Date: 5/14/2001

Time 6:30 pm Social

7:00  pm Supper

Location: Manncini's Char Room

Topic: Annual Banquet

Well, now we're talking! Day time temps flirting with 80. Summer skies, relatively calm winds, green grass, budding trees, open hangar doors, the sound of a North American T-6 doing touch and go practice, and everyone emerging from their places of hibernation. It sure goes a long way toward dragging me out of the winter doldrums. Welcome to Minnesota in the Springtime. Don't cha love it?

May is shaping up to be a busy, encouraging, inspirational time. This coming Friday, May 5th, some Chapter members are heading to Osh. for the annual Workparty Weekend program. Monday, the 14th, we will be attending the annual Chapter 54 banquet at Mancinni's Char House in St. Paul. It looks like we will be having a good turnout to see and hear Norm Petersen do one of his interesting presentations. He ALWAYS draws a good crowd. The flying weather is shaping up and Al Kupferschmidt has a good line-up of Young Eagles eagerly awaiting their ride in an airplane, so give him a call to volunteer your airplane and your flying skill. He can fill you in on the dates. His phone number is; (651) 777-9257, or you can contact him via e-mail at RaeAndAl@usWest.net Give it a try this year, it is a very rewarding program for both the giver and the givee.

I was very inspired at the April Chapter meeting. It was a very impressive turnout of the membership. It sure proves the theory; "give them an interesting program and they will come." AND HOW ABOUT THEM YOUTHS? Amir Muhammed and Ben Wilkes, two products of the Young Eagle program that member John Schmidt introduced as candidates for the Chapter 54 Scholarship to the Advanced Leadership Camp at EAA Air Academy this summer. There is one other candidate whose busy schedule prevented him from attending; Chris Hasling. The future of aviation is in good hands! Good luck to these three young men at the Air Academy and in their future endeavors in aviation. And speaking of impressive young men, I would like to thank Nick Stolle for his efforts in presenting some interesting programs for our Chapter meetings. GOOD JOB, NICK! (Incidentally, Nick has also been filling in recording the minutes of our meetings because of the unavoidable absence of Wayne Asp. Wayne, because of his busy schedule, is unable to attend meetings. [Do we have any volunteers that would be willing to accept an appointment as Chapter Secretary?] This is a critical position, especially at this time. Because of our application for 501(c)(3) Federal Tax exempt status, it is mandatory that we keep impeccable records. Therefore, we need a recording Secretary.) Nick is in the process of applying for the Clay Lacy Scholarship and has been quite busy jumping through the necessary hoops. Wish him luck.

This promises to be a busy Chapter summer. We will be sponsoring another Fly-in Breakfast in August and that requires a lot of planning and effort. If you are called on to volunteer, please be generous with your time.

Our Chapter has some good news to pass on to the members. A committee was appointed to meet with Semple House Movers and negotiate the purchase of a building to serve as a Chapter Clubhouse. The committee, (Jerry Sarracco, Dennis Hoffman and Jim Lund) was successful in their negotiation. Chapter 54 has agreed to purchase the building. As soon as the weight restrictions have been lifted from the roads by the State, the building will be delivered to the Lake Elmo Airport and we will be able to begin the fixing up process. These are really exciting times!

There will be no general membership meeting for the month of May. The annual banquet will take place in lieu of the meeting. The banquet will be held at Mancinni's Char House in St. Paul. Social hour starts at 5:00 and dinner starts about 6:00. There will be door prizes. The price is $20.00 per person, including gratuity, I think. You may pay at the door. The speaker is Norm Petersen from EAA headquarters. For the June meeting our tentative speaker is John Renwick who will relate the details of a flight to Sun and Fun in a Piper J-3 Cub. The flight includes following the entire length of the Mississippi River.

See you at the banquet.

Meeting called to order at 7:30PM, 26 members and 3 guests signed in.

Guests introduced by John Schmidt were Ben Wilkes and Amir Mohamed. Also a guest was Jeff Hove.

Treasurer's report accepted as published in the newsletter.

MAC Report by Jerry Sarracco. Hanger Cleanup on April 28th, Dumpster located at MAC building on south side or airport.

