November 2004

Greetings, Members!
After seemingly unending days of clouds and rain, which was needed, the sun came out on the very day we needed it, and it was nice and warm. The trusses for the Chapter hangar had been delivered, and Ron White called for a work day to paint them. A huge number of us showed up for breakfast, some flying in, and then we painted and painted. Because we had such a great work crew, though, nobody was overworked and we finished by mid afternoon, even taking a break for lunch. Trusses, paint, and time all came out even. They can be seen standing on the foundation pad.

		Photographs by Sue Kalhoefer

October Sunshine
We had another beautiful day for the meeting in October at John Smith's. Many members flew in that day. Ron White flew in with the Stearman, with Ray Fine riding. (Ray was seen crossing himself later when they took off, with Mike White at the controls!). The 170 also flew in, but didn't happen to see which member of the White family was in the cockpit. "B" came with Bill Newton in the C-172, and she didn't spill anything from the dish she was carrying. John Zook arrived in the T-Craft—it always looks so stately in the air. Hokie arrived in the Luscombe. Doc Openshaw flew his Cub and Don Anderson came in the Luscombe. A highlight was when Jim Evertsen arrived in his Hughes helicopter. That quickly got a lot of people gathered around to look and ask questions. It was a mini airshow, for sure.

At the meeting, the nominating committee announced the results of their work in finding people willing to serve the Chapter during the year 2005. The candidates for office are Doc Openshaw, President; Henny Christensen, Vice President; Phyllis White, Secretary; Gene Pascoe, Treasurer; Jim Tausworthe, Board Member at Large; Sue Kalhoefer and Bob Bohemier, Young Eagles Coordinators; Sue Kalhoefer, Newsletter & Web Editor. Sharon Vaughn will assist the Treasurer with accounting and tax matters. We will vote on this slate of officer candidates at the November meeting. Provision will be made for nominations from the floor but, as always, we suggest that anyone wishing to make such a nomination be sure to check with that person to see if they are willing to serve if elected. And, as always, all members are expected to "serve" at all times to keep the Chapter moving forward. A lot of new duties will become evident as a result of having our own hangar, so be thinking of ways you can help and be counted on.

John Smith was our host for the October meeting.	There was a lot of interest in Jim Evertsen's Hughes helicopter.                                        Photographs by Sue Kalhoefer

After the business meeting, we were all treated to buffet lunch by Joyce Smith. Every dish was Mexican style and very good. A lot of work went into this meal, and we thank Joyce for it. It seems that everyone looks forward to coming to John and Joyce's, and it's becoming something of an annual tradition. October seems to be the perfect month for it, too.

Ron White's Stearman	Berlin Batesel's Luscombe	Doc Openshaw's Cub
		Photographs by Sue Kalhoefer

Giving Thanks
Our November meeting on Saturday, November 13, will be our annual Thanksgiving dinner meeting. We are invited to Ron White's hangar. Ron will be cooking the main dish meats, but members should bring side dishes, salads, and desserts. The business part of the meeting will be at 4:00 p.m., but come earlier for visiting. If you haven't got your deer earlier in the day, the chances are you won't, so give up and get ready to come—don't be late! We'll eat after the meeting.

Young Eagles
We're working on gathering customary dates for the town festivals at which we will want to fly Young Eagles in 2005. We hope to have them listed in the newsletter during the winter, and start including them on the calendar when they are in the date range covered each month. Pilots, when you see a Young Eagles event listed, plan to set aside the date and be there. With the Centennial past, it is tempting to stop flying the kids. Especially with gas prices being what they are. But the kids who become eligible each year don't know about those things. We know the program is successful. EAA has done everything possible to make it easy to participate. The Chapter has a faithful group of ground support volunteers. We can't do anything about the weather, so we don't try to factor that in. We always proceed as though the event is going to take place, right up to the last minute. In 2003, we had 18 active pilots; in 2004, only 7. This small group worked very hard at the events that weren't weathered out, plus some individual flights, and created 117 Young Eagles. Had the weather not been a factor, and with a few more pilots, we would easily have met our goal of 200 for 2004. We have provided for reimbursement of gas expenses—it seems our pilots are too sheepish to take advantage of it. Remember the proceeds from the sales of books donated by Jim and Millie Tausworthe are dedicated to paying for gas. So please turn in your gas tickets and fly those kids! We still have a few of the books, in case you haven't read Jim's wonderful stories yet. They make great Christmas gifts, too.

The Schools
During the October meeting, Henny discussed the problems associated with school programs and the flight simulator. She emphasized the need to have a list of volunteers who can function on a rapid response basis to go to a school and make a presentation. The school people don't always understand the limitations of time, distance and weather (to transport the simulator) involved in giving a presentation, and they are thinking of their own curricular needs. Since not everyone is available all of the time, we need a large block of members from all over the area to become familiar with making a presentation and manning the simulator. That way, when there is a requesting school, the person who functions as coordinator can quickly arrange a team of three or four members who are close to the school.

