EAA South Central Ozarks Chapter 1218

Address inquiries, information, suggestions, or criticisms to the editor, Fred Kalhoefer, Route 1, Box 71, Macomb, MO 65702; phone (417) 683-2870; e-mail redbaron@getgoin.net.

Greetings!
If you think this newsletter is late, you are correct. I intentionally delayed publishing the newsletter so that you would be freshly aware of the meeting date this month. Our meeting will be on Saturday, May 19th, at 4:00 p.m. at the, by now famous, White hangar. This meeting is a family event. Bring the kids, some hamburger or hot dogs, some buns and something to drink and maybe a desert (my favorite is ice cream). We will prepare all this (not the kids!) on Ron White's giant grill, relax and talk aviation.

The reason for deviating from our normal schedule is to allow our members to fly, drive, or jog to Poplar Bluff where our own Clint Allen will be performing aerobatics at the local air show on our regular meeting date. There will be a free breakfast at the air show for those that fly in during the hours of 8:00 and 10:00 a.m., so you might forget about driving or jogging, crank up the old Lycoming or Continental and fly over there to give our man Clint a big hand. The field will close at 12:30 p.m. so that all air activity can take place safely, but you'll want to be there early for the free breakfast anyway.

Upcoming Events
Our meeting in the month of June will again be on the regular date, the second Saturday. I would also like to make you aware of some other dates this summer. They are a Young Eagles Flight on the 23rd of June at Mountain Grove Airport, the Grasshopper fly-in at Mansfield Airport planned for July, and we will -- in all likelihood -- join our efforts with the Missouri Pilots Association for their air show at West Plains (Pomona) Airport in September. I am telling you about these dates now so that you can keep your calendar clear for these events. A strong showing of pilots and aircraft is essential if we want the airports in our area to survive. There is a movement in many of the city councils in the area to shut down their airports. Maybe now is the time to start thinking about one or more airport coöperatives to take over ownership and management of the airports in the area. We have many other successful working coöps in this state involved in various enterprises, including the rural electrics, some telephone coöps, and farmer coöps. Even some banks and insurance companies are organized as coöperatives. A cöop can be as large or as small as you want it to be. Coöperatives are formed under the Capper-Volstead Act, on which you can obtain information through University Extension. Think about it. Your comments are appreciated.

The April Meeting
	Several members flew in to our meeting in April. The weather was pleasant and the hangar doors were open. It was good to see so many airplanes lined up on the green grass. Willow Springs is certainly a pretty airport, one of the nicest in the Ozarks.
During the meeting, we filled an opening for an at-large member of the Chapter board of directors. Doc Openshaw kindly agreed to serve, and he was confirmed by acclamation of members present.

Featured Members of the Month

Roddy & Teresa Clark

Roddy and Teresa in their kitchen

Roddy Clark had polio when he was about three years old, in the days before polio vaccine. It left him with complete paralysis in his left leg, and a lot of muscle atrophy and partial paralysis of his right leg. He wears braces. But it hasn't stopped him from making a living in the pump installation business -- or from flying. Roddy and Teresa have been active in the Grasshopper Squadron for a number of years, but they've seen numbers decline in recent years after a key member passed away. They hope to start attracting new members. Last year they had a very successful fly-in at the airport in Mansfield and plan to do it again this year.

Roddy became interested in flying in high school. He and a friend were going to be aeronautical draftsmen. He really never thought he could fly because of his legs. But he used to hang around the air field. The man, Bob Love, who had the airport said, "Rod, when're you going to learn to fly?" He said, "I didn't think I could." But Bob said, "I know a lady who doesn't have any legs at all, and she's flying an Ercoup." But he said not to learn to fly in an Ercoup. Another man had a Tripacer (the one Roddy eventually bought). "Don took me up in that thing and I flew a little bit and figured out that I probably could learn to fly. I lived at Monett at the time, so I went over to Aurora where Lawrence Stahl had a Cherokee 140. We went up for a demo flight. I lifted my left foot up on the rudder pedal with my hand." He said, "Forget that left leg -- put it over there to the side -- and see if you can go back and forth on the rudder pedals with the right leg." So he did. They scheduled a lesson for the next week. When Roddy went back for the lesson, Lawrence said, "I've been flying all week with one foot, and you can do it! It's a little different, but by the time I get through with you, you'll be good at it." It works OK in a Cherokee, but a Cessna is a disaster because of the spring-loaded nose gear. Roddy says, "I've also flown the Seneca and the Apache. When you push the rudder pedals, the nose gear turns; that's all I need, and a hand brake. I'm limited to an airplane with a hand-operated brake." When Roddy took his practical test, he had to do it with an examiner employed by FAA under the "demonstrated ability" clause. He got his license in 1977.

One Friday evening, Roddy called home and said, "Teresa, I'm at the airport in Monett. Come out and we'll fly to Aurora together." The kids were at home, but their daughter was thirteen, so she went with him and they flew to Aurora. When they got there he said, "Well, I see my money was well spent." She said, "What are you talking about? I haven't done anything." He said, "That's just it -- you didn't grab hold of the seat or anything!" So he paid for her to take a pinch-hitter course. Teresa recalls, "After that, I got hooked, so I went ahead and started taking lessons. I would never have done it without him -- never. I really loved it after I got started. I had to quit taking lessons for a little while, though, because I had to have some discs taken out of my lower back. So I just went to ground school. Later, after moving back to Mansfield, I started again. But it was hard to bend forward to work the lever to put the flaps down. I had some real trouble with my new instructor over that (he was a good pilot but he didn't think women should fly), so I finally wound up driving back to Aurora to take lessons with my old instructor." She finished in Aurora and I got her license in 1980. She says her "old" instructor signed her off to fly from Mansfield to Aurora, so she rented the "new" instructor's airplane to fly there! After that, he caught on and raised the rent on the airplane.

