December 2015 Holiday Meeting Minutes

Dave Doherty presided over the Christmas party/December meeting.

Don Doherty reported the checking and savings account balances.

Dave ran down the state of the RV-12 project at the 6 month mark. He’s got the engine waiting at his house.

Rick May reviewed the year of Young Eagles’ events: we had 1 rain-out and 7 events, and flew over 250.

The Pumpkin Drop in October went well.

This spring the airport put in a new well and we were able to tap in at the administration building. We now have fresh water that does not smell of iron and sulfur, and also installed an on-demand hot water heater.

We officially installed Vice President Bill Doherty and Treasurer Don Doherty as returning officers. Don notes that we’ll need to do some fundraising in 2016 to refresh our funds.

Next on the agenda was the presentation of chapter service awards, followed by our guest speaker: Charlie Becker, who gave a presentation on the One Week Wonder project at Oshkosh.

Following the presentation was the 50-50 drawing and gift exchange, after which we parted until 2016.

November 21, 2015 Minutes

November's meeting began with the Pledge, Dave Doherty presiding.

We approved October's minutes.

Don Doherty gave the Treasurer's Report, including checking and savings account balances. He reminds us that the weather's getting colder so remember to close the bathroom doors. He also mentioned that we've dispatched 18 mice this season so far, so please keep food properly stowed.

Visitors include John Housely, our speaker. John flies a Pitts S2B. Pete Farber found us on the internet. He's retired from the Air Guard and came to check out the chapter. Christopher Ward and his wife Victoria just moved up from Jefferson CIty where Christopher was the Young Eagles coordinator. He's building a 750 Cruzer.

Old business. Jeff Stephensen held a geocaching event at the ARC. When he was at a national event in Seattle they discussed holding similar events across the country; they presented the chapter with a $100 donation. About 80 attended.

Rick May reports that 18 pilots flew 250 kids this year, 185 were first-time flyers. Both numbers are the best we've had in the last 3 years. We also flew 35 parents. Laura Million gave out 122 merit badges. Ground crew participation includes 140 attendees over 7 events. Rick notes that Bill Doherty contributed much to the effort by managing food. Note that we have 2 spots reserved for the advanced air academy at Oshkosh. We're not sure who yet, let Rick May know if you have a candidate.

The Cystic Fibrosis bike ride day coincided with our last YE event. We provided cooking services. They raised $143,000.

We raised $1,300 at the October airport open house. Bob brought his Pitts for display and thanks those who helped plant flags around it.

Food cards are another part of our fund-raising. See Rob Burnett.

Tell Bill Doherty if you need a lock code... email

The RV-12 is almost ready for attachment of the tail cone. It's also time to test the fuel pumps. Testing of the anti-servo tab was successful. Chuck spent almost a week inside the plane trying to get wiring completed. Dave reports the engine is on order. Target completion date is 4/2/2016, with 5 month behind the team.

Speaking of Chuck, he finally got married, and soloed November 1. Bill Doherty took care of the traditional, civilian solo ceremony, presenting Chuck with a chapter t-shirt and then cutting the tail off it. Last weekend he completed his cross country to Litchfield.

We need at least 50 attendees to break even on the holiday. Charlie Becker from Oshkosh HQ is our guest speaker. Location is the same, tickets are $25 in advance, $30 at the door. Email Don if you plan to attend.

Our old upright freezer has died and we've got an offer of a donated unit.

Jim Hann bought Ernie's old Cavalier project and has been trying to figure out how to complete it: the wing is one piece and would require a climate controlled 30 foot space. He's offered to swap the Cavalier and some cash for the Fly Baby project. Dave talked with John Thayer, who's been heading up the project. Not much has happened. John was interested in the Cavalier at one point but not any more. Dave is open to Jim's idea. Jim will need to do a thorough inventory of the Fly Baby to give us an accurate offer.

Today is election day for Vice President and Treasurer. We handed out paper ballots to add to 14 electronic votes.

Chuck mentioned that we could use new seals on the bottom of the garage doors.

Meeting's adjourned and will reconvene for our presentation on aerobatics.

October 2015 Minutes

October's meeting began with the Pledge, Dave Doherty presiding. Parking was dicey today and attendance light, as we were sharing the airport with the Cystic Fibrosis Cycle for Life event. In spite of the chill two Stearmans did a flyover.

Don gave the Treasurer's report, including checking and savings account balances.

Ronald Twente, who works at Flight Safety International and has an IFR-certified Cessna 150, is with us as a new member. John Bruell( ask Gale) who retired from Boeing and is getting current again is visiting.

