-go.
The LifeLine Pilots event in late September brought an estimated 800 to 1100 visitors. Next year we might set up a display of an airplane under construction, for there were many kids present.
This Pitts S-2B from central New York made a refueling stop here. He was returning from a competition in Salina, Kansas. With only 28 gallons of fuel to feed a 540 Lycoming, he doesn't get far between fuel stops and planned to overnight in Ft. Wayne. One of the teens building the Zenith looked over the Pitts.
Another visitor to the field this past month was this Velocity XL-RG homebuilt from the Carolinas. The following day, it, too, was inspected by the teens.
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Mt. Hawley Airport, Peoria, IL