Then they bought the Tripacer from Carroll Rogers. Teresa was working at dentist's office and Roddy was working in the oil fields in Oklahoma. He flew it back and forth to Bartlesville, but he left it home one week for Teresa to become familiar with the airplane, because it was time for her biennial flight review. She called Carroll Rogers. Now, Carroll didn't know that she already had her license, so he was surprised when told it was time for her biennial. So they'd go flying in the afternoons after she got off work. When she was ready, she called her "new" instructor and set up a time to go flying with him. He said, "So you're taking lessons again?" She said, "No, it's time for my biennial." He said, "WHAT?! It takes two hours to do one of those!" She said, "Well, then, we'd better get started!" Teresa says it was an awful experience. He resented her being a pilot and tried to trip her up on both maneuvers and knowledge of the airplane. But she was prepared, and he signed her off.

Roddy did most of his flying to Oklahoma by pilotage, because the Tripacer had very little in the way of navaids then. He's been adding some new instruments recently.

We are constantly amazed at the accomplishments of our members as we read their bios. Remember, they are all "preserved" in the archives on the Web site. It's a quick and easy way for new members to become acquainted with the members who have been in the Chapter longer. However, we haven't come anywhere near writing about everybody yet, so be prepared to be asked. We're willing to give you every help in getting it written, as we know some folks just have a hard time sitting down and doing it.

Project Stories Another occasion for sitting down to write something is to tell about any homebuilding, modification, restoration, or repair project you have in progress. To make this easier, we have paper forms available with guidelines for doing it. And now we have made this paper form available on the Web site, too. Go to the Lots of Links section, scroll down to the Bulletins box, and click on Project Submission Form. Save the file to your hard disk. It's in Rich Text Format (.rtf), which can be opened in Microsoft WordPad (part of Windows 95/98) and can also be read by most other word processors. You can download it as a file, read the instructions, and fill in the blanks with your story. Then send it back to Sue Kalhoefer (dairylady@getgoin.net) as a file attached to an e-mail message.
Oops! "Warning!" Read this: If you are like me, by now you are probably tired of the constant appearance of warning labels that warn you of about any and every little thing that could happen if you do something stupid, such as taking a hairdryer or other electrical appliance into the bathtub. If you order hot coffee you expect the coffee to be hot, right? although it is sometimes hotter than expected. Climbing a ladder can be hazardous, and by now $90 of the cost of a new ladder goes to insurance and the cost of litigation (that amount was in a Newsweek article). All this has been brought about by an unprecedented number of lawsuits that have forced many industries -- aviation among them -- to their knees. Costs have been driven up and money flows from the consumer to the hands of a few smart lawyers. Most of us, including me, have by now been so upset by the barrage of obvious warning labels that we ignore the important ones. Such is the case with this writer, who ignored the all important warning labels on the garage door, which said "if you remove these bolts the spring will relax and this bracket will hit you." With a chunk of one nostril missing and an emergency room and doctor bill well over a thousand dollars, I have suddenly found a new awareness of warning labels. They are not all dumb and we should read them and pay attention. So if you encounter a water reservoir over a toilet that reads: "WARNING, WATER NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION," read it, smile and DON'T DRINK THE WATER! Scam Warning Now, here is a real warning for you which I received from EAA Headquarters for publication: "Attention EAA Member. It has come to our attention that various Chapter Members and Leaders have received e-mail notices from an individual claiming to be from Nigeria and proposing that you help them in bringing a large sum of money into the United States. THIS IS A SCAM!!!!! Do not under any circumstances give them any personal or chapter-related banking information. Their goal is to obtain your banking account information and take your money. Do not respond to them in any way. EAA is making every effort to alert our Members about this SCAM. Please advise all your Chapter Members and fellow EAA'rs to not respond to these individuals. Their intentions are to steal your money." Brenda Anderson Chapter Administrator banderson@eaa.org Of course, I can't think of anyone in our group who would be dumb enough to fall for such a scam, but I needed to tell you about it anyway, since we have a lot of our e-mail addresses on our website. Member Notes Let me take a few minutes to "officially" welcome all the new members who have joined Chapter 1218 this year. Others who have been members for a long time have re-activated their interest in EAA. We are very happy to see all these people at the meetings.
May Meeting Announcement
Again, our meeting is on Saturday, May 19th at the White's hangar, on Willow Springs Airport at 4:00 PM sharp. Well, that's it for this month. See you at the meeting!

Disclaimer: The content of this Newsletter is to provide information, schedules, and biographies of chapter members, and information of interest to aviation enthusiasts in the south-central Ozarks. No technical information or direction is offered or implied. If, by some strange coincidence, a personal opinion or observation be found, such does not necessarily reflect the position of EAA Chapter #1218 or Experimental Aircraft Association.

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