"A Memorable Flight"
Chuck and the other man have disappeared deep into some room of the building, negotiating details, I suppose. But I've also got to fuel the Tomahawk, so I can't be worrying about them. I discover something good: the fuel price here is only $2.29. But it's a complicated do-it-yourself thing where you stick in a credit card and follow the prompts. It starts out by asking if you've grounded the airplane, so I look around and find the grounding wire and attach it, then press the Yes button. Then it wants to know how much I want, and on and on like that. It finally tells me I can start pumping. While the fuel is pouring in, a really beautiful airplane has landed. The view of it is partly blocked by the buildings, but it finally taxis back toward the ramp, swings around a little way off from where I am, and a man and woman get out. They walk over and introduce themselves. They are from Iowa and the airplane is a Navion. They tell me a little bit about it. Then they tell me they had landed on the closed runway—hadn't seen the yellow X until committed to landing—and found the surface very rough. I told him I had come close to landing on it, and he said, "You can be glad you didn't." (I was.)

After fueling, I push the Tomahawk away from the fuel island, outside of the purple circle painted on the ground. I see Chuck and the other man come out of the building and walk to the Ercoupe, so I grab the small camera out of my pocket and take a short video clip. I then head back to the building to get the other camera.

By previous arrangement, Chuck has told me that he would take off first and circle the airport a couple of times. If everything is OK, he will just hang around out there until I take off, and then fall in behind me for the trip home. We will use 122.75 to communicate once out of the pattern. When I walk back into the building, another man says, "He said to tell you he's taking off now." I glance out the window to see Chuck taxiing out to the runway. Oops, that was fast. I grab my stuff and head back to the Tomahawk.

I quickly sump the fuel tanks, climb in, and run through the startup checklist. I look around for the entrance to the taxiway that Chuck has used, find it, and taxi out. By the time I get to the runway end, he's already taken off and is out there somewhere, circling. He lets me know he's ready to go.

So I run through the checklist and announce departure, push the power on and take off. It's 1:55 p.m. Just before reaching pattern altitude, Chuck says he's changing to 122.75. I give it a few more seconds, then change, too. He wants to know if I can hear him; I say yes, and we are on our way home, but I haven't spotted him yet. I ask where he is, and he says, "Behind you, but your gonna have to slow down. What rpm have you got?" I tell him, and he says, "Try 2400." I lower the nose some, and slowly pull it back to 2400. Hmm, working OK, speed slowing some and climb rate drops to 500 fpm. "How's that?" "Still too fast. Try 2200." Lower the nose some more, ease it back, end up with a 100 fpm climb rate, but staying stable. It's a long way to 5,500 feet like that, but I'm no longer outrunning him. We're not doing too much talking right now, and I'm busy concentrating on keeping airspeed and climb rate on target. Once in a while Chuck says, "How are you doing?" I say, "OK, how about you?" "OK." "Where are you?" "Right behind you, about 500 feet below."

I finally reach 5,500 feet, but figure I'm going to lose some when I first level off, so I go through it a little. Sure enough. I level off, gradually accelerate, but the first thing you know, Chuck says I'm going too fast. "What's your airspeed?" "About 88 right now." "Slow down." I pitch the nose up a little and retrim, not wanting to reduce rpm any more. But by the time we are moving along at the same speed, I'm down to 2150 rpm and 79 knots. I find a pitch where I can maintain altitude and airspeed. The Tomahawk is behaving beautifully, to my great amazement. There is no sign of mushing, and no need for flaps. Our groundspeed is varying between 3 and 5 knots faster than airspeed. So I spend a few minutes leaning the engine. "Where are you?" I ask. "Look to your right." At that point, he does a quick climb to above my altitude, slightly behind me, then back down. The Ercoupe really looks nice.

We travel along, reidentifying all the same landmarks on the chart. But the sun being in the west makes things look different. Very pretty. Chuck asks my heading. I tell him 060°. He says he thinks the wet compass isn't reading correctly. Airspeed indicator might also be a problem.

Somewhere out there, we hear another woman pilot talking to her ground base about the aerobatic maneuvers she is practicing. Listening to that breaks the monotony for a while. She never gives a clue to where she is located.

I watch our progress on the chart, comparing it with the distance remaining on the LORAN, and they match. The landmarks I am seeing match the course line on the chart. Things feel right. I recheck all the engine instruments frequently, and they are OK. I keep a watch on the fuel level and the time on each tank. That's OK, too. Since I want to work on an instrument rating sometime soon, I practice keeping everything as precise as I can. But then we start getting into some bumps, even at 5,500 feet. My altitude starts to vary up and down a bit. I tell Chuck not to follow too close, as the thermals are acting on the airplane, and I don't want to have to readjust all the time. He says OK.