Mr. Sarracco also reported the Oshkosh workparty is May 4, 5 and 6. See him if you wish to go. Provided meals are 3 on Saturday, and 2 on Sunday. Also a VIP tour of the museum.

Al Kupfershmidt absent for Young Eagles report.

Art Edlhund would like to combine the Flying Start program with the Airport Day. Also reported on member-get-a-member program.

Housing reported by Ed Pfeiffer and Jerry Sarracco. Jerry stated that MAC proposed 4 sites, but a 5th site has been proposed by the chapter. Chapter 54
will lobby for the 5th site. He also expressed the importance of our chapter having a place to call home. Ed Pfeiffer reported that the housing committee has decided to make an offer on the building. A negotiating committee has been formed consisting of Dennis Hoffman, Jim Lund and Jerry Sarracco. Ed also reported the current owners will let us know if other parties show interest. Lastly, Ed commented on the Chapter becoming a 501c3 organization, and the inherent benefit of tax-deductible contributions from members.

Other topics; The May 14th Chapter meeting will be held at Mancini's restaurant. $20 per person. The menu will be steak, chicken or fish. There will be door prizes, EAA's Norm Peterson is our speaker. Last year's speaker Chuck Larsen may show up too. Sign-up sheet passed.

Due to circumstances beyond his control, Tim Reberg had to step down as committee leader for the Fly-in Breakfast. Leif Erickson has taken over.

Jesse Black commented that Ms. Strofuse, of some people may have heard speak, and a WASP in WWII, has recently been inducted into the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame.

John Schimdt showed us the magazine of the Sport Aviation Association. It's a new organization started by Paul Poberezny, baring a striking resemblance to what the EAA used to look like. Dues are entirely voluntary.

---------------------

For the purpose of tax-exemption, the following was read, accepted and voted upon at the meeting.


The Chapter members unanimously approved the following resolution.

BE IT RESOLVED, that Robert J. Waldon, Treasurer, shall undertake to obtain counsel, pro bono, to effectuate, Internal Revenue Service filing necessary for recognition of exemption under IRC Section 501(c)(3).

Editor’s note -- Chapter member Dennis Hoffman has gotten his lawyer to provide counsel for the Chapter, to file the necessary paperwork. If you are in favor of this action, be sure to thank Dennis for his efforts.
--------------------

Nick Stolley introduced the program speaker for the meeting, Darrell Bolduc, president of Bolduc aviation at Anoka County-Blaine Airport. They specialize in aircraft engine maintenance and overhaul.

Mr Bolduc based his presentation on questions asked from his audience, and
the most frequently asked questions from customers. The following is a summary of the discussion.

Engine Oil- What is the best?
Aeroshell Straight Weight
Phillips X-country
Exxon 20W-50 Elite Oil - corrosion prevention properties
Exxon now produces 100wt also

Preheaters-
Very important to pre-heat engines. BUT DO NOT LEAVE PLUGGED IN. Will keep
moisture circulating inside engine, causing protective oil to wash away, leaving bare metal. Also, to reduced moisture inside engine, remove oil cap after shutdown until engine is cool. Don't forget to replace.

Avblend-
95% 50wt oil, 5% ether. May not harm engine, but probably won't help either.

Air-oil Separators-
Nice because they keep belly clean, but they also recirculate acid laden moisture back into engine, and could hide a potential problem shown by increased oil consumption.

Pull through engine before starting?
No seen benefit in horizontally opposed engines.

Marvel Mystery Oil-
Also known as penetrating oil. Perhaps best additive.

Pre-oilers-
If a part is rusty, a pre-oiler won't help.

Leaning on lean side of peak exhaust gas temp-
Won't hurt engine, even helps engine. Can get same power by increasing manifold pressure.
Only works on fuel injected engines, carbureted engines will run rough, due
to uneven mixture. Lean mixture will cause cylinder head temps to fall, reducing chance of
cracking. Quoted "The Aircraft Engine and its Operation" from Pratt & Whitney.

Autofuel-
Use leaded fuel for first 100 hours, to get protective coating of lead on valves and valve guides. After that, no known detriment to use auto fuel.

