(WING-TIPS)
The
Official Monthly Electronic Newsletter of the
Southern Nevada EAA Chapter 1300
P O Box 34311
Las Vegas,
Nevada 89133-4311,
Website
www.EAAChapter1300.org
JUNE 2004
Volume 5, issue No.6
June,9 2004
Our
next Chapter meeting will be at the North
Las Vegas Airport,
Grand Canyon Room at 7:30 PM
Remember, a group of members have dinner at 6:00 pm before the meeting at:
Foothills Ranch, 3377 North Rancho Road
June Meeting Program:
2004 Officers
and Directors:
President: Mike Smith
Vice President: Paul
Gerner
Secretary: Herman Leong
Treasurer: David Lerner
Director VGT: Armin Tuma
Director BLD: Glenn Smith
Director HND: Glenn Carlson
President’s Corner:
PRESIDENTS CORNER:
May
was and eventful month for our chapter.
The personalized letters Ken and I sent out to our non-renewing members
picked up about a dozen of them.
Unfortunately, that means many did not renew. However, although I don’t yet have an exact
count from our Treasurer, our renewing members stand at about 65. Since membership dues are the main source of
our funds to send deserving youths to the Air Academy
each year, we all need to encourage our aviation friends to renew.
For those of you
who didn’t make our May meeting and hear the report, we had a good Tuskegee
Airman Young Eagle rally on May 8th and flew 55 kids. Rich Kegelmyer set up a good video of the
Blue Angels flying and the Tuskegee Airman set up some great displays and a
flight computer that kept the kids, who were not flying, occupied. Four of us, George Younghans, Armin Tuma,
Jim Bonelli (with Charlie Braun aboard) and I, flew to Mesquite on Monday
afternoon, May 24th, where we flew 14 Boy Scouts that Charlie Braun
and the Mesquite Scout Leaders were helping get their Aviation Badges. They all seemed to enjoy it greatly. Glenn Smith had agreed to join us but had a
mishap with his RV-8. Luckily, he still
has a great Comanche to fly while he fixes the RV.
Walt Ayers and
Tom Donaldson have put their heads together to come up with a quest speaker for
our next meeting on June 9th.
I don’t have the details at this time, so be sure to mark your calendar
so you don’t miss out. Also, start
spreading the word that the July 14th meeting will be at my house (900 Primrose Lane, Henderson) instead of in Glenn Smith's
hangar at the Boulder
City airport. Before the meeting at 1730 hours, we will be
hosting a hamburger/braut roast and let you bring
your “special dish” if you wish.
That is all for
now. Hope to see you at North Las Vegas, Wed, June 9th for the next
meeting or maybe at our 1800 hours dinner in the Foothills Ranch Bar & Grill.
Fly Safe,
Mike Smith
2004 President, Southern Nevada EAA Chapter 1300
Secretary’s Note Pad:
EAA
Chapter 1300
MAY, 2004 Minutes
The Meeting was called to order at 1935 hours by Mike Smith. Twenty members and nine guests were in
attendance. The first portion of the
meeting was devoted to several guest presentations.
Tom Donaldson introduced two regional FAA representatives – Chris Diggons and Elizabeth Louie of the Las Angeles District
office, as well as Larry Wilkinson of the local FSDO.
Chris Diggons gave a Powerpoint
presentation on runway operations and safety issues – 57% of “incursions” are
Pilot deviations, and of those, 74% are by General Aviation pilots. He defined several terms including various
categories of surface incidents, and runway incursions and noted that 70% of
incursions are deviations after a correct “readback”
by the offending pilot.
FAA is trying to prevent incursions through the use of “direct
notification to pilot” technologies – such as flashing lights when you taxi
beyond certain points without clearance or flashing PAPI ground marker lights
with voice-notification over a navigational sideband frequency being items
under investigation and development.
Chris noted that Federal courts have said that Pilots are responsible
“to hear and comprehend” clearances correctly – with the implication being that
the controller in a rush may acknowledge an incorrect read back but it would
still not relieve the pilot of his primary responsibility to comprehend it
correctly and comply. A good bottom line
rule per Chris is to stop and ask for clarification if there is any confusion –
he says you’ll never make it better by guessing. For a good illustration of how wrong it can
go he suggested we look into a recent incident of GA runway incursion at Sarasota wherein 4 people
were killed. This incident was to be
discussed in greater detail at Chris’ longer program the following evening to
which we were all invited.
