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BRAZOS AREA RECREATIONAL
FLYERS BRAGGING AND GOSSIP

EAA Chapter 983 Newsletter
August 2002

Mailing Address: EAA Chapter 983, P.O. Box 903, Granbury, TX. 76049
Website http://www.eaa983.org

Chapter 983 meets on the second Saturday of each month at 10:00 AM. in Ken
houseman's hangar. N.E. corner of Pecan Plantation Airport

August Program: Lucky Louque, Air Salvage of Dallas. Interesting damaged aircraft retrievals and lessons learned issuing experimental airworthiness certificates.

Meeting Minutes

From the office that gets no respect, Vice-president, Dick Jones called the meeting to order. President Gary Bricker was spending the day at an adult club in Whiskey Flats while claiming to be attending the vote for the S.W. Regional Fly-In relocation.
We are sponsoring two local young men to the EAA Air Academy. Chris King (18) and Jonathan Warren (16) are going and the Chapter is covering about 1/2 of their fees and chapter members are arranging for their transportation.
Visitors were Sam Butler and Gwen and Jason Hutchison (new RV kit builders).
Karen Jensen, treasurer, reports that we have about $4200 in the treasury.
Long time Member Marty Sidener has returned home after surgery and is doing well. He’ll be going back for some more follow up work just prior to Osh Kosh.(post O.K. update- he’s up and wandering the airport again. The new slimmer and trimmer model)
September 28th our chapter will be hosting the Granbury Airport Pancake Breakfast. If you’d like to volunteer call Gary B.
Don’t be surprised if you can’t find Dave and Wendy Moore’s RV6. After two years in planning it now has a wonderful paint scheme designed by daughter Lauren.
Thanks to the folks at Sky-Tec for providing their booth for a Chapter message board at Osh Kosh
I’m afraid you’ve just got to believe after a half dozen guys say the same thing. Bill Eslick just put the Vans pressure recovery wheel pants on his new RV6 and reports a 7mph increase at about 140 mph. Should be more at higher speeds.
Dick Keyt installed a Younkin Tru-Trak autopilot and satellite nav and com in the Polen.
Ray Nasypany has just started an RV8 kit.
Ron Schuster has acquired a bunch of epoxy type products. Glues, Pro-Seal and the like. They are out of date but should still be useful. If you have a need call him.

Thanks again to Ken and Jean Houseman for the best meeting place we could hope for. Some
folks do so much more than their share.

Your Share

As you look around at chapter meetings and when you attend fly-ins it’s a good time to think about what makes a successful chapter go. It’s everyone doing their share. We have been fortunate in being blessed with a large number of folks who give time and effort and love doing it.
Let me tell you about Millie Ragle. A few years ago she, husband Wes and son Jonathan got interested in flying. They didn’t have pilots licenses yet but they bought an RV kit, joined our chapter and got to work. Shortly after they joined we needed someone to chair the chapter fly-in. Who steps up but Millie. She was not a pilot, she lived in Weatherford, she was new to the chapter, knew just a very few of us and had no experience in fly-in organizing. All those are great reasons for not taking on a that job. BUT, Millie thought it was time to do her share. The result was a great fly-in and now we all know Millie.
It’s no accident that our fly-ins are well organized and run smoothly. We don’t re-invent every time. There is a printed guide for the coordinators to follow and lots of help from the folks who have done it in the past. All the coordinator does is coordinate. Make lists, make schedules and order the hot dogs. The sign up lists are full of helpers for the individual jobs. If you’d like to know what the job’s about call one of the previous coordinators; Deb Scanlon, Bill Steppling, Debbie Keyt, Jim Kucholtz, Gary Bricker or call Millie.

We are under the gun for the October Fall Fly-In. We need someone to step into that position. It’s not as difficult as you think, there’s a lot of help and you will have an experience that you’ll treasure.

