EAA Chapter 563
The Beacon
October, 2025
Both a breakfast and the chapter meeting are this coming Saturday morning, in the hangar.
The cooks would appreciate volunteers to set up tables and clean up dishes for the breakfasts.
This year's banquet will again be at the Lariat Steakhouse. This time we have a room reserved for early in the month, so hopefully more members will be able to attend. The date is Friday December 5th. Socializing will start at 6:00 and orders for food will go in at 7:00. There will be a set menu again this year with details to follow in next month's newsletter.
The IMC Club will meet at its usual day and time (the second Sunday at 6:00) in the hangar.
The VMC Club has had scheduling conflicts of late and so will be switching to the fourth Sunday in the month, still at 6:30. With this, a week's delay is unlikely to conflict with an IMC Club meeting.
Greg LePine led the nominating committee and has prepared the following slate for the 2026 board of directors: JJ Hoevelmann (president), Bob Pegg (VP), Karl Kleimenhagen (secretary), and Mike Simmons (treasurer) for the Officers, plus Killian Madeley, Rob Meyer, Todd Moore, Nick Sturm, and Greg LePine for the remaining Directors.
As with the previous month, the September rally was booked full with 15 kids to fly. The chapter coordinator, Todd Moore, believes we receive some spillover from the Chicago area (where they are already booked out a year), and such bookings are often no-shows here. Todd now phones those living hours away, and this usually dissuades them. Also, HQ's new scheduling system lets him see which kids have been up several times, and he puts the repeats at the end of the day's queue. Ages accepted are 8 to 17, and parents sometimes fly afterwards as an Eagle flight.
Separately, HQ's new Young Eagles Connect system will allow mentors to track the progress of Young Eagles who chose to pursue their free benefit from Sporty's: on-line ground school.
Six airplanes prepare to fly the first Young Eagles of the morning
Rob Meyer, the chapter's coordinator for the Ray program, has a quick update on Hope White, the chapter's scholarship recipient for 2025: "She is making good progress and is working on the required solo flights. She is on track to have a checkride by year end."
Installation of the flaperons is nearly complete except for rigging. Progress with the wiring forward of the firewall is ongoing. Although advertised as for sale, no one has inquired about purchasing the airplane.
Kitplanes is struggling to regain traction after the dismissal of its entire staff. A single news entry has been made on the website in the last month, and the October print issue is missing.
Some of the old staff have posted articles on airplane building at the AvBrief site. AvBrief was recently created by staff dismissed from AvWeb, a sister publication of Kitplanes.
Tim Threw provides the end to his Lycoming rebuild saga. This was first mentioned in the April, 2024 newsletter.
As many of you know, I had to overhaul my EXP O-360 A1A Aerosport (Lycoming clone) engine, due to lifter spalling and cam damage, at 1500 Hobbs hours. I purchased new Superior O-360 cylinder kits for the overhaul. I found out after 6 hours of run time there was a problem with some of the Superior 360 kits. The issue was the rings were chattering in the bores and damaging the cylinder walls. I confirmed my cylinders also had this damage with a borescope.
My A&P, Dan Fasking, contacted Superior, who promptly sent me new cylinder kits, under warranty, parts and labor. We installed those and they did the same thing.
In conversations with Bill Ross at Superior, he told me engineering figured out there was nothing wrong with the cylinders or pistons; the compression rings were the issue. Bill said Superior was working with their ring supplier to figure out the cause, and he was sending me another set of cylinders kits with OEM rings. This set was also under warranty, parts and labor. Bill also said it was only the 360 rings that had an issue.
I have 56 hours on the last set of cylinders, and the engine is running great, borescope pics look good. While it was unfortunate that I had this issue, Superior was very responsive and professional in handling the warranty issue.
That was an expensive lesson for Superior.
The new foundations for the runway 36 VASI lights are in place. With the runway closed for this work, the airport scheduled time to seal the cracks in the asphalt as well as repaint some of the taxi lines.
The last day of September found this 1957 Cessna 172 up from Tennessee for a few days. Although a bit worn, the older style paint scheme looked good in the evening light. Another straight tail 172 is based here at 3MY, and chapter members Erich Smith and Dave Springer own quarter shares in it.
eaa563.org
Mt. Hawley Airport, Peoria, Illinois