TALESPINNERS - January, 2002

Preflight
by Tim Fry

Boy, what a great day! We assembled at Clermont County Airport this brisk December morning for the monthly EAA Chapter 174 fly-out. The sky was as clear and blue as you could possibly have wished. Our plans to fly to Louisville changed at the last minute and we decided instead to fly to Lumberton for lunch.

This was the sort of day that makes Chapter 174 so much fun. It’s often been observed that our Chapter has three distinct groups of members: builders, flyers, and socializers. All groups were represented today. On the trip to Lumberton, Mark and Scott flew in a Kitfox, Don and Bob in an RV-6, Steve in his Cherokee 140, Charlie in his Speed King Cessna 210, Mike and Terry in a beautifully painted Cardinal RG (with no mud on it, ever!), Gary in his 170, and George and I in his Apache. Think about that for a minute. Here we are four days before Christmas, when free time is at a premium, and we get 11 members and 7 planes participating in the fly-out. That’s a good turnout by anybody’s standards.

As I mentioned, we had all three segments of Chapter life represented this day. We had plenty socializing at the little café just a short walk from the airport. The food was good and the prices were reasonable. Obviously, there was plenty of flying going on too. Several of the members prearranged some formation flights to get some air-to-air photographs of the planes. I don’t know about you, but I just think that planes look better with the gear up and in-flight.

What about the last group, the builders? That’s the best part of the fly-out. The whole group caravanned over to Hamilton to see Scott’s RV-6 under construction. He gave us a guided tour of the plane. It has advanced to the stage where it does indeed look like a plane. The wings are on and we even saw Scott in the left seat making airplane noises. One cynic (realist?) in the crowd was heard to remark that the remaining detail work would consume 90% of the build-time. I sure hope that’s not the case, but it probably is. Scott showed us a few building tips and even a few discarded cardboard instrument panels.

After all the fun looking at the RV-6, Terry flew me over my house (where I waved to my wife and kids who hadn’t seen me all day) on the way back to Clermont County. As I was driving home, I reflected on the day and what a great time I’d had. During this time I concluded that what’s missing from our Chapter is enough time to see what the other folks are building. We need to arrange more of those sorts of gatherings. Perhaps, in order to bring the aircraft building activities to the forefront of our Chapter focus, we could find a way to have more members build in hangers, rather than in their basements. Or maybe just schedule “mini meetings” at members’ houses to see their projects. Just a thought…

Copyright © 2001 by Tim Fry.  All rights reserved.