TheWingNut Open House One for the history books! EAA Chapter One. Flabob Airport (RIR) Riverside, CA. We make flying FUN! Volume 55, Issue 10

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1 TheWingNut EAA Chapter One Volume 55, Issue 10 Flabob Airport (RIR) Riverside, CA We make flying FUN! October Open House One for the history books! Burt Rutan at the Gala Banquet (From left) Tom Poberezny, Jerry Cortez, Burt Rutan, Ray Stits, Tom Wathen Only at Flabob! It was a unique moment in aviation history. On a beautiful clear Saturday, Sept. 27, hundreds of aviation fans and some of aviation s greatest gathered at Flabob for a celebration of the spirit of flight at EAA Chapter One s Open House. Those who attended the standing-room-only Gala Banquet experienced history. On stage together stood (Continued on Page 3) Tom Poberezny speaks Burt Rutan and Ray Stits Photo by Erik Tom Wathen

2 EAA Chapter One Officers Directors President Jerry Cortez (951) Vice President Gino Barabani (909) Treasurer Nancy Acorn (951) Secretary Lloyd Dunn (951) Tech Counslors Norm Douthit -- (888) Jim Pyle -- (951) Flight Advisors Ron Caraway -- (760) Hal Nemer -- (760) Webmaster Jan Buttermore WingNut Editor Leon Grumling Young Eagles Wes Blasjo -- Coordinator Ray Stits (951) Leon Grumling (951) home (909) cell Jim Pyle (951) cell (951) home Karen Schicora (951) Walt Wasowski (909) home (909) cell Ad Rates Business card size-- $5.00 per issue 1/8 page, 4 x 2½ -- $10.00 per issue 1/4 page, 4 x 5 $18.00 per issue ½ page, 8 x 5 -- $26.00 per issue Calendar October rd -- First Friday Flicks Chapter One Hangar - 5 p.m. 4th-5th -- SportAir Workshops Chapter One Hangar - see schedule 11th -- Young Eagles Rally Chapter One Hangar - 8 a.m. 12th Chapter Meeting Chapter One Hangar - noon 12th -- Board Meeting Chapter One Hangar - 1 p.m. 18th -- Design Group Meeting Chapter One Hangar - 10 a.m. November st -- Young Eagles Rally Chapter One Hangar - 8 a.m. 2nd -- Chapter Meeting Chapter One Hangar - noon 2nd -- Board Meeting Chapter One Hangar - 3 p.m. 7th -- First Friday Flicks Chapter One Hangar - 5 p.m. 8th -- Veteran s Day Celebration Flabob Airport - all day 15th Design Group Meeting Chapter One Hangar - 10 a.m. December th -- First Friday Flicks Chapter One Hangar - 5 p.m. -No Young Eagles in December- 6th -- Christmas Dinner Chapter One Hangar - 6 p.m. 20th Design Group Meeting Chapter One Hangar - 10 a.m. Kathy Rohm -- Reservations ye@eaach1.org Volume 55, Issue 10 Page 2

