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 Dick Jackson approaching the boat ramp after a flawless water landing in NC50V |
From the president's shop....
Hello All,
What a great aviation month it's been with the Reno Air Races on one end of the US and Greenville International Seaplane Fly-In at the other end. I don't know about the weather in Reno, but the weather in Greenville was absolutely spectacular. It was quite ironic as a frontal system dumped tons of water on the Seacoast area and Greenville experienced weather in the upper 70's and the bluest of skies.
The mighty Sikorsky flew up on Thursday of the Greenville weekend and wowed the crowds until Sunday. We had at least six EAA 225'ers at the event. Many members of our Young Eagle sister Chapter 1210 were there also. Carl Pepin had his beautiful Stinson there as he volunteered all weekend. Carl was especially instrumental in getting Dick & Pat Jackson's Sikorsky down to the water and up the boat ramp. The Sikorsky water landing and ramp arrival was flawless with record crowds witnessing the event. There were many looks of AWE on the faces as the Sikorsky taxied up the ramp at the Seaplane Base.
The Sikorsky spent all day Saturday at the Seaplane base with hundreds and hundreds of folks looking over "The Spirit of Igor". Many folks commented how they had seen pictures of the Sikorsky but had always wanted to see it in real life. Well they finally got their wish and there were many astonished faces walking around the giraffe look alike. It looked immense among all the other amphibs, even the tall Cessna 206 amphibs. Saturday afternoon Dick Jackson, assisted by Howard Moulton, flew it back up to the Greenville Municipal Airport for the evening's festivities.
To top off the spectacular, Dick & Pat Jackson won the Best Antique Seaplane award. Pat gave a brief bio of the history and reconstruction of the Sikorsky. It was a packed hangar dinner party audience and the crowd enjoyed what Pat had to say. It certainly was a great way to top off the weekend.
More than half of our EAA225'ers were housed at Gerry Hanscom's parents camp up on Lily Bay. Their hospitality was overwhelming especially with our late arrivals Friday night due to car troubles. They "left the light on for us" so we could find the camp along that dark lake road. The light was like a radio beacon bringing us home. Gerry's parents were up waiting for us and ready to share the stories of our wayward travelers. How gracious they were. Gerry was missed as he was partaking in the million man march on DC to protest our rapidly changing government. Congratulations to Gerry on attending that MOST important event. He said it was any amazing turnout and was quite happy he was part of it.
Well since that weekend it's been work, work, work. Unfortunately it's been on a chicken coop and not a Seawind. This weekend (October 3,4) is the Seawind Fly-In in North Carolina but due to schedule conflicts I won't be making it. But the good news is that there's plenty of beautiful flying weather up here. Speaking of October flying, the EAA Chapter 141 Limington Poker Run is on October 3rd and you should have received an email from George May, if not feel free to email him at GFMJR_20@hotmail.com
Well this month's meeting on the 13th of October should be a good one. We are planning a talk on 'tailwheel flying techniques' which will be ripe for discussion. The one thing about tailwheels is that there are definitely many, many ways to fly them. That's part of the enjoyment, it NEVER gets boring. Please come by and listen and give back any tailwheel stories you might have. As usual we'll have a barbecue starting at 6:30 and the meeting at 7:30. Come early for the food and chatting. It's sure to be an informative night. Even if you don't fly tailwheels now, it will make you think differently about your flying.
Last month's meeting was a great show with two projects, one from Kirk Snader and the other from George May. Kirk had some neat first flight experiences to share with us and we are grateful that allowed us to learn some important lessons from him. We'll share more of that during the tailwheel talk at our October meeting. George May's project is a plans built Thatcher CX-4 and we were able to look at some fine fixtures that George made to make many duplicate parts such as ribs. If anyone has a hankering to build a Thatcher, George offered some of the dies to help you just start the project. Very kind of him indeed.
And lastly, please don't forget the Young Eagles Rally on October 10th (rain date October 11th). I've got the word out to the Barrington Schools, we still need ANY school in your town contacted ASAP so our rally can be a success. It's a great program but we really need to reach out to the children to make it work. Please, please, please put some flyers up around town and especially ask about listing the even in your local school's online newletter.
Well that's about it for now, we hope to see you at the Young Eagles Rally and later on the 13th at our monthly chapter meeting.
Happy building and safe flying,
John Ricciotti
EAA Chapter 225, President