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DOPE SHEET

THE NEWSLETTER OF

CHAPTER 13 OF THE EXPERIMENTAL AIRCRAFT ASSOCIATION

SERVING SPORT AVIATION IN THE DETROIT AREA

Volume 59 Number 4 website: EAACHAPTER13.ORG April 2014

REGULAR MEETINGS —

1ST

Thursday of Each Month.

Our regular meeting place is Ray Community Airport, in the Chapter #13 hangar (#304) located on the Northeast corner of the field. Meeting time is 7:30pm to 10pm. Burgers and dogs are available for a donation between 6:30 and 7:30pm.

April Speakers, Chapter Mem-bers, Bob Hunt and Bob Mahieu A few years back Bob Hunt and Bob Mahieu made a trip to England to visit some of the aircraft centers there. Appar-ently they were never asked to share, with Chapter members, what they observed at that time. Since the issue came up recently, we thought ‘better late than never’. Both gentlemen readily agreed to pull together some of the photos they took of the trip and share them with us at the regular April meeting. Please

be with us to relive their trip to such noteworthy venues as the Duxford Museum, the Shuttleworth Collection, the Royal Air Force Museum (RAF Hendon) and a variety of other locations. You won’t want to miss this one. Ed

President’s Message

By President Rex Phelps

Light Sport Repairman Course

At the suggestion of one of our members, I have looked into Chapter 13 hosting a Light Sport Re-pairman course. The course is offered by Rain-bow Aviation as they travel to locations around the country. I called them to schedule a two day/sixteen hour course that would be held right in our EAA hangar. They asked many questions about our facility and available dates. After answering all of their questions, they said that they are already doing a course in Hast-ings, Michigan during the weekend of June 7-8.

Rainbow Aviation likes to keep at least six months in between sessions offered in the same state. Even though Hastings is on the other side of Michigan (near Kalamazoo), they suggested that people from our chapter carpool to their ses-sion. So, at this point, there are no plans to host the LSR course in our EAA building.

The course runs for two days for a total of six-teen hours. Cost is $435. If you register before May 31st, the cost drops to $375. If you’d like more information about the classes, you can reach them by phone at (530) 824-0644. Their website is www.rainbowaviation.com. If you attend, we would appreciate your feedback on the course.

Enjoy, Rex

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March Speaker Review John Kean By Bill Appleberry Our speaker for March was Chapter 13 member

John Kean. John told a Tale of a Trip to Oregon.

John’s airventure began last July with a conversation

with Joe Gores. Joe and John are both builders of

Van’s RV-12 airplanes. Joe suggested they both fly

to Oregon for Van’s Aircraft’s Homecoming in Au-

g u s t 2 0 1 3 .

John, being a

low time pilot

with about 200

hours total time

thought this was

a great idea. He

would be able to

get some great

c ross -coun t r y

experience while

Joe took the lead in flight planning. A short time

later Joe had to bow out due to family conflicts that

came up. “Well,” John thought, “I would still like to

do this flight, and I’m going to, if I can do it safely.”

This being a first solo trip of any distance away from

the local area and his first experience with mountain

flying he thought he better “Mountain Up” so to

speak. He read a couple of books on mountain fly-

ing that Joe lent him. He also took online mountain

flying courses offered by Sporty’s Pilot Shop and

AOPA. He did fly across Lake Michigan, however,

he carried personal safety gear including an LPU

vest with a personal locator beacon. He also main-

tained radio communications with flight following

over the water. When he was in the Air Force he

received training in helicopter rescue techniques.

The trip was 7 legs over 2 and one half days. He

slept in a tent or in FBO offices. He was held down

by ground fog in the morning until noon. This just

gives truth to the old adage “If you have time to

spare, Go by Air.” On his last stop enroute there

was a forest fire with an attendant TFR that he would

have to deal with on his departure. The fire was

west of the airport where he stopped. The field was

being used as a staging area to fight the fire. John

was able to bypass the affected airspace on his way

out and arrived at his destination, Independence

State Airpark, with no further issues.

EAA Chapter Officers President Rex Phelps

586 918 3838 runwayrex@juno.com

Vice President Mike Fisher

810 392 2020 fishfly73@live.com

Treasurer Steve Greene

586 864 2815 mtgproducts@comcast.net

Secretary Cliff Durand

248 853 0232 pchdurand@yahoo.com

Newsletter Editor Tom Vukonich

248 236 0951 tpvvuk@yahoo.com

Tech Counselor Bob Hunt

248 563 0927 roberthunt@aol.com

Tech Counselor Ron Walters

248 435 0441 glasair@comcast.net

Young Eagles Coord Dennis Glaeser

248 953 0374 glasers@wideopenwest.com

Building and Grounds Pete Dugdale

586 463 6906 2madphd@gmail.com

Chapter Calendar Apr 3 Regular Meeting* 7:30-10 pm

10 Officers’ Meeting** 7:30 pm

May 1 Regular Meeting* 7:30-10 pm

8 Officers’ Meeting** 7:30 pm

16-18 Pinch Hitter Course See Page 10

18 Young Eagles 9am—2pm

Jun 5 Regular Meeting* 7:30-10 pm

7 Young Eagles 9am—2pm

12 Officers’ Meeting** 7:30 pm

*All Regular Meetings (not all are listed) will have

a pre-meeting Bar-B-Q/Setup get-together that starts at 6:30 pm.

**Officer Meetings are normally held the 2nd

Thursday of each month, in President Rex Phelps’s hangar, 420C.

John Kean receives Speaker’s

Plaque from Pres. Rex Phelps

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Chapter #13 Pancake Breakfast Yes, