July 2002

Greetings and Salutations!
First, let me give you some important news, just in case word hasn't reached you yet: there won't be a Memorial Day celebration on June 1 at Taus River Ranch this year. Jim and Millie Tausworthe's place was struck by a tornado during the night of May 8-9. (More about that later.)

Fun at Mansfield
Our last meeting was a fly-in at Mansfield. What a wonderful event that was. The runway was freshly sealed and striped, the weather coöperated nicely, attendance was very good, and chef Roddy Clark's barbecue was absolutely delicious. Also, many thanks to our members who brought food and desserts. The statistics include over 100 people who enjoyed the lunch, our pilots flew 35 Young Eagles (three other forms were submitted for flights made a few days earlier), and there were around 40 aircraft participating in the fly-in. During the business meeting Jerry Luna challenged all pilots in our Chapter to fly 100 Young Eagles by the Centennial of Flight on December 3, 2003. Hey, Jerry, I gave my first Young Eagle flight this week and hope to give more rides from now on. Here's a breakdown of flights given by our Chapter pilots. (If I missed anybody, please let me know.)

That's a grand total of 319 for our Chapter so far. Now that Flight Leader Len Ahrnsbrak has wings again, a Cessna 150, we expect he will be adding more Young Eagles to the list soon. The Goodyear blimp flew by to our north. Our valiant airmen, Ben Hurtt and Dave Altis, tried to engage them in aerial combat and force them to Mansfield to be properly fed, but the blimp felt it had size on its side, so did not answer the invitation and just lumbered on.

A big hand and thanks to all the Mansfield members who, under the sponsorship of the Grasshopper Squadron, put on such a nice event for us. Amongst the visiting aircraft was an RV-8 which flew in all the way from Colorado.

Goodyear Vs Luscombe! Picture courtesy of Dave Altis

More Fun at Mountain Grove
The July meeting will be a fly-in at Mountain Grove. Young Eagles will not be advertised but if you know of a young person who would like to become a Young Eagle, you may bring him or her to the meeting. The Chapter meeting starts at 10:30 and members are only asked to bring a dessert, as everything else is being provided by our Mountain Grove contingent. We are starting this meeting a little later so that those members who belong to the South Central MPA chapter can fly to Bolivar for breakfast and see some homebuilts there, such as a Glasair and an RV. On your way home, please don't fly past Mountain Grove — and please change your MPA hat to an EAA hat before landing. If you are not a member of our Chapter and read this, come join us, bring your airplane if you have one or if you would like to learn to fly, join an organization of pilots and learn about flying. It isn't necessary to be building an airplane to be an EAA member. It is only necessary that you be interested in learning and being involved. We have lots of fun while promoting safety, responsibility, and respect for our fellow citizens.

Project Update Gene & Jean Pascoe with the EAA biplane in the "homebuilt hangar" on their farm.

This month instead of a bio I would like to update you on one of our member's projects. Gene Pascoe is a founding member of our Chapter and has been its treasurer continuously since before incorporation. In fact, he likes the job so well that he has volunteered to do it again this coming year. But Gene has other talents which, until Sue and I visited him, I did not know anything about. He and his wife Jean built most of their home themselves and I don't think the best contractor in the Ozarks could have done a better job. The living area is made up of an octagonal ceiling and in its center is a round open hearth fireplace. It is all very beautiful and artistic. The home, as well as Jean's landscaping, show a lot of talent. We then took a stroll to Gene's hangar. It showed the same rustic flavor that we saw in the house. The floor of the small wooden hangar is made of handmade "clay" (colored concrete) brick and adds to the authenticity of the pioneer style. When Gene's EAA biplane is finished he will be able to make an accelerated take off right out of his hangar down a very nice 1800-foot grass strip. Sue and I enjoyed our visit with Gene and Jean Pascoe very much. Here is Gene's progress report:

"Thanks for asking about 'my project.' As you know, it's been a long time process. I started it in my garage when we lived in Kansas City, and since I retired and we moved to the Ozarks it has been stored in our son Rusty's barn in Oolagah, Oklahoma. Last year I started building a hangar on the edge of our hay field. It still has a lot of finishing up to be done, but I have about half the floor bricked, which will give me some working space. Last fall our son-in-law Ken trailered it up from Oolagah, so that's where it's currently housed. I also had a guy with a bulldozer grade a nice little airstrip down the middle of the hay field. Even have a windsock! When we get the hay cut (if it ever stops raining long enough) I plan to have someone come in and give the strip a good rolling. Then anyone who wants to try it out is welcome to fly on in!

"At present the engine is in Tulsa to have it completely gone through. An A&P friend of Ken's is going to take it all apart to check it out, since it hasn't been run for 20 years. After he puts it back together he is going to run it on his test stand to check it.
"I have enough working area in the hangar now to put my wings on and fabricate my "N" struts. When this is done I can order my landing and flying wires. At the present time I'm putting the butyrate aluminum dope on the wings. This is a slow process, for I want to put on seven coats. Between coats I have to wet and dry sand them using distilled water.

"My target date to have the plane ready to fly will be sometime in 2003. This project is a labor of love. The main object is to not give up, but keep plugging away and eventually one day my dream will finally come true. When one takes on a project like this, you really learn things that you had no idea you would."

For more information (and pictures) on Gene's EAA biplane project, check our Members' Project Page on the Chapter 1218 Website at: http://eaa1218.50megs.com/gpascoe.htm.

Introducing Booley
Most EAAers are creative and ingenious people. Every now and then you run across someone who is very inventive and creative but lacks technical knowledge. Such a person is Booley. He is very ingenious but he's also a Texas country boy whose imagination is often fired up by what he drinks. Here is his story and concept of an around-the-earth-nonstop flying machine:

It was March and old Booley was standing out behind his shop like he always did when he was thinking real deep about something. The wind kept raking at his loose, shaggy hair and little whistling sounds were coming through that wide gap in his two front teeth. His eyes was all squinched up happy-like and he held a funny looking stick in one of his hands. After a minute, he drew back and threw that thing with all of his might. He didn't throw it at anything, and he didn't seem to be mad about anything either, so right away, I knew that old Booley had something powerful strong brewing in his mind. He just had this thing about building and flying, of moving air, pushing it around so's he could get something off the ground. I guess it was just the genius in him bustin' to get out.

Anyways, he flung that old bent stick and I just sort of moseyed over and sat down on the rear steps of his shop, right next to the beer that he had left while he went out to fling that stick. There didn't seem much else to do, so I picked up Booley's beer and looked at it. The bubbles had almost stopped rising and I knew that it was about to go flat. And it did seem a real shame to see such a good beer go flat. So, there I was, just starting to tilt old Booley's beer to my mouth when I heard something.

"Whither-dither," it said. "Whither-dither-dither!"

And old Booley, he was jumping up and down, shouting and hollering. "You'd better duck, Arnold boy! You'd dead sure better duck!"

And there it come, right outta the corner of my eye, that old bent stick that Booley had just thrown. It had made a wide sweeping turn, circling as it came straight at me, swapping ends and whither-dithering to beat sixty.

I sucked real hard at the bottle, but that old bent stick just whirred right up and whither-dithered old Booley's flat beer right outta my mouth!

Booley, he come over just a grinning. "Well, Arnold boy! Whatta you think?"

"Why," I said. "I think that old stick of yours has just spilt a perfectly good beer, Booley!" He bent and retrieved the piece of wood that he had just thrown and began soothing the dirt from it with the palm of his hand.

"Well, spilt beer is just spilt beer, Arnold boy. But this here stick," he told me, "is gonna make you famous!"

I sniffled and nudged at the empty beer with the toe of my shoe. "Can't be much to a stick that 'ud spill a perfectly good beer, Booley!" I said.

"But, Arnold, this here ain't no ordinary stick! No siree bob!" He shook his shaggy head. This here is a genuine aboriginal boomerang straight outta the heart of Africa. Yes, sir! All you got to do is to chuck it, and it'll come right back every time!"

"Well," I grumbled. "I sure as heck don't see how any old stick that just clubbed a good beer right outta my mouth is gonna turn right around and make me famous. No sir! I sure don't!"

Old Booley's eyes, they was just two tiny slits he was snickering so hard. "You don't worry none about how, Arnold boy. All you got to worry about is all them girls that'll be hoochy-coochying around, waving and saying, 'Why ain't that old Arnold Peabody up there going around the world again? My, my,' they going be saying, 'ain't he smart to do a thing like that?'"

My teeth suddenly felt dry, so I licked them right good. "Hoochy-coochying?" Something rasped in my throat.

"Hundreds of 'em, Arnold boy!" He reassured me. "And all of 'em just waitin' to hug you to their bosoms!"

"Well, shoot fire!" I bent down and scooped the empty beer from the ground, studying it for a long time. Finally, I licked at my teeth again then looked at Booley. "I guess I wouldn't mind. I ain't really been around the world in past couple of days anyway…"

Old Booley, he just jumped up and down. "I can tell you for sure this time, Arnold boy. You gonna really be famous, all right. You can sure as snuff count on that!" He whirled, then went into the shop to get himself another beer. I watched as his Adam's apple bobbed up and down a few times as the cold beer sloshed down his throat. Then he paused and burped the gas away, his eyes watering real tears when he did.

He motioned toward his workbench as soon as he could catch his breath. "Yes sir! I got it all figured out this time, all right!" He pointed at the monster-sized boomerang and the seven alarm clocks that were all laid out in a straight row. He burped again, and then said, "a perpetual motion machine, Arnold boy, or the nearest thing to it anyway!"

He sat his beer down and I watched the bubbles as they come right up from the bottom of the bottle. The glass was wet and frosty-like and my teeth were still like dried out cotton.

Well, sir, I thought. There ain't much use in meetin' fame with a cotton dry mouth so I puckered right up on old Booley's beer and sucked it all down when he wasn't looking.

Booley set to it, just whistling and squinting, pointing blindly to the cooler behind him. "Whyn't you get yourself another beer, Arnold boy? Won't take me long to whip this thing out!"

