EAA Chapter 251 Sept.&Oct. Newsletter-Alamogordo,New Mexico

President-Ken Henderson-- kenhenderson@zianet.com
Vice President-Richard Finch-- finchbooks@tularosa.net
Secretary-Brad Bowen-- vegas2224@aol.com
Treasurer-Will Stigers-- tigerdin@tularosa.net
YE Coordinator- John McLaughlin-- jpat_6@hotmail.com
Website-- www.eaa251.org
Webmaster- Jim Holder-- holder@netmdc.com
Directors-Jim Fairhurst-- swifty@hauns.com
Bob Hurd-- rhurd@zianet.com

Meeting Notice- The next meeting of EAA Chapter 251 is scheduled for Oct. 10, 2006. Meetings are held in the passengers lounge at Alamogordo-White Sands Regional Airport at 1800 hrs.

Featured speaker will be John Wareing who will talk of his adventures in the world of civilian air transport pilot. This is sure to be a good one. Be sure to get there early to get a good seat. Refreshments will be served between the business meeting and the program. All are invited to attend.

Item 1- Augusts speaker, Cameron Baxter, entertained the membership with his experiences at EAA Air Academy this summer. Cameron was sponsored by Chapter 251 and had a very enjoyable and educational time at the Academy. It is always wonderful to see a young person embrace the opportunities offered them and do well. Cameron has expressed an interest in an aviation related career and all of us at 251 can be proud of the hand we played in his decision. Now we need another worthy candidate!

Item 2- Septembers speaker, Jim Holder, regaled us with tales of an interesting experience. Jim is probably one of the few that has had a jet fighter shot out from under him while on the ground, and not being the pilot. If you missed it, you missed a great story and one that had every military pilot in the membership putting in his 2-cents worth! Quality fun like this cannot be obtained except by government funding! We are all glad Jim is OK, sort of. Speaking of which, Jim recently received his atta boy from the FAA and will be getting his medical back and will soon be able to return to the heavens where he rightfully belongs. Way to hang in there Jim!

Item 3- The EAA Fly-In in Moriarty, N.M. on Sept. 8-10 was attended on the 9^th by your editor, coming in from Colorado, and Richard Finch and Brad Bowen coming in from Alamogordo. This Fly-In is very well organized and obviously well supported by local businesses. There were plenty of fine airplanes there with the RV Crowd being well represented as usual. Of particular interest to me was a KR-2S flown in by Jeff Scott of Los Alamos. He has done a very fine job of building this airplane and the low level, high speed pass down the runway with a respectable climb out had me wishing mine was closer to completion. Wolfgang Meyn of High Rolls won the Judges Award for his F-1 Rocket. Wolfgang promised to come around more and start being more active in the chapter after his airplane was completed. We will be expecting him at the next meeting. It is apparent that his 40 has been flown off! The Lobo Wing of the CAF opened up their hanger and had a sundae bar going. We all enjoyed ice cream and got better acquainted with Konrad Werner of the Albq. Chapter. We also saw a better-looking knock-off of a Zenith 701, Ugliest Airplane Flying, as termed by Richard Finch and all were in agreement. I did not see this airplane arrive but I saw it leave and it was like an elevator. Its really what I need for D.C. Intl. Here are a few pictures of what was going on in Moriarty.

1- Jeff Scotts KR-2S	2. -Robbie Robinsons 2/3 scale Falconair Avia SAL P-51 Mustang
3. -Brian Longwills 1944 Howard DGA-15 Nightingale	4. Prettier Zenith 701 Clone

Unfortunately, I did not see Wolfgangs F-1 Rocket so no picture was available at press time.

Item 3-Chapter 179 is selling raffle tickets for a ride in EAA’s B-17, Aluminum Overcast. The tickets are $25 a piece and they must sell between 140 to 280 tickets to have 7 rides to give away. Your odds could be as good as 1-20 or as bad as 1-40. Either way, those are good odds for a $375 ride for $25. Contact Jack Hickman at jghickman@aol.com or 505-263-7786 or Don Gillmor at dgillmor@rt66.com or 505-243-9748. I have tried both of these e-mail addresses trying to buy a ticket and have gotten no response. Your results may vary!

Item 4- Our chapters Young Eagle Event on 9/16/06 was well received by the local community. We flew a total of 38 kids, some for the third time, but it was all good! Our pilots were Bob Hurd, Maurice Morgan, and John Wareing. Brad Bowen handled paperwork with Kelsey Scribner, Jim Holder, Will Stigers, Richard Finch, and Ken Henderson handled the ground crew duties. Kelsey acted as official photographer and his pictures would be displayed here if my computer would open the file. However, our Webmaster, Jim Holder, and his super computer were able to open the file and the pictures are posted on our website at www.eaa251.org. Be sure to check them out!

Item 5- The August tire kicking at John Wareings shop was attended by John, Richard Tinguely, and myself. Johns shop is rather cozy and the amount of work he has managed to get done and stored in such a small area is testimony to the ingenuity of the homebuilder. The construction of Johns RV-8 is coming along well and the quality of the work is excellent. He has probably received his fuselage kit by now from Vans and I hope it is one of the newest ones that come with matching hole technology at no extra cost. It sometimes pays to wait!

Item 6- The October tire kicking scheduled to occur at Ken Hendersons barn to view his KR-2 project has been postponed. He was hoping to have it on the 21^st but will probably be in Idaho that week. He extends his apologies and hopes all will understand.

Item 7- Minutes for August 8 Meeting of Chapter 251- The August meeting was very well attended, and the guest speaker was Cameron Baxter.
 
