Greetings
and Salutations!
Even though it is now
officially spring, old man winter suddenly had a wake up
call in March and is still trying to get in a few cold
spells and wintry storms before he will finally be forced
to give way to the sun's moving north. We had a great
meeting in March at Mountain View, but there was a cold
winter storm that dampened what could have been an even
greater meeting. More about that later.
This month's meeting will take us back to our Chapter
beginnings in Gainesville where, we hope, the weather
will coöperate much better than last month. Through the
efforts of Len Ahrnsbrak, Jerry Luna, Clint Allen and
James Wiley, EAA Chapter 1218 was incorporated at
Gainesville when the charter was signed on September 14,
1998. There were also others including Bill Ghan, Willis
Short, Homer Johnston, and myself who signed the charter.
We had our meetings at Gainesville High School but we
would also frequently visit Papa Bob's Café, which is
located next to the high school and also across from the
airport. Papa Bob's, as it was called then, is a favorite
eatery of mine because of the generous portions and the
good "home cooking" style of food. And you
can't beat the prices for items on the menu. Papa Bob's
is now called Riverfront Café and is where our April
meeting will be held. The meeting starts at 9:30 AM with
a "Dutch treat" breakfast after which we will
have our business meeting and, if the weather coöperates
John Zook, our valiant Secretary, will take us over to
the airport and we will talk aviation and take in the
sun. If you are flying in, the airport (H27) is located 2
NM northeast of town. It's a good, firm grass strip with
the main runway going north/south and a smaller runway
going east/west. If you are driving in from the east, you
should be on Highway 160 and make a right turn on Highway
181 as you are coming down the hill before you reach the
stoplight. Follow the main road, making right turns only,
to the restaurant. If you come to the high school, you
have gone too far, so go back about 100 yards. If you are
coming in from the Ava area, turn left on Highway 160 and
go east ½ mile. Then turn left again on Highway 181. Fly
in or drive in, come and join us for a meeting of fun and
friendship, where we'll remember our beginnings and make
it easier for some of our far distant members to attend a
meeting—even if the weather isn't favorable for
flying.
Now about our last meeting. As I already mentioned, the
weather did not coöperate. Our meeting was held indoors
at Mike and Sharon Vaughn's hangar which was well heated.
We weren't able to fly Young Eagles that day because of
the extreme wind. I am sure there were a lot of very
disappointed kids in the Mountain View area.
Nevertheless, our meeting was wonderful. As usual the
food prepared for the gathering was delicious and, thanks
to Mike and Sharon, we had great big hamburgers and
bratwurst—also one of my favorites.
Mike arranged to have
his friends singing and picking their down home
bluegrass music, and they were good. At times I
thought I heard Bill Monroe and at other times it
was Flatt and Scruggs who were playing for us. I
asked Sharon if the band had a name and she told
me they were calling themselves "The
Bluegrass Wannabes" for the time being. I
think she was kidding. These guys didn't just
want to be bluegrass players, they are bluegrass
players. I've seldom heard better bluegrass
music.
It was also nice to see Chuck and Martha Hiett
back from their "snowbird" trip to the
Colorado River and we all enjoyed a great visit
with each other. |
The
"Bluegrass Wannabes" |
Member Bio: There Are Hobbies
and—
This month our
"bio" comes to us from member Bob Brantley. Bob
has the distinction of having built one of the world's
most beautiful airplanes, a Falco. The Falco is an
Italian design and, in my mind, is the Ferrari of the
airways. Bob's workmanship and attention to detail
matches the beauty of the airplane. I have never seen a
finer panel than the one Bob built for the Falco. It is a
full IFR panel and has a wonderful arrangement for ease
of viewing. Recently Bob received a letter of
commendation from Paul Poberezny for his skilled building
accomplishment. Paul had seen an article and pictures in
the Santa Barbara, California, EAA chapter's newsletter.
