March 25, 2007 Meeting Minutes

March’s meeting began with the Pledge. With Mr. Bower away I decided to accept the challenge of juggling the roles of substitute president and minutestaker. Lynn Nelson from EAA HQ recently sent a letter to chapter officers asking us to encourage our members to write our representatives concerning FAA’s new funding plans. I let the group know I’d forward the message on to the Yahoo e-mail group.

Ron Schipper (sorry if the spelling’s wrong - it’s pronounced ‘Skipper’), a Boy Scout leader, introduced himself. They’re camping out at the R/C field near the Orchard Farm campus on May 19. He asked if he might bring the group over to see the ARC. Since it’s on a Saturday several members let him know they’d be around to show them the facility.

Rob Morris, son of our own Vince Morris, then addressed the group. He works at Boeing with a group of Korean engineers and is looking for ways to introduce them to general aviation. We suggested he let them know about the International Young Eagles Day and Airport Open House in June. Rob is going to work on getting a flyer translated into Korean. Since we’ve done many educational presentations specifically aimed at Scouts we discussed the possibility of something similar for Rob’s group.

Speaking of Young Eagles Gale passed along word from Dave Lucas. He’s planning on bringing the new biplane to all of our YE events this year. I’m jealous of those kids already.

Steve Morse reminded us of the PowerPoint presentation in the files area of the Yahoo Group site. He’s done some shopping and has found us a good deal on a TIG welder, so we’ll soon be adding an important new tool to the ARC.

Leo has also been doing some pricing, in this case for a water treatment system. Hague can provide a system for around $3100. Installation would cost $150 and the running cost comes out to around $15 per month. One question raised regarded cost of recycling the system on a regular basis. Leo is going to invite a representative from Hague to address the group at a future
meeting.

March 25 was unusually warm so memories of freezing our behinds off in January and February were faint.Nevertheless some members are looking to next winter. Dave Harster has specs on a radiant heating system for approximately $2400 and will present this information soon.

Bud Cole invited interested parties to his house on April 1 for a pot luck dinner during which he’ll discuss a proposal to jointly build ten or more low cost ultralight or LSA homebuilt aircraft. Bud’s got an extensive resume and will provide the design and access to tools. He theorized that many of us are in the predicament of lacking the time, money, or skills to complete a project, but if a group worked together such obstacles could be overcome.

Jim gave the treasurer’s report and announced that he’ll be leaving us at some point this year. He’ll be flying out of Kentucky for UPS. Gary Kasten will be taking over the post. Gary’s already got a head start on this job due to his previous involvment in our Dierberg’s/Schnuck’s/Shop N Save fund raising program.

The meeting adjourned but we did not disband due to plenty of activity in the ARC. March was metal aircraft month and some of our Zenith builders brought parts in for our inspection. The Ridge Runner left the ARC and, after some tweaking, taxied to the hangar under its own power. Steve’s LongEZ took its place.