Cameron's topic was his weeklong experience at Oshkosh, the Mecca of all aircraft homebuilts.  He shared with us two projects the he built. One was a composite airfoil, and the other was a demonstration of sheet metal skills at its best, a half cube shaped bracket with a desk clock laid inside.  A real nice souvenir to last years to come.  Cameron also shared the pictures that were taken of his group and all the activities they did.  One was a tower they had to scale, and there were more of their incentive rides in the Young Eagle aircraft.  He shared some in progress photos of the three workshops he attended as well.  Cameron said he had the opportunity to build a wooden rib but it was too big to fit in his suitcase to bring home. 
 
When asked to sum up his experience only one word came to mind......AWESOME!!!  He sincerely thanked everyone that helped make his trip possible and couldn't wait for his next opportunity to do this again.  So in Chapter 251 fashion we gave Cameron a huge, you’re welcome. He bid us farewell at around 7 pm.
 
After a short break we proceeded with the usual round robin.  The new news was Sept 16 is the next planned YE day.  There was talk this was also the same weekend as the Balloon Festival but plans are to still have the YE day anyway. This we felt was very appropriate to stay in the Aviation mind set for the weekend.  Aug. 8th is the Moriarty fly-in the Zenith aircraft company will be on hand for those that are interested.
 
Before this turns into a book I'll wrap this up with some last bits of news.  Planned tire kicking at John Wareing's place is postponed until further notice due to the unpredictable weather.  The new website is up and running the address is www.eaa251.org.  Jim Holder is the webmaster for this site and requesting us to send any aviation links that we would like to see attached to the website.  The Nov. tire kicking will be at Will Stigers to see his Harmon Rocket. 
 
The meeting concluded at around 8:15 pm.          
 
Brad Bowen
2267 C Sierra Loop

Item 8- Minutes of September 12 Meeting of Chapter 251- Not available at press time.

Item 9- Election time is upon us again for Chapter 251. During the meeting on Oct. 10 we will be nominating and voting for candidates for President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, and ClassII Director. We will also discuss available candidates for the position of Young Eagle Coordinator. You must be an active member with your dues paid to vote. All members please attend this meeting, as it will be determining the leadership of our chapter for the next 2 years.

Item 10- At the safety meeting for the Holloman Aero Club on Sept. 16, V.P. Richard Finch was the featured speaker. He gave a presentation on the new FAA Sport Pilot Rules and Regulations. It is hoped that the Aero Club will purchase a Sport Pilot Approved Airplane for instruction. Time will tell. Member Ken Henderson was the lucky winner in the monthly drawing and won $300. He promptly turned it over to the secretary to buy more flight time.

Item 11- Concerning the Young Eagles Phillips 66 fuel rebates- Fuel must be purchased with a Phillips 66 Aviation Credit Card. You must submit the receipts for fuel bought to Phillips on their rebate form. Your account will then be credited with the rebated amount. Anyone wishing to take advantage of this deal please e-mail me at kenhenderson@zianet.com and I will send you the copy of the Phillips 66 Rebate Form so you may make copies for yourself.

Item 12- Just a reminder that EAA Chapter 251 has a YE Day scheduled to coincide with the planned Airport Appreciation Day on Dec. 16, 2006. The chapter has not heard much from the other parties involved in this event as of yet so it is hard for us to plan anything but what we intend to do. A Fly-In of the local chapters was discussed but it may be too late to pull that off. We will discuss this at the monthly meeting and decide what Chapter 251 will be doing.

Item 13- And now comes the part of the newsletter that I enjoy the most, the progress reports!

Jim Holder- Jim and Richard Finch have been hard at work rebuilding the front section of his Wittman Tailwind/Nesmith Cougar. A new spring main gear has been added as well as repairs made to the framework. I recently visited Jim and got to see his new panel in progress and the former RV-6 wheel pants donated by Maurice Morgan, which Jim has adapted and painted to match the new gear. It will be a whole new airplane when he is finished!

Jim Fairhurst- Jim recently got his RV-4 out of maintenance and has been making up for lost time. I observed him doing some tight, steep turns and a four-point aileron roll for the benefit of my neighbor in Dog Canyon. Remember Jim, Gs cost money, how fast can you afford to roll?

Will Stigers- Will has been steadily plugging away at his Harmon Rocket. Hopefully at Novembers tire kicking we will be able to see what progress he has made.

Richard Finch- Richard and wife Gayle have been plagued by health problems and numerous doctors visits lately and have not had a lot of time to work on their Zenith 701. Richard hopes things will improve soon and he will be able to get back on track with his construction. We all wish him the best and hope good health will shine on him and Gayle.

Bob Hurd- Bob has his engine in his RV-6 back together and is breaking it in. He hopes that he has finally outrun those pesky motor gremlins and wont be pulling it back apart anytime soon.

Maurice Morgan- Maurice continues to practice his RV GRIN. Hes getting awfully damn good at it too!

Kelsey Scribner- Kelsey has nearly completed the fabric work on one of the wings of his airplane. I spent a day in the mountains at his shop learning how to rib stitch. I hope to learn more as I help him with the other. Kelsey must be an extremely patient man as there are a lot of little pieces of wood, fabric, sewing, etc. involved in his creation and it is not a kit. He made all those spruce splinters himself. He has also ordered his VW short block and is waiting for the UPS man to deliver it.

Ken Henderson- I have made no progress on the KR-2 since last report except doing more research. I am still trying to clean my shop to be able to work without falling over something. I am still looking for a Grove 1-piece main gear and a set of Diehl pre-molded wing skins. I was able to obtain a Corvair engine in Colorado that I hope will serve as my power plant. Got an opportunity to see a flying KR-2 and speak to its owner, builder, and pilot at the Fly-In in Moriarty. That really gave me a much-needed kick in the butt to get things rolling. Expect a better report next month.

Well thats all I have for this newsletter. Keep the sky on top and the ground below, unless you are Jim Fairhurst!