3 The Prez Sez... With the help of Tom Poberezny and Burt Rutan (and all our volunteers) our Chapter One 2008 Open House was a success. We were honored by Tom to be our last Forum speaker for the day. Our dinner guests had a chance to hear Tom again at our Gala Banquet Dinner. Before the program started, we opened our doors to everyone who did not buy a dinner ticket in time (we sold out over a month ago) to let everyone be part of our Open House program. Burt kept all our 250-plus guests eyes wide open throughout his speech. What a great speaker! One of the LSA exhibiters sold his display airplane. When I talked to the other LSA exhibiters, they told me they had a few good prospects. October 4th and 5th will be our last EAA SportAir Workshop at Chapter One for the year. This workshop will include Sheet Metal, Electrical Systems and Avionics, Fabric Covering, Composite Construction, Test Flying Your Project. We are not done with events for the year though. Chapter One is helping with Flabob s Bi-Wing Gathering October 17th through 19th, Flabob s Veterans Day Celebration November 8th and then we have our membership meeting/christmas Dinner on December 6th. Did I mention our last two Young Eagles Rallies in October and November? Remember to send in the names of our volunteers to Karen Schicora and recognize our volunteers. The Doug Maxwell Volunteer of the Year Award is a great way to give a big Thank You to all the people who are out there making sure our events run smoothly. I know I couldn t do my job as Chapter One s President without them. If you haven t already, you will be receiving in the mail a voter s ballot for Chapter One s board positions that are up at the end of this year. These positions are President, Secretary and three Board positions. Please select your choices and mail them back in the self addressed envelope. The five open positions are two-year terms. Please give it some serious thought and select the five you would like to support you for the next two years. Vice-President, Treasurer and the two remaining board positions come up for reelection at the end of Thanks! Jerry Cortez 2008 Open House one to remember! (Continued from Page 1) Burt Rutan, arguably the greatest airplane designer and innovator who ever lived; Tom Poberezny, EAA President, founder of the Young Eagle program, and former aerobatic pilot; Ray Stits, famous airplane designer, inventor of Poly Fiber, and the man responsible for EAA having chapters, which makes EAA a unique aviation organization; and Tom Wathen, whose business expertise and love of aviation saved historic Flabob Airport, which is educating a new generation of students in the spirit of aviation. At the banquet, Tom Poberezny spoke for about a half hour, including a short video of AirVenture. Then Burt Rutan took the stage and mesmerized the audience for an hour and a half. The crowd, more than 270 people, trickled out of the Chapter One hangar after 9:30 p.m. It was a tremendous end to a fantastic day. For a change, Mother Nature cooperated with Chapter One. No rain. No Santa Ana winds. Just a beautiful, clear day that saw some 140 airplanes fly in, and hundreds of people walk the flightline. And our Silent Auction went well, brining in over $2,300! There were dozens of aviation displays along the flightline, including homebuilts, LSAs, historic aircraft, roadable aircraft, and everyone s favorites kettle corn and Hawaiian Ice, along with numerous other fattening goodies. In the hangar, educational forums went non-stop, including presentations by the Design Group on gyros, Casey Ann Erickson, of the 99s and IAC, on flying other than straight-and-level, the Wright Flyer Project, Dr. Sam Puma, on the Puma Method of alleviating motion sickness, and Jon Sharp, on his record-setting Nemesis team. At 3:00, Tom Poberezny spoke about AirVenture and showed the video, The Spirit of Aviation. At 4:00, folks were cleared out of the hangar, and the amazing Karen Schirora directed the transformation of the hangar into a decorated banquet hall for 240 guests. It went like clockwork! Volume 55, Issue 10 Page 3

4 October Chapter Meeting speaker WWII glider project hopes to recreate Normandy landing for 65th anniversary On D-Day, June 6, 1944, hundreds of huge Americanbuilt gliders were towed behind C-47s across the English Channel carrying thousands of troops and supplies for the Normandy invasion. One Flabobian has a dream of doing one more such trip across the Channel...with the Flabob Express C-47 towing the world s only flyable Waco CG-4A glider, which will be released to land in a field in France to commemorate the 65 th anniversary of the Normandy invasion on June 6, John Pappas and a group of volunteers are working away in a hangar at Flabob restoring a CG-4 (the cockpit was on display at the Chapter One Open House). They hope to have it finished early in 2009, after which it will be disassembled and shipped to England for the mock invasion. John and another pilot will fly the Flabob Express to England to make the historic tow. The group has set up a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation to facilitate their grand plan, and Pappas is working to raise money for the project as well as get volunteers and oversee the construction. The corporation, The WWII Allied Glider Corps Commemorative Foundation, has a number of corporate sponsors, including Poly-Fiber, Aircraft Spruce, and a number of aviation museums and suppliers. The goal will be a truly historic one-of-a-kind flight. There are six or seven reconstructed CG-4s in the world, Pappas said, but none of them are airworthy. We are rebuilding ours to airworthy standards, and it will be the only flyable CG-4 in existence. What we need are volunteers to help us people who are good at welding and/or woodworking. Pappas said the D-Day celebration is held every year at Normandy. Everyone thinks the French hate us, he said. But not in Normandy. In Normandy, the French love us! People will come up to you on the street and say, We appreciate and recognize the sacrifice of the Americans. Pappas has done extensive research into the CG-4 glider and the men who flew them. Glider pilots were a breed apart. One American general said they were the most uninhibited individuals ever to wear an American uniform. It s no wonder. According to Pappas, the job was one of the most dangerous in the military. Many people think the gliders were used for stealth invasion, he said. but there was no stealth involved. The gliders were released at only about 700 to 1,000 feet above the ground. They were towed by C-47s. A C-47 at 800 feet isn t exactly stealthy. Flying so low and slow, both the gliders and the tow planes were extremely vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire. After release, the glider basically had only the time to make a turn and line up for a landing. With a glide ratio of 12:1 (about the same as a Cessna 172), the 8000-pound aircraft was soon going to land, ready or not. The glider program is one of the least known and understood stories of World War II. America s rush to develop gliders began after the stunning success of the German glider assault on the Belgian fortress of Eben Emael in May The U.S. began a crash program to create production gliders, and finally settled on a design submitted by the Waco Aircraft Company of Troy, Ohio, well known for its series of high-performance private airplanes in the 1930s. Waco s design used a fabric-covered tubular steel frame, plywood flooring, and minimal instruments. Waco built only about 1,100 of the 14,000 finally produced. Ford Motor Company produced the largest share more than 4,000 of them (Continued on Page 5) Volume 55, Issue 10 Page 4

5 CG-4A glider one of WWII s secret weapons (Continued from Page 4) but there were over 115 other contractors who participated, including the Steinway Piano Company, Anheuser-Busch, the Gibson Refrigerator Company, and the H. J. Heinz Pickle Company. Without flaps, the heavily loaded glider had an alarming sink rate. Free flight at the end of a tether demanded constant attention, and landing amounted to a controlled crash. The CG-4As were towed at speeds less than 120 mph, and they had a stalling speed of about 44 mph. The glider pilots had to work diligently to keep the craft aligned within a few degrees of the tow plane in a cone of safe tethered flight called the angle of dangle. If caught fully loaded in turbulent conditions, gliders were known to disintegrate. Aviation writer Budd Davisson relates on his airbum.com website, The airplane has some beautifully Goldbergian (as in Rube) operational features. For instance, the complete nose section, pilot seats and all, hinges up and out of the way so the cargo can be loaded straight in simply by pulling a couple of pins. A side benefit to that concept is it can be unloaded even quicker and protects the pilots in a really neat way. The gliders were sized to carry 13 men with combat equipment or a 75 mm howitzer attached to a jeep, or a jeep pulling a trailer load of ammunition. A healthy cable runs from the top of the hinged nose section back down the top of the fuselage, turns through a pulley and is then attached to the back of the jeep or howitzer. Then, as soon as the glider touches down a latch is tripped on the nose section so, if the load breaks free and tries to exit the front of the glider, its movement forward will yank the nose and the pilots up out of the way. In effect the airplane vomits out its load without squashing the pilots. If the landing is normal, the jeep just drives out the front and pulls the nose up as it does. The intrepid glider pilots had a unique job and a unique place in the military. As Davisson states, Glider pilots were, for the most part Flight Officers assigned to Transport Command. As such, even while they were operational, they existed in a sort of non-category that dogged them for many decades after the war. The infantry thought they were Airborne, the Airborne thought they were Air Force, and the Air Force thought they were Airborne. Pappas said their training was not extensive. They were given flight training in primary trainers, then transitioned to gliders. The military originally decided to train them in sailplanes, but that didn t work, because sailplanes sail, he said. So they took the L- series Aeroncas, Pipers, and Stinsons, took the engines out and reconfigured them. When towed aloft and released, these aircraft behaved like gliders and sought the ground. The English glider pilots were trained infantry, Pappas said. The Americans were not trained at all in infantry tactics. They were given and M-1 carbine and told, Go out, land your glider, get with a group, and as soon as you can, get back, because we need you back here to fly another glider. They fought only to save themselves. One observer noted, No one had seemed to take into account the enormous hedgerows in the countryside and factor this into glider landings. As a result, glider casualties were extremely high as they landed. The gliders and their contents were very vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire, sent into unknown, often rough territory for landings, behind enemy lines where they had to fight for their lives if they survived the landing. Never a dull moment for a WWII glider pilot. As one pilot who survived the war said, It was like flying a stick of dynamite through the gates of Hell. The former famous newscaster Walter Cronkite rode into combat in a glider when he was starting his career as a war correspondent in Cronkite later characterized his experience colorfully and succinctly: It was a lifetime cure for constipation! -LG Related story and photos on Page 6 Volume 55, Issue 10 Page 5