Next, Larry Wilkinson of the local FSDO gave a pitch about the FAA’s
customer service improvements program, referred to as “CSI Flight
Standards”. This program is top down
from new FAA administrator Marion Blakey and is
intended to move away from fear based relationships to ones based on
collaboration and respect. To this end,
he as well as many other FAA personnel up and down the chain of command are engaged in a significant outreach effort to meet with
all of their customers in various “serviced communities”. 2003 was a great year for aviation safety as
a whole, but not for GA. FAA is putting
a greater focus on GA in order to improve the GA safety record and bring it in
line with the rest of the US
aviation industry. The stated goal of
the Flight Services initiative is “to provide the public accident free service through
best in the world standards” or something along those lines…. (Don’t quote your
humble reporter – or at least don’t bet much on my exactitude)….and again
stressed that this is to be a collaborative effort. For issues where respect and collaboration do
not lead to fully satisfactory resolution – there is a three tier system of
decisions and appeals – local, then regional, then executive level. (You would also have a final recourse through
the Administrator herself, or your Congressman.) In the end, the goal is that “all parties
should agree that the process was fair and that your concerns were properly
heard.”
Larry also introduced Linda Williams (airworthiness inspector) and
Jan Miller who helps with customer service – certificates etc. The final note from the FSDO is that due to
post 9/11 security considerations, all of their work is by appointment only, no
walk-ins. This does not mean you could
never get a same day appointment, so just call ahead.
Finally, Vince Felar spoke for a few
minutes on Jean Airport issues. Vince is an Aviation Safety Counsellor, as well as an 1100 hour Powered and Glider
rated Pilot. Jean airport, as a local
hub for multiple aviation related activities has two paved lighted parallel
runways, gas available, but no tower.
Communications is via CTAF. Jean
is the designated sport aviation center for Clark
county and sees regular use by ultralights,
helicopters, gliders, parachutists, aerobatic pilots, model rocketeers,
and is host to occasional airshows or fly-ins. With so many activities, you really need to
communicate well and learn the location of various activities and then keep
your head on a swivel and out of the cockpit.
The Regular business meeting commenced with a motion to waive the
reading of the minutes of the previous meeting as they are posted to the
website.
With the Treasurer absent – an informal update of chapter accounts
was presented by Jim Bonelli, who indicated that the change from last month was
approximately $50 net increase.
The builder support group report indicated that Luther Taylor’s
application for designation as an official technical advisor is in process.
Young Eagles activity for May was the Tuskegee Airmen sponsored
event at North Las Vegas. Fifty-four youngsters were introduced to the
joys of flight at this very busy airport, and added excitement for the event
was provided by two pilots who managed to both blow tires and close both
available runways for a short period. As
a result, some young eagles flights logged more than the
usual 20 minutes – to the delight of most, but not all participants, one of
whom wanted his mommy! Given the
challenges of the day, this event was a terrific success - and so we relay our
thanks to Mike Smith, Justin Kelly, Jim Bonelli for
their piloting skills, and to Mikut and the terrific
ground support crew, as well as all the other participants.
Scott (Bracket?) of Kingman Arizona’s
chapter 765 indicated there would be a young eagles
event at Kingman on Saturday the 15th and requested support from our
chapter.
Chapter 163 reported they were having a Sunday Breakfast 0800 at Mesquite.
Paul Gerner reported that two individuals had been selected to
attend the Air Academy, with reservations already
made. Justin Kelly played the key role
in locating candidates for this program and selecting the most deserving. Discussion of the challenges faced by one of
the youngsters in meeting the transportation costs led to a recommendation that
we approach some of the local air service providers to ask for contributions in
supporting this need. It was also
suggested that we invite these youngsters to the next chapter meeting so we can
meet them.
Paul Gerner passed a request from Justin Kelly that the chapter
consider sponsoring a young eagles event targeted to
support the 28 honor students in the Rancho
High School aviation
program. It was also suggested that
there should be a connection between the Rancho program and Embry-Riddle’s
program at UNLV.
It was noted that we still are looking for a social director.
The next meeting will be 9 June at VGT – see you there!
Meeting adjourned at 2110 hours.
EAA Chapter 1300
Welcome New Members:
Webpage Material:
Everyone is encouraged to submit material, information or pictures of
interest to chapter
members for publication on the Chapter’s Webpage.
Send whatever you have to Jim Bonelli, WebMaster,
email address: bonelli.j@att.net
The
chapter webpage URL is: http://www.EAAChapter1300.org Be sure
to Bookmark this URL.
Young Eagles:
Nothing Scheduled
Refreshment Calendar:
Dan Landry
Thanks for reading the newsletter and we will
see
you at the meeting on the 9th. Bring a friend…..