(Bob came to Missouri from Santa Barbara.)
Bob
Brantley
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"I
can't say that I have had a lifelong desire to be
a pilot or, for that matter, to build an
airplane. I can remember that, even as a child, I
loved building models of all sorts. I remember
using broken single-edge razor blades to cut out
parts from balsa wood model kits (cutting fingers
as well) and using dope to attach paper to the
structures to give the fragile framework the
rigidity and shape that, if built correctly,
could take to the air. Most often they didn't,
but that never mattered. I can remember going
down to the local 5 & 10 cent store to buy
solid wood airplane models that only cost 5 cents
and only contained a single block of wood, a few
balsa sheets and a small set of plans.
"In the fourth grade I was building a small
sailboat in class. It was red and white and used
a cedar shingle for the deck. We took it to Long
Beach and sailed it in the shallows. I still
think of that boat when I smell cedar today.
"There has always been a certain air of
excitement in building something and seeing it
through to completion. I was less then ten years
of age when my modeling urge started and it has
remained with me all my life. It was my way of
escaping to distant lands and exciting
adventures. It even guided me to some of my adult
livelihood.
"I was born in Los Angeles in 1946. Yup,
just one of those "baby boomers." I can
remember moving around a lot as a youngster with
the majority of my youth being spent in Whittier,
California. That's where former President Nixon
lived with his parents and attended college. My
high school was in the late fifties and early
sixties and, of course, my favorite classes were
of the shop and industrial type. After high
school came a few odd jobs here and there. I did
work at the Whittier post office for six years,
in fact, that's where I met my wife Janet. While
working at the post office, I attended a local
community college and received an AS degree in
Business Supervision which helped move me up the
ladder at the post office.
"Just before Janet and I were to be married
we started looking at real estate. We had wanted
to purchase a small-unit apartment building as
our first investment with the idea of living in
one of the apartments. This whole process led me
to my next career move. Not knowing a thing about
the "ins and outs" of real property
ownership, I decided to take a few classes to
learn more. One thing led to another, and I ended
up with a real estate salesman's license,
quitting the post office to become a full time
salesman.
"About this time, radio control units for
airplanes were starting to become more affordable
and smaller in size due to transistors. Up to
this time, they were controlled with tube type
transmitters with the airplane's control surfaces
being moved only by relays. The modern
proportional radio controls really made a
difference in the way you could control a model
airplane in a realistic manner.
"I was hooked—from flying model
sailplanes to gas powered airplanes and
everything in between, I built and flew many,
many different aircraft. After building a new one
and flying it only a few times, it was time to
build another one—and so on. I liked
building true scale models, ones that looked like
miniatures of the real things. I loved WWII
military fighters as well as civilian biplanes,
and I loved spending all of my leisure time
building or else hanging out at the local hobby
shops. This led me to another career. Why not do
something that I loved for a living and open a
hobby shop? The plan was to learn about hobby
shops and then Janet and I would open one in the
Lafayette, California, area across the bay from
San Francisco. What better way of learning about
the retail hobby business than to become a route
salesman for a hobby distributor? That's what I
did.
"I heard from a friend of mine in the model
aircraft kit business about a company, California
Hobby Distributors, that was looking for a
salesman. I applied and got the job. I was
selling hobby supplies all along the coast of
southern California and northward for three
hundred miles. This was in the spring of 1978 and
within a year's time I was their number one
salesman. I loved the work as well as the travel,
and someone was willing to pay me to spend time
in hobby shops! Who could ask for more?
"It happened that my number one sales
account was Atkins Hobbies, an old fashioned
hobby shop in Santa Barbara. By the fall of 1980
the brothers who owned the store wanted to retire
and asked if I would be interested in buying the
shop. It seemed that there would be less of a
hassle if they sold it to a stranger than trying
to figure out who among their longtime friends or
customers to sell it to. With Janet's blessing we
bought the shop and moved to Santa Barbara in
November 1980. My only complaint was that,
because I was now making a living in the hobby
business, making models was no longer my hobby.