The back wall and flagpole base have new coats of paint. Thanks to all who donated their time and effort.

The FlyBaby and Sonerai projects have not changed recently, though the RV-12 is progressing quickly. The group is working on the wings, they've requested the finish kit early. They're planning to paint the plane here, building a paint booth in the ARC with an appropriate exhaust strategy. Decision on the paint system is still in discussion.

We're looking for the chapter's approval to make new member packets. These will go the entire current membership.

Food coupons are available after the meeting from Ron Burnett.

Rick May debriefed us on the end of the YE season. For this year 245 kids flew from the ARC. We flew 30 last Saturday. This will add to the total of 200 Oshkosh has recorded for our chapter, so we'll have 230 points at 5 dollars a point for next year. The new flat screen on the back wall is a Young Eagles expenditure; we ran the YE introductory video during October's event. We're considering sending two kids to Air Academy next year, and have a couple of candidates in mind.

Vice President and Treasurer are up for election this year, nominations will be closed at the end of the meeting. Don and Bill Doherty are our current nominees, no others were put forward.

Tonight is Trivia Night at CBC. Chapter 32 has a table reserved for this year, last year we took second place.

Next Saturday is the Smartt Field Open House and Pumpkin Drop. We need volunteers to staff the ARC. We made around $700 serving food.

Later that evening we'll show First Light, a movie about a pilot in the RAF.

After the meeting we'll be cooking hot dogs for the cyclists, but before that Tom Sparr will speak about his career with the Air Force.

September 2015 Meeting Minutes

September's meeting began with the Pledge, Dave Doherty presiding.

Don gave the Treasurer's Report, including checking and savings balances.

Chuck Gorman is now a member. He's been around as president of the new flying club.

Rick May was absent so Dave gave the numbers for last week's Young Eagles' event. We ended up flying 38 eagles and 9 adults, thanks to 5 pilots and 21 ground assistants.

Bob Murray has done some research on our water heater project. He's concluded that an on-demand heater would be a good solution.

Jeff and the membership committee will be auditing to make sure all new members for 2015 have information packets and door codes.

Ron Burnett has food coupons.

October 3 will be a work party for ARC improvements. We'll install the water heater if we have it. We'll paint the flag pole base and building trim. The garage door could use some paint as well. For 2016 we'd like to paint "EAA32" on the roof and paint the interior metalwork brown. The airport will be sealing asphalt.

Troy chapter 1387 will have a Young Eagles event on October 3 at H19.

The flying club is making impressive progress on the RV-12 project. Gale has inspected and approved the work so far. There are six equity members, about the max for insurance purposes, though all are welcome to work on the project. We've got one possible paint scheme but may
have a contest for more options. The group has gotten 32YE as the registration number.

Dave got a call from a representative of the NHRA, they're looking for some planes to do a flyover in conjunction with the National Anthem. 9/17 at 10:58 a.m. Let Dave know if you'd like to participate.

Zenith Aircraft fly-in is today until 2:00 p.m. CAF Hangar Dance is tonight.

October 17, our next meeting, will be elections for treasurer and vice president. Currently Don and Bill Doherty are the only nominees.

The Aviation Business group will hold their annual trivia night, also on October 17.

Next Young Eagles, our last of the year, will be held October 10.

Our upcoming movie will be Island In the Sky, September 26, starting at 6:00 p.m.

August 15, 2015 Meeting Minutes

August's meeting began with the Pledge, Dave Doherty presiding.

I was out last month, so no minutes to approve.

Don Doherty gave the Treasurer's report, including checking and savings account balances.

Visitors include Steve Long from the FAA. He'll give a presentation following the meeting. Whitney Pearce is visiting, has an airplane, and wants to know how to maintain it. Chuck Gorman is here again and has joined the chapter since last month. He'd been thinking about a Kitfox but after visiting Oshkosh he's evaluating his options.

Rick reported on last week's YE event. YTD, for our 4 events (at which we were able to fly,)  we've flown 177 kids over 139 flights with 17 different pilots. Last year we only 158 over 5 events. (108 flights and 10 pilots.) In April we had 21 ground crew, May 18, June 20, July 21, last Saturday we had 20 ground crew. Rod Hightower and two others brought Stearmans (John Ladley and Doug Watanabe). We involved some kids in pulling rivets on the RV-12, so they got to build as well as fly. We still have two more events: second Saturdays in September and October. When talking with other coordinators, Rick gets the question, "How many has your chapter flown?" According to Oshkosh we've flown 7,759. (George Stephenson flew over 1,000 of those himself.) Charles Miano was in attendance as well, and is one of those 7,700 kids, and just passed his CFI check ride.