Meeting adjourned but called to order again to have 2 out of 3 EAA Air Academy scholarship applicants introduce themselves to the chapter.

Amir Mohammed and Ben Wilkes talked about what influence the EAA Air Academy will have on their aviation career. Unfortunately, the secretary missed the main points. Amir works very hard for South St Paul flight services at Fleming Field, among two other jobs. Ben Wilkes works for a small engine
repair shop. Both showed a strong motivation to be active in aviation, either professionally, or recreationally.

Meeting reajourned at 8:50PM.

        ---- Minutes by Nick Stolley

Well, we made it! As reported in the February newsletter, my English friend Steve Markham and I planned to fly my 65hp J3 to Sun-n-Fun via the full length of the Mississippi river; starting from Lake Itasca, following the river's current (well, a little faster!) to New Orleans, and then via the Gulf coast to Lakeland. Planned departure date was 4 April, and we thought it would take 5-1/2 days to get to Lakeland. I planned a bit optimistically, as it turned out.

For the last half of March I busied myself with getting the Cub out of a hangar buried in snow and locked in ice. Bad time for a long winter! To make a long, aching story short, I got the plane out and fired up just in time to get it down to Belle Plaine for an oil change and a blessing by its mechanic, Jim Drometer, and back to FCM before the melting snow made Jim's sod strip too soggy to use. As a precaution, I asked Jim to replace the wheels, brakes and tires with new Clevelands. The original Cub brakes worked fine, but the tires were showing some wear and I have no idea how old the BF Goodrich brake expander tubes are; replacements are not available. I really didn't want to have problems in that area during the next fifty-odd hours of flying! (The new brakes worked flawlessly throughout the trip.)

First thing we did after Steve arrived from London on April 2 was change the plan. The weather forecast for the next few days looked really awful, but we could see a window to the south that we could get into if we were quick about it. So instead of taking a day for jetlag recovery and primping the airplane before taking off for the headwaters, we gave it a quick sponge bath and high-tailed it downriver the afternoon of April 3. Good idea (thanks, Steve!): the bad weather closed in quickly behind us! We flew the next few days in haze or under low ceilings, with a persistent headwind that held us down to 50 knots or so of groundspeed. Well, heck, we wanted to spend some low-and-slow time flying and
seeing the scenery, didn't we? Why else would we decide to make this trip in a J3?!! (Grin!)

We kept a pretty detailed log of the trip, and you can see all the stats on my web site: http://www.visi.com/~jkr (click on the picture of the Cub). Pictures and a map are there too. You'll see that we landed at a total of 46 airports in thirteen states. We were comfortable flying about six hours a day at most, averaging about 4-1/2 hours. (We weren't in any great hurry!) Average ground speed was 58.5 knots (yes, we eventually did find some more favorable winds). Total mileage was almost 3200NM, averaging 269 per day. Total flying time was 54.6 hours. A wing tank gives my Cub a 25 gallon fuel capacity, so we only refueled about every other stop. Most of our takeoffs were at
maximum gross weight of 1220 pounds.

Our first overnight stop was in Dubuque, Iowa. Next was in St. Louis, after cruising right by (but not through!!!) the Gateway Arch. We had one small weather delay on the third day. Shortly
after departure from a rest stop at Reelfoot Lake in northwestern Tennessee (0M2), it started to rain a little, the ceiling came down to 500' AGL and we turned back. We called Flight Service, and the very helpful, courteous briefer said not to worry: it'll be VFR in an hour! So we took a look around at where we were, and found it to be a very picturesque lake with a cypress swamp at its edge and a resort with an excellent restaurant built over the water. And it just happened to be lunchtime! We did just what any sane, hungry, grounded pilot would do, and had a delicious meal of Mississippi catfish. Yum! And sure enough, by the time we'd finished that, the ceiling had lifted, just as the briefer said it would. Either we were very lucky, or that briefer really wanted to help. A lot of both, actually!!!