And that's what I did. I went to the cooler and got myself another, then slipped an extra one inside my shirt just to while the time away. After that, I went to the rear steps and sat down. I just sat there and closed my eyes and got me a good suck hold on the beer and pretty soon I saw just wave after wave of pretty girls huggin' me to their bosoms.

Outside, it was still Saturday, and the birds was just warblin' inside their tiny little throats, and behind me, in the shop, I could hear old Booley just working away. And, after a little bit, when I went to get me another beer, I saw him standing knee deep in sawdust, just grinning to beat sixty.

"Well," he finally asked. "Whatta you think, Arnold boy?"

I took me one long look at that big old bent stick that Booley had just made and said, "I think I'm gonna have me one more beer, Booley!" I had just seen the biggest old genuine aboriginal boomerang that I had every seen in my whole life. The entire top side of the blades were carved like an airfoil, while a number two wash tub sat in a hollowed out section in the structure's center, and those seven alarm clocks were mounted around the perimeter of the "cockpit," each one ticking, each one of them showing a different time, and each one of them labeled with the name of one of the seven continents. A large fish bowl was mounted on top of the wash tub like a canopy.

I felt an uneasiness stirring in the pit of my stomach so I chug-a-lugged my fresh beer. Then I went to the cooler and got me another. "What are all the clocks for, Booley?" I casually asked between swallows.

He seemed surprised. "Why, them's your power train, Arnold boy! One clock for every continent!" He went on to explain. "Say for instance that you're over Europe. Europe's alarm goes off, a spring unwinds and turns a gear which gives this old boomerang a right snappy spin and flings you right over to Asia." He smiled brilliantly. "Then, Asia goes off and flings you off somewhere's else! Same thing happens until you finally run out of clocks! Then you'll come sliding right out yonder in the back yard again. A boomerang always comes back" He told me. "You already seen that!"

He got to making excited sounds through that wide gap in his two front teeth again as he wrenched the thing outside to a tall rotating gin pole.

"Just think, Arnold boy! You gonna be the first person to ever fly around the world on clock power!" The sucking sound whistled through his teeth. "Ain't nobody ever done that before!"

A long cotton rope dangled from an arm at the top of the free-wheeling gin pole. Booley grabbed it and hooked its long, looped end to a notch that he had cut in the boomerang's tip. A winding pumper belt twisted from the gin pole's geared shaft and ran over to a lug wheel pulley on Booley's jeep.

Finally, when he was done, he said, "Well, get in, Arnold boy! Them clocks is tickin' and the world's a waitin'"

Then old Booley latched the fish bowl down tight over my head and things began to look a little distorted from where I sat. But pretty soon, I heard the muffled sound of the jeep's engine roaring into life and I just sat there with my eyes closed, looking forward to all that fame and all them girls that was gonna hug me to their bosoms.

Finally, the gin pole turned, and the boomerang bumped slowly across the ground until it began to gather up some speed. "Whither," it said. "Whither-whither." Then it began to gather enough serious momentum to start swinging outward like a rock in a slingshot. Then, finally, "WHITHER-DITHER!" That old machine began tightening on the line, and every time that it went around, it gathered a little more speed. Pretty soon, all I could see was just a blur jumping up and down on the top of his jeep, shouting and hollering to beat sixty.

"You gonna be famous, Arnold boy! This time, you gonna really be famous!"

Well, sir, they say that fame don't never come easy, and them that wallers in it, has paid the dues of sacrifice. I didn't want to be no different, so I just opened me up another beer and somewhere in my mind I could see all them girls down there just waiting to hug me to their bosoms.

"Why," they gonna be saying. "Ain't that old Arnold Peabody up there going around the world again? Ain't he smart to do a thing like that!"

An' then I'm gonna open me just one more beer and then I'm gonna smile real big an' wait for all that fame that old Booley predicted. Wallerin' don't beat swallowin', but then, neither ain't real bad!

I hope you enjoyed this little piece of aviation lore. Watch for more of Booley's "escapades."

Check Them NOTAMs, Buzz!

Buzz really likes grass strips. He says that's because they all have fuel on field. That's why he gets real upset when he finds one closed. His little engine performs best on high-octane clover, and his aeronautical design is especially suited for short/soft field takeoffs and landings.

New Pilot
Well, she's finally done it. On Thursday June 20, Sue got her Private Pilot license. Many thanks to Bill Newton and others (you know who you are). I couldn't quite come up with a "Top Ten" list, but here is my Top Five list of things that happen when your wife becomes a pilot. Drum roll please.........

Number Five: She now talks to me in ATC lingo.

Number Four: We have a checklist for everything.

Number Three: She insists on sleeping on the left side of the bed.

Number Two: I can now spend all the money I want on airplanes.

Drum roll please, here is Number One: I thought when she learned to fly I could break the skirt barrier, but instead she has broken the pants barrier.

(Note from Sue: Since I was under orders not to delete anything, I guess I should be glad he could only think of five.)

See you at the meeting and fly-in at Mountain Grove!

July Meeting Announcement

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