6 Help build the CG-4A glider Win a classic automobile! John Pappas wants to see someone win his beautiful 1962 Buick Special convertible. This is exactly like the car I drove when I was in high school, said John, whose father was general manager for a Buick dealer. The CG-4 group at Flabob is holding a raffle with one prize the Buick. Only 300 tickets will be sold, at $50 ticket. The raffle will put $7,000 into the CG-4 D-Day fund. The car is being purchased for $8,000 from Pappas for the purpose of the raffle. The current NADA estimate as found at the Hemmings.com web site lists this car as having a value from between $7,000+ for low to approximately $20,000+ for a high. The value is whatever you want to put on it between those two figures. It is definitely not a low value car, Pappas said. Pappas said that if the winner does not need or want another car, they can donate the car back to the CG-4 Foundation with appropriate gift tax receipts given to the donor. The car will then be raffled off again, with all proceeds going to the Foundation. Photos by Leon The cockpit section of the Flabob CG-4A. The luxurious interior of the glider s cockpit. Take Note Young Eagles is on Nov. 1st, the Chapter Meeting on the 2nd Any ideas for Chapter meeting speakers? John Durant, who has long been in charge of organizing speakers for our monthly chapter meetings, hit a home run by getting Burt Rutan as speaker for our Open House Banquet. Now, he s asking for your help as he lines up his slate of speakers for Dick Staley has agreed to assist John in the demanding task, but they would like your ideas for speakers. If you know any aviators with interesting stories to tell, let us know. Give Leon or any board member a call any time, and we will make sure each idea is given consideration. Volume 55, Issue 10 Page 6

7 From the Editor s Desk On Youth in Aviation At our Open House Gala Banquet Saturday night, guest speaker Burt Rutan began his address by asking, How many here are 60 years old or older? About 80 per cent of the audience raised their hands. How many here are younger than 30 years old? he then asked. Far less than 10 per cent of the 250-plus crowd held their hands up. We re screwed! Burt exclaimed, to riotous laughter and clapping. When I first joined EAA in 65 or 66, there were a bunch of youngsters, he said. And we were doing c-o-o-l stuff blowing off our own plexiglass canopies, firing off model rockets, and building weird airplanes like the Variviggin. We have failed you! Burt said. We, the airplane designers, we, the manufacturers, we, the creative people, have done a shitty job, if we are not putting something out there that is exciting, that gets kids fired up. He asked why aviation hasn t produced products which excite kids as much as cell phones, cameras, and software. By the way, he said, this charter school here at the airport is most refreshing thing I have seen in a long, long time. Burt s remarks hit home. There seems to be nothing happening in aviation today that can drag a teenager away from the computer screen. Some teens have their choice: It s an afternoon of World of Warcraft, or an hour in (as Burt Rutan calls it) a Cesspool One-Filthy. Most of our youth are opting for the computerized placebo of WOW. Fewer and fewer opt for the thrill of flight, which we as youngsters craved as we sat on bicycles at the local airports and longed to be in the air machines that churned into the sky. Kids today are different. To many, flight is not a thrill it s a boring routine of security check-points, waiting in line, and hours playing GameBoy on the way to Grandma s house. You want a window seat? Naah I received a call from a Young Eagles mom who wanted to get tickets to the Gala Banquet. As we talked, she told me that she brought her son to our Young Eagles program hoping he would get interested in learning to fly. He didn t but Mom is well on the way to getting her private pilot s license, and is enrolled at San Bernardino Community College s ground school course. He just wasn t interested in learning to fly, she said. I told her I understood, as my 16-year-old son had the same indifference to flight. I had to force my son to get his driver s license, I said. She laughed, My son is in college, and still doesn t have his driver s license. Kids are different today. Not to brag but Flabob Airport has more than its share of the next generation s aviation giants. There are kids here who love aviation and airplanes, and who are making a difference. Sometimes, without knowing it. After the banquet, I spoke with the mom, and she said she wanted to meet Carah Durell. She s the one who inspired me to get my private pilot s license, she said. She had watched an on-line video that featured Carah talking about getting her pilot s license and A&P rating. I figured, if she could do it, so could I, she said. Carah is one of the Wathen Aviation High School s star students, who is planning on getting an A&P license from SBCC. The lady met Carah after the banquet, and thanked her for her inspiration which Carah really didn t know she had given. I don t know how Carah felt, but I was blown away! A teenaged girl, who is single-mindedly pursuing her dreams, can cause ripples in the universe that cause a middle-aged mom to get her private pilot s license. Pretty potent stuff! To all you Flabob young people going after the dream of flight: What you re doing now, pursuing your passion, will affect many beyond your wildest dreams. Keep at it. Keep going, step by step. And you will be the building blocks of the future of general aviation. Thank God for aviation. And thank God for Flabob. -LG Volume 55, Issue 10 Page 7