We need to replace our water heater. Sounds like smaller units are not as common as they once were, so we're considering an on-demand water heater. It would require an additional 220 outlet. The cost for the water heater would be around $200. This is within the limits of an Executive Committee decision.

Dave had the food coupons this month.

We've received a donation of paint for the inside girders.

Pumpkin Drop is coming up in October, and the CAF Hangar Dance will be in September.

Chapter elections take place in November. Treasurer and Vice President are up for re-election. We've got a volunteer to manage the nominations, looks like Don and Bill Doherty are running again.

12/5 will be the Holiday Banquet. Charlie Becker will attend from HQ and talk about the EAA.

Movie of the month is Fighter Squadron.

Bud Cole, an original, founding chapter member, passed away on the Saturday before Oshkosh. He attended most meetings, except for the last few. Dave would like to see his name on the wall at Oshkosh. Dave McGougan notes that he has a videotaped bio of Bud that he made as part of his chapter veterans project.

There are still openings for one or two members in our flying club. They're building the donated RV-12.

Motion was made and seconded to close the meeting.

June 20, 2015 Meeting Minutes

June's meeting began with the Pledge, Dave Doherty presiding. Jim Hann brought the Piper out for us to take a look.

No minutes to approve for last month; I was absent.

Don Doherty gave the treasurer's report, including checking and savings balances. Balances are smaller thanks to paying the bills for our clean water project. We need to replenish this, and got a start with the RV-12 project.

Bob Danner and Kai came out to help with Young Eagles last week and came to visit the meeting.

We flew 32 kids last weekend. The weather was sunny and fine for flying. Laura ran the Boy Scout badge program. RIck arrived late and gave a report. There were 31 flights total, 9 pilots. We were able to fly several parents, including 2 who rode along with their autistic son. Rick reported YE tallies for all of our pilots.

Jeff and Art are working on an updated, online roster.

Rob Burnett has food coupons for Dierberg's and Shop-N-Save.

Per Bob Kraemer there's no updates on a 2015 MACTS conference.

We had an ARC work project in May, got a pile of rocks removed from the dug-up area around the new well.

(Something big with a round engine flew very low over the ARC. Bill went to identify the bird: it was the CAF TBM.)

On the BD-4 project Art has taken a look and feels that, outside of scrap aluminum, all that's worthwhile is the spars.

The flying club was finally incorporated. The bank required a fictitious name for an account, so Dave and the group settled on "Spirits of Aviation Flying Club, LLC." They're going to squeeze some rivets after the meeting.

Movie of the month will be tonight, Flying the Feathered Edge, a biography of Bob Hoover. Next month we'll see Fighter Squadron with Robert Stack.

Jim Hann gave a report on his PA-22. He went into this as a project and ended up as the sole owner, but purchased without a pre-buy inspection, discovering later that he didn't have the correct wings. (There's a pair of Piper wings in his hangar for sale if you're interested.) He reports it as a work in progress. Having a type club or website is a great help when taking on a type certificated aircraft a project, Short-Wing Piper Club and shortwingpipers.org for example.

Thanks to the current monsoon Dave addressed flooding issues. The crest should not reach our airport this time around though it's a good time to review procedures. Since the ARC is higher than the hangars we can store some planes in here, first come first served, though members renting hangars get top consideration, and members get priority over non-members. If the water gets as high as the ARC we plan to rent a container that we can fill and haul away. We'll call members for volunteers to fill the storage container. Note: 30 feet floods the north hangars.

Next month is Oshkosh, July 19 --> 26. Several members are going up early to stake out campsites. Our meeting is prior to this so we'll discuss AirVenture business, such as where to meet for the chapter photograph,

Tom Sparr notes that the International Stinson Club is flying in on the 19th. Poplar Grove (used to be Belvedere) sells mogas.

In August Jackie Jackson, a Harrier pilot will address the group. Libby will tentatively speak in September, and in October Tom Sparr will give a presentation. Charlie Becker from Oshkosh will be our speaker at our December Christmas event.

April 18, 2015 Meeting Minutes

April 2015's meeting began with the Pledge, Dave Doherty presiding.

Mr. Bill brought his new, fabled yellow Sonex in so we could see that it was, indeed, real. Jim Hann came straight from work, still dressed in his pilot's uniform.

We approved the minutes from last month's meeting.

Don Doherty gave the Treasurer's Report including checking and savings balances.