South West Regional Fly-In Vote

Whisky Flats. - President Bricker reports that the vote to select a new location for the S.W. Regional Fly-In is complete and New Braunfels is the winner. Kerrville still has restricted parking areas and there was some resistance from the FBO there. Longview was attractive but some of the facilities were still incomplete. New Braunfels has paved parking for several hundred aircraft, good runway and taxiway assets, a new terminal and good hangar availability. Vote: New Braunfels 16, Longview 10, Kerrville 0. 2003 Fly-In will be the 3rd weekend in May. 2002 September 28th and 29th, Abilene.

Past Blast
This from the May 1999 edition of the Chapter 983 newsletter: “At last count , the chapter may see as many as four homebuilt projects make their first flights this year. In the running are Ray Stewart/RV6, Dave Moore/RV6, Bill Steppling/RV6, and Jerry Knapp/Lancair. The Brandons RV6 will be real close too."

Young Eagles

Dave Moore continues to do a great job with the Young Eagles program. July 6th was Pecan Pl. Youth Association Day and Margaret Siedschlag, Sid Tucker, D.R. Bales, Marv Jensen, Steve Wilson, Roger Lessard, Toni Anderson and Gene Chiappe joined Dave in providing time, aircraft and skills to continue the chapters commitment to 40 of the area youngsters.

It’s not easy taking my problems one at a time when they refuse to get in line. -Ashleigh Brilliant

NOTAMS:

1. Claudia Sutter passed her Private Plot checkride in the “Yellow Pig” on July 18th. Bill “Pigmeister” Scanlon was her instructor. 2 1/2 hr. oral and 2hr flight. Man, talk about earning it!
2. Barb Wilson is back in the left seat solo for the first time since July 4th 1980. On July 4th after exactly 22 years of kids, job changes and relocations Barb soloed again in her newly acquired Tri-Pacer “Buttercup”.
3. Jimmy Cash, mounted on the tractor, Bill and Debby Scanlon, Claudia and Martin Sutter, Bob Satterwhite, Gary Bricker and others have done yeoman work repairing the parking area and runway and taxiway edges. Fly-In taxiing should be a little less hazardous in the future.
4. Meeting Programs for September: Pat Keefer, she’s president of U.S. Air Race “Racing for Gold: 24 Days Around the World”. October: Fall Fly-In. November: Still planning, if you have an idea call Dick Jones
5. Wes, Millie and Jonathan Ragle are making steady progress on their RV6 and may fly by the end of the year.

Glasair Rebuild Part III

June 21 is a good day for flight testing,...might make it to Oshkosh after all. There have been a few things accomplished since April 6.
   Rick and I spent the next day (after getting the plane home) fabricating fixtures to hold the parts of the airframe and wing. We removed them from Jeff's trailer and began the disassembly.
   A broken crankshaft and an oil screen full of engine parts (big enough to read the part numbers) is the first indicator that a major overhaul is in the near future. Jeff stepped up to the task and with the help from Charles, Martin, Dick and others, we turned the pile of rubble into a freshly-overhauled prop spinner. It's quite an education for people like me who have not been-there-done-that. Thanks to Charles for his effort, expertise, tools and Lycoming documents. Jeff took care of getting the many parts inspected and repaired.
   Charles came over with a line sander to smooth out the scratches, but instead, repaired wiring, tubes and cables using only fine sandpaper and small tools. There was one day when the landing gear attach brackets were encouraged with a very small hammer and supervision. Gary pitched in to figure out what parts were needed to replace the rudder and trim cables that were cut during the recovery. We fabricated the new cables using Mike's cable crimper, added those mods wished for, and installed them just at the right time.
   Dick offered to take care of the metal brackets and did just that. The engine mount was repaired, blasted and powder-coated. The turbine mounts that were damaged ended up being better than before. That Lincoln welder is a great tool when the right person is driving. Les checked out the Sky-Tec since it took most of the impact when the nose gear collapsed; worked fine.
   The fiberglass repairs on the wing went smoothly until I got to the painting part. It looked like donkey tracks on the top of the wing after I attempted the clear-coat. DR and Dave helped me with placing the wing on the trailer and two days later, Jimmy had it white and shiny.
   The nose gear ended up being easier to replace rather than repair. Aluminum main landing gear, new gear attach brackets, all-terrain tires replaced the damaged pieces from the cow pasture event. Dave and I proved that it really does take two people to install landing gear on a Glasair. I'm glad the NewGlasair people are back in business; Cliff was very helpful. Grove gear was an easy retrofit.
   Dave and I installed the engine baffling and repaired wiring which was cut during the recovery. All these tasks are much easier with the help from friends. Final assembly of the wing and fuselage was accomplished one morning. Ken, Dick, Gary and I got it bolted together and on the gear in about an hour.
   Initial engine run was a smooth as one could expect from a major overhaul. After 6 flights, there is no oil on the belly.
more later.....Don