8 Burt Rutan with Carah Durell and Austin Jones Open House 08 Volume 55, Issue 10 Page 8

9 Tom Wathen Wes Blasjo and Roger Farnes cruise the flightline Volume 55, Issue 10 Page 9

10 O C T O B E R 1 7 t h 1 9 t h O C T O B E R 1 7 t h 1 9 t h Historic Flabob R i v e r s i d e Airport (RIR) C a l i f o r n i a - Honoring Lou Stolp, Mr. Starduster - All aircraft welcome, homebuilt or factory - If you have a homebuilt, we d love to see it! - Saturday banquet, October 18th, 6 pm - Guest speaker: Aviation Safety Expert Rob Harrison, The Tumbling Bear - Over $3000 in prizes and awards! - Technical forums and exhibits - Phone registration: X104 Volume 55, Issue 8 Page 4

11 Dave Cudney completes, flies his RV-7A By Wes Blasjo Dave Cudney had a somewhat restless Sunday night as he lie thinking what it would be like to fly the product of his past 4½ years of labor. Questions like Will there be enough rudder to hold it straight down the runway at full power? and Will those wingtips cause a roll one way or the other? raced through his mind. He also thought about all the many checks and rechecks he had made. Did he overlook one ever-so-small detail? Monday morning, Oct. 6, was clear and beautiful as he rolled the RV-7A out of his hangar, which sits right under the tower at Riverside Municipal. Shortly before 9:00, Tom Hamm Jr. taxied up in his beautiful RV-4. Tom and Dave s wife, Loretta, were going to fly chase and take air-to-air pictures. Tom Hamm Sr. was there with a hand-held radio and note pad to record cylinder head temperatures as Dave would read them off over the air-to-ground frequency. With little fanfare, Dave buckled in the left seat and the IO-360 fired on the first blade and purred like a kitten. There was no roughness waiting to get warmed up. This was due to the balancing and fine tuning that Superior Air Parts does to their engines as well as the fuel injection delivering precisely equal amounts of fuel to each cylinder. After taxiing to the west end of the ramp to wear in the brake NORM DOUTHIT AERO Norm Douthit, Owner Photo by Wes Blasjo Dave alights after first flight in his RV-7A pads a little, Dave taxied to 27, did a usual run-up, and took the active runway. Using considerably less than full power, the plane literally leapt into the air in 300 to 400 feet of runway. Tom and Loretta followed shortly and flew slightly behind and on one side or the other as they orbited the airport, taking pictures and keeping an eye out for oil leaks or anything unusual. It was almost a non-event, as everything checked out normally and there were no surprises. Dave knew what it would feel like, as he had flown 10 hops in various RVs with three different instructors. After landing, Dave got a big hug from his wife. He intended to remove the cowling and check for oil leaks or anything loose, but chances of that were slight as his workmanship was so extraordinary. This is another example of how meticulous attention to detail paid off in an airplane flying right, right out of the box (or hangar). For guys, this is probably as close as we can come to the feeling of a mother giving birth to a child, only without the pain of childbirth! Dave and Loretta Congratulations! You did a great job! Polyfiber Aircraft Coatings Distributor 367 W. 49th St., San Bernardino, CA Aviation Street, Shafter, CA (909) (909) (Fax) Volume 55, Issue 10 Page 11

12 EAA Chapter One Membership Meeting Lunch will be Provided! Bring your own salad or dessert Dish! SEE YOU THERE! Flabob Airport (RIR) 4130 Mennes Riverside (Rubidoux), CA October 12, 2008 at noon FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL: (951) Brick Purchases Benefit The Building Fund Join us at the Chapter One Hangar for an afternoon of fellowship & fun!! Check our website at EAA Chapter One Flabob Airport P. O. Box 3667 Riverside, CA We Make Flying FUN!!