New member Chris has built several planes and has always intended to join EAA.

Last month we discussed a new phone setup.

We have water again in the ARC. We still need to purge the lines, run some chlorine through, and replace the water heater. Even without the cleaning our new water supply is pleasantly free of the smell our prior water had. We voted on and approved the purchase of a new water heater.

Rob Burnett has Dierbergs and Shop-n-Save cards.

Last week was Young Eagles. Rick May reports we had 23 total volunteers and 9 pilots, flying 54 kids and maybe 3 adults flew. Laura had 23 scouts for her merit badge presentation. Note to ground crew: please have your pilots sign the forms. Pat Donovan had a good system: he printed a sheet of adhesive address labels with all his information. Bill Doherty reports that we cleared around $180 on food sales, and requests volunteers to cook and sell food at future events. We need two or three at each event. We could use more volunteers at the events in general.

New Business:

We'd like to add Tom Baker and Tom Huebbe to the Memorial Wall at Oshkosh. It will cost $700, and so far we've collected $500. See Dave Doherty if you'd like to contribute. A number of our chapter's members are already on the wall.

Sun-n-Fun is coming up this month. Two members present at the meeting plan to attend. On the 20th there will be a memorial there for Tom Baker and another who recently passed.

Missouri Aviation Convention and Trade Show (or whatever its new name will be) is coming up, though we don't know the exact date. Bob Kraemer will let Dave know when he (along with other flight instructors) learn the date.

The airport is going to seam seal the driveway up to our parking lot. We need to do the same and will need a team of people for this project.

The flagpole needs paint as does the south-facing blue trim.

Dave would like to do something with the interior, cinder-block wall, making it presentable and functional. Rick, for example, suggests hanging a flat-screen to display information at YE events.

Dave would also like to paint EAA32 on the roof, visible from the air.

We'll have a work day in May, date to be announces.

Our RV-12 construction is about to start, Tom Crocco and the group will meet after today's meeting and presentation.

Does anyone want to buy a BD-4 project?

April 25th at noon will be the next Board of Directors' meeting.

The newsletter is now sent out via email unless specifically requested otherwise.

Jeff Stephenson reports that the roster is now available as a cloud document and is up-to-date. A link's available on the chapter website.

The movie of the month starts up again this month with The Bridges of Toko-Ri. We start out with barbecue and a pot-luck dinner starting at 6:00 pm.

Jeff Stephenson announced that he proposed to Michelle on Valentine's Day. He invites members to fly out to Kilo 33, the wedding will be in Dent County. They're in the process of moving to St. Charles.

Dave notes that our passed hat contained enough to cover the balance of Tom Baker and Tom Huebbe's addition to the Memorial Wall.

Motion was made and seconded to adjourn.

Our guest speaker, Alan Hoffman, will speak on the history of Lambert Field.

March 21, 2015 Meeting Minutes

March 2015's meeting began with the Pledge, Dave Doherty presiding.

Last month's meeting was cancelled due to weather so we approved January's minutes.

Rick May spoke regarding April's (11th) Young Eagles event, the first of the season. The first event's usually a big one; he's gotten inquiries already as has Laura. Laura is going to try to hold her merit badge sessions down to twenty. She has set up a Google sign-in sheet for the Boy Scouts. Gale offered to follow up with Sea Cadets' leadership to see if they plan to come. There's a new sign by the front door Rick had made up to provide some up-front information. Events will continue through October on the second Saturday of each month, provided Old Man River cooperates. Volunteers are always welcome. Rick and Jeff Stephenson will try to keep the Eagles program running, let Rick know if you're interested in participating. It's intended to be more of a mentoring program, a little more in-depth than the YE program. If, during a YE event, a parent shows special interest let Rick know.

Rick also presented a certificate to Tom Crocco and another to Kim Nack, neither of whom made it to the Christmas party.

Norman Valenti is visiting today, his first time here. He's getting his sport pilot license at St. Charles Flying Service. He's tried IFR but decided not to go that route. He learned originally in '92, owned a machine shop that he sold and is ready to get back into aviation.

Chris Orf is visiting as well. Bruce Bogue, Amir Saehr, Pat Donovan is visiting from the Bowling Green chapter, 1387. He notes that their YE events on on the first Saturday of the month in case you can't make the second here at 32.

Fresh water: the plant has been ordered by the city of St. Charles, they're anticipating April, after our YE event. We're going to close our bathrooms and provide a port-a-potty.

Fly-Baby: John Thayer notes that we've got a Corvair motor and some books regarding rebuilding the same. Zenith will be holding a Corvair college later this year so that may be an opportunity.