California Hobby Distributors went from being my
employer to being the supplier for our store.
"I decided to get my pilot's license in 1981
to be able to travel back and forth between Santa
Barbara and the Los Angeles area where Cal Hobby
is located. If you know anything about living on
the coast, it's that there is the ever-present
marine layer, more normally called fog. It was
time for an instrument rating. Luckily, before
this we were able to purchase a one-fifth share
in a 1962 Piper Comanche 250. It is a great
airplane and made the instrument rating a pure
joy to obtain. Janet and I even flew the Comanche
to Mansfield, Missouri, to visit her brother.
"After a few years I started yearning to
build something. I was still flying radio
controlled airplanes, mostly other people's
planes. They would build them and then I would
instruct them in the flying. This was not
satisfying my urge to build though. One of my
model customers also built homebuilts and had
just started a Thorpe T-18 project. I asked if I
could help and, over the next 24 months, he and I
and one other person built a T-18. The Thorpe is
an all aluminum airplane and working in the
winter months with aluminum was not fun at all.
After the Thorpe was flying I thought it was time
to look for my own project.
"I can remember seeing the ad for Sequoia
Aircraft's Falco kit. What a beauty she was and
she was made out of wood, one medium I liked to
build in. So, in October 1988, I started building
the
elevator.
I knew this had to be a long term project if I
didn't want to burn out in the building. I gave
myself a thirteen-year time frame in which to
build her. The logic was that I would be around
55 years old when the Falco would finally fly
and, since we had an airplane anyway, I didn't
need to be in a hurry. I had wanted a
hobby—something to keep me busy—and
eventually we would have a unique airplane.
 |
 |
| Bob taxies the Falco |
The Falco's very
readable panel |
"In
1989 we sold the hobby shop and I went back to
work as a salesman for California Hobby
Distributors, which is what I still do. No
driving though, with everything being done with a
computer and fax machine. Janet had always said
that when she retired she wanted to live where
God waters the country. Janet was eligible to
retire in June 2001 and, as things turned out,
the first flight of the Falco was on May 5,
2001—twelve and a half years from the start
date.
"Janet did retire and we moved to a lovely
home in Pomona, Missouri, on August 2, 2001. From
May to July I flew off the 25 hours that the FAA
required and then flew the Falco back to Missouri
on July 20 and 21 to her new home at Mountain
View Memorial Airport, Hanger #2 if you ever stop
by. I know that building the Falco has been the
most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life
and God willing, I will be able to fly her for a
good many years to come. I can't say that I would
do it again, starting now, but if you need help
on your project let me know."
An article on the first flight of the Falco
can be found at the following link:
http://www.seqair.com/Hangar/Brantley/FirstFlight/FirstFlight.html
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| Now
isn't that a unique way of coming around to
learning to fly and building an airplane? |
Buzz Thunderbee by
Squawk
Buzz Thunderbee always puts
the things he learns in safety meetings into practice as
soon as possible. Sometimes things don't go quite right!
| Surviving Off Field
Landings... |
 |
MPA State Convention
I'd like to remind everybody that our EAA Chapter will be
doing it's part to welcome all Missouri Pilots
Association members to their annual convention weekend,
being held in the Ozarks this year, by hosting a
breakfast on Sunday, May 5, at Ron White's hangar.
Spring
Cleaning
Hmm, looking at the membership roster, there are lots of
you who haven't paid your Chapter dues for 2002. Some
folks have been gone during the winter, but now is the
time to get caught up. So, come to the meeting prepared
to pay dues; if you can't come to the meeting, do the
snail mail thing and send them to Gene Pascoe, HCR 79,
Box 3010, Dora, MO 65637, right away, please.
Well, that's it for this month. See you in Gainesville
"God willing and the creeks don't rise."
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