The third night was in West Helena, Arkansas, at a pretty little airport that was home to lots of ag planes and cropduster pilots. We shared a few after-work beers and amusing conversation with the FBO crew. I'll always want to go back there! Our fourth RON was Friday night in New Orleans. We cheated to get there, because we were a little short on time and we were looking ahead at some
airports that didn't serve fuel: after hamburgers in Natchez, Mississippi, we left the river above Baton Rouge and cut cross-country (cross-swamp, as it turned out) to St. John the Baptist Parish airport, just west of New Orleans on the shore of Lake Ponchartrain. We refueled there, called New Orleans tower, and got permission to fly east through the Class B airspace, following the lakeshore at or below 1500', to Lakefront Airport. There we found a hotel and went in to the French Quarter for food and entertainment on Bourbon Street. Man, that's one crazy place, and who knew crawfish tails were so delicious? (Well, many people do, just not us!) Take me back for some more, pleeeease!!!

Saturday while some of our Florida-bound friends up north were feeling headwinds that would have stopped our J3 dead in its tracks, we easily followed the Gulf coast from New Orleans to
Tallahassee. I never saw such endless beaches in my life! The sand was so white I thought I was in Minnesota! (Not!!!) In one place the blowing sand had covered a parking lot and there was
a front-end loader there to remove it. It looked so much like the snowy parking lots of home, I started to get all weepy (Not!!!).

Fog buried the Tallahassee airport until mid-morning of our last day southbound, so we took the opportunity to change the Cub's oil. After one more very relaxed day of traveling and waiting out the afternoon airport closure, we made it to Sun-n-Fun Sunday evening. We enjoyed the show for a day and two nights, then started home again Tuesday morning.

The trip home was as nearly a straight line as we could make it: stops in Auburn, Alabama (beautiful place!), Sturgis, Kentucky, and Galesburg, Illinois (aptly named, at the end of a very windy Thursday). We arrived back at Flying Cloud late Friday afternoon, and pushed the Cub back into its hangar literally just as rain began to fall -- the first since our minor delay in Tennessee!  We really couldn't have been luckier with the weather.

Because we had skipped the headwaters part of the trip, we made an "encore" flight the following day: up the river to a point past Brainerd, then home via the shore of Mille Lacs Lake and highway 169. So we didn't see quite all of the Mississippi, but close enough. Our goals really were to observe how the U.S. changes as we passed from north to south, and to take in the flavor of the places where we stopped along the way. We surely were not disappointed! We saw the season change from winter to summer and found many great airports and many wonderful people wherever we went.

The Cub performed perfectly for the entire time, the little Continental engine seeming to run more smoothly as it shook off its long winter sleep. As we were nearing home on the way back from Lakeland, Steve asked me if I would do it again. After a sober pause of a few milliseconds to think about it, I said YES!!! Then we began thinking about where to fly next. I'll keep you posted as plans develop. :-)

                  ------------- John Renwick ------------

       ------- Steve Markam --

Steve Markham is a delightful, charming, and upbeat Englishman. He is a sales rep for a California company that makes Virtual Reality simulator systems for parachute jumpers. Many of these systems are used for training “Smoke Jumpers”, and a lot of them are used by various government's Armed Forces for training. The trainee hangs from the ceiling in a parachute harness and can ‘steer’ his parachute around obstacles.

Steve and his wife, live on a small farm in England, where they have sheep to keep their landing strip mowed. Steve owns three Sipa airplanes, which were French built Army trainers. Although more than a hundred were built, they used an unreliable engine, and have a narrow landing gear. This combination resulted in a high attrition. There are only 12 left in the world, and Steve and his wife own three of them. Steve has a Continental O-200 in the one he is flying.

---- Bob Waldron Newsletter Editor

14 EAA Chapter 54 Spring Banquet. Location is Mancini's Char House. The guest speaker is Norm Petersen from EAA Oshkosh.

24 Aitkin EAA Flyin 8:00 - 3:00

August 2001

12 - EAA Chapter 54 Fly-in.

Submissions for publication are encouraged, and should be sent to:
EAA Chapter 54 Editor
3275 Manning Ave. N. Suite #7
Lake Elmo MN 55042.

Bill Schanks 651-645-2420
President - FrBilly@EarthLink.net