Sonerai: That needs a paint job so that may be a task for 2015.

RV-12: We're forming a flying club to build and fly this plane, if interested they'll meet in the office after the financial presentation.

Herman has a Taylorcraft he'd be willing to let us practice-cover.

Lifetime memberships: Gale Derosier had his jacket, Dave passed out jackets to others: Dave Doherty, John Thayer, Bob Kraemer, Ron Burnett, Bud Cole, Vince Morris, Ron Wright.

We need to have another board of directors' meeting in the early April time frame. Dave will send out invitations.

Jim Hann was in Oshkohk at Hops and Props. If you like beer and airplanes there's a regular night at the museum. You pay for a glass, sample beer, eat a 5-course dinner, and get to enjoy the museum when crowds are not present. He notes there are shuttles available in case you're not in driving-condition afterwards.

We took a brief intermission prior to Don's presentation.

Don Doherty presented on the 2014 finances.

Motion was made to close the meeting after which we enjoyed a presentation by our guest speaker, Lieutenant Colonel Leonard Weber, who flew L-19's in Viet Nam.

January 17, 2015 Meeting Minutes

January's meeting began with the Pledge, Dave Doherty presiding.

Our holiday meeting went well.

Don Doherty gave the Treasurer's report, including checking and savings account balances, soon to be incremented by dues, and then decremented by the water line.

Visitors included Mark Trokey, who is working on an Airdrome Aeroplanes Fokker D-VIII. He's having issues with his VW power plant and is interested in talking with chapter members familiar with such engines. Michelle Fobbs, friend of Jeff Stephenson, was also present.

The ground's torn up outside due to airport construction, in particular our new well. There's a tall pipe in place to take care of the 500 year level. Our old well is disconnected. The water processing plant's not yet connected in the main building, pending a report from DNR. Everything should be complete by February including grading. We're also getting a new concrete slab poured due to some cracks that appeared.

Dave witnesses some of the process, including digging one well to feed the water drill that dug the main well. A dedicated technician was on site to make sure the tool remained defrosted.

To pay for our part of the water project we're going to sell some airplane projects, including the RV-12. Sub-kit one of five is in the ARC.

Other airplane projects include the FlyBaby and Sonerai.

Jeff Stephensen's working on new member packets and is updating the roster. It will exist in the cloud; four or five people will have access to make updates. If you are a new member and have not received a member packet please contact Jeff Stephenson.

We now have a new lifetime membership for $475. Jackets for existing lifetime members are on order and will arrive shortly.

Ron Burnett left food coupons with Bill Doherty to take care of this month.

Rick May spoke about Young Eagles. 2014 numbers are in the last newsletter. Back in November someone flew the 1,900,000th Young Eagle, so 2015 will likely see number 2,000,000. Rick handed out a document describing this year's program including event dates and volunteer jobs. If you are interested let Rick know as he maintains an email list to keep you up to date. Rick handed out participation awards to those not present at the Christmas party. He mentioned that we need a Food and Beverage director for the chapter, a position that will apply to YE as well. We made a motion to create the position, seconded, voted in favor. We noted that this will also involve tracking food expenses and will discuss further at the upcoming board meeting.

New Business

Dues are due now. Fill out the new form if you haven't yet.

MACTS is not in January as in years past. It will likely take place this spring.

Besides the fresh water Dave would like to accomplish some other building projects: lighting the EAA sign, driveway seam sealing, south side trim needs paint, paint "EAA32" on the roof for passing planes, paint metal work inside the ARC blue, sell the RV-12 and BD-4 project. The BD-4 needs to be photographed. Ron Wright suggested getting a quote on sealing from the crew that's on site for the well.

Saturday January 31 at noon will be our next board meeting.

Jeff Stephenson's moving our roster to an electronic format, just like the newsletter. It'll go from the existing Access database to a Google Doc. This way we'll be able to get things current, and we'll save us in expenses. Contact Jeff or Dave Doherty if you'd like a physical, paper copy mailed to you via U.S. Mail.

Upcoming Events

Chapter 64 just turned 50 and will have an event tonight at Parks.

Don mentioned the we're continuing our Movie Nights. Suggestions included Kelly's Heroes, To Hell and Back, Red Tails, 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, and First Light, about a pilot in the Battle of Britain.

Jeff S. proposed out another fly-out meeting/event.

Motion made and seconded to close meeting, we'll reconvene for the presentation: George Andre, former SR-71 pilot and current Reno air racer.