Pretty soon, though, we are getting close to Sallisaw again. I tell Chuck I'm starting down, a long gradual descent. We are about 20 miles out. I change to CTAF. After a little while, I hear somebody calling unicom and asking for an airport advisory. No response. I know not to expect one there. As we cross the lake and come in range, I simply announce pattern entrance and the legs to traffic, in case there is some, but there isn't any. It is 4:05 p.m., a two hour and ten minute leg, only ten minutes longer than when we were going the other way. Once again, there is nobody around at the airport. We pull both airplanes up near the pump and get out. The door of the FBO office is locked, but there are phone numbers listed. We get the cell phones out and start down the list. We have to start through the list a second time before somebody finally answers the number Chuck is calling. He tells whoever it is that we need fuel and we don't have time to waste. Whoever it is says he'll be here in 15 minutes. It is now 4:15 p.m. I remember the 5:00 promise. We sit on a bench outside the office, in the shade, and review things. Finally, a man shows up from behind the building, but it turns out he is not the one. He's just a local stopping by the airport. But while we are talking, the FBO man shows up, and starts fueling the airplanes. He gets paid, we climb in and start up, and we hear traffic in the pattern. We hold off a few minutes, then start slowly taxiing to runway 35. I get there just in time to see a King Air land. A couple of minutes behind him is a Tomahawk!

I announce departure and take off. It is 4:50 p.m. This time I know exactly what power setting and speed I'll need, but I wait until above pattern altitude to settle into them. We change back to 122.75 and work the long, slow climb to 5,500 feet again. When we level off, we take note of how long the shadows look on the ground. The days are getting shorter. We try to remember exactly what time it got dark at home last night. Around 7:45 p.m. We should make it before then. Strangely enough, the Boston Mountains don't look any darker now than they did in the morning—the difference is that now the sun is on our side of them instead of behind them. We fly along and find that we have more wind this time, and it is more of a headwind than before. It takes more correction to stay on course. But our course takes us right over the Harrison VOR, and we finally see it in the distance. It stands out gleaming white in the late afternoon sun. The needle swings and the flag flips over as we pass through the zone of confusion.

Next we start to see Bull Shoals Lake in the distance. That means we'll soon be in Missouri. Bull Shoals sparkles and we decide at what point we've crossed the state line. I change to the Dogwood VOR and keep track of what radial I'm on, comparing it with my visual position on the chart because there really aren't any good landmarks along the course line from the lake all the way to Willow Springs, especially in late day. I check the digital CDI on the LORAN frequently, too, and make sure I'm on course directly to the airport. At about 20 miles out, we start descending; as we pass through 4,300 feet, we are splattered with a zillion tiny bugs—must be gnats—how do they get up so high? Fortunately, it is a thin layer.

I announce to traffic when we are 10 miles out. Chuck says, "Do it again on 122.9!" Oh, yeah, forgot to change the radio. As we get closer to Willow Springs, we try to decide wind direction. It really seems to have died down a lot now. What we see in the distance is smoke lying in a layer just about over Willow Springs. But I can't find the point of origin, so it isn't much help in determining wind direction. Not only that, it is interfering with visibility. Must be a grass fire somewhere. Got to find the highway. I'm only 3.4 miles out according to the LORAN. Finally, I spot the point of origin of the smoke, looks like southeast of town, with a lazy drift to the west, wind not a problem now. Chuck says, "What runway are you going to use?" We're not concerned with wind direction at this point, just getting on the ground before dark. I say, "Whatever one I find first, I'm landing on it." I finally spot the highway and let it guide me around to the south end of the airport, where I strain to spot the runway in the shadows. Ah, there it is. I widen out to my right to allow for a better final leg, set up for landing, and turn final for 35. The landing is OK (I was worried about depth perception changing in the low light), and I'm glad to be on the ground. But it actually looks lighter once we are on the ground. Maybe looking through the smoke layer made things seem darker. Chuck comes in right behind me. It is 7:15 p.m. and the sun has just set. We are home and he has an airplane!

The trip home only took 45 minutes longer than the trip down. Slow flight turns out to be a lot more economical than normal cruise speeds, using 4.82 gph as compared to 6.32 gph. It really is a memorable flight.

Buzz Thunderbee
Last month Buzz reminded all the little flying things of hazards in the air. I hope wasn't any of his gnat friends that ended up on my windshield. This month antenna cleanup is on his "to do" list.

That's it for now. Plan to be at the meeting next Saturday afternoon at Ron White's hangar. Bring your dues and a side dish or dessert for the dinner. Consider dressing up a bit. We'll see you there!

November Meeting Announcement