JULY PROGRAM: The SR-71 with Bill Orcutt

Chapter member Bill Orcutt spent 6 years flying the SR-71 and shared some of the excitement of flying one of the biggest and certainly fastest experimentals around.
Designed as a replacement for the U-2, the SR started life as an A-12. A single seat aircraft that sometimes carried a drone. Then as the YF-12, a long range interceptor and finally as the RS-71. Lyndon Johnson bungled the designation into SR-71 and it stuck. I guess you couldn’t tell the president he has dyslexia back in the 60’s .
The airplane found it’s calling in the role of recon. It’s not well known but the U.S. lost a number of CIA operated aircraft to the Soviets in the 50’s and 60’s. When the Gary Powers incident proved that the U-2 was vulnerable, the SR-71 was developed. It was 8 years in the making and presented designers with a thousand new problems. How do you build, plumb and wire something that grows 8’’ every time you fly it? If you need oil that has the consistency of peanut butter until you get it going through those unique J-58 engines, you just don’t go to the Exxon boys (above 2.6 mach they became ramjets). All those problems were solved and it became one of the most unique and successful military aircraft ever built. It carried a number of cameras, could look through the ice for subs and was able to triangulate ground radars. It was also valuable as a flag waver for the State Dept. when they wanted to drag its double sonic boom down Main St., Bagdad.
A typical mission was about 4 hrs.; First have a high protein / low residue meal (good thinkin‘) then T.O. with 1/2 fuel , go to the tanker and fill, perform the “Dipsy” maneuver to accelerate, climb to 75,000’ and Mach III, cruise climb to 80,000’ and head for the target. The autopilot and cameras were preprogrammed so the pilot watched for threats and monitored system ops. The cameras are able to photograph 100,000 sq. miles in an hour. After taking some realtor shots of Ghadaffi’s summer cottages, it’s back to the tanker and home.
34 aircraft were built and 16 remained when they were retired in ‘90. Several were lost during the teething stages but none were ever shot down. The threat avoidance technique was interesting and simple: go faster. The Soviets best fighter launched missile had a window of 4 seconds to be successful. Going faster screwed up the profile.
The SR-71 was retired in 1990 when it was determined that satellites could do the same job. They couldn’t though and 3 aircraft were brought back after the Gulf War. Those were eventually given to NASA for research and were again retired recently. Quite an aircraft and quite a story. Thanks Bill.

Osh Kosh Update

About 50 chapter members and family were at dinner at the “Fin and Feather” on Wednesday. Thanks to Carol Chiappe and Jackie Bricker for their water replenishing activities. Thanks to whoever kept my bride Donna supplied with wine. It was a miracle she wasn‘t dancing on the tables!
Congats to Dick Keyt who won his class in the Kitty Hawk to Osh Kosh race and Don Saint who took third in his.

Classifieds

Schedule of Chapter 983 Events

Chapter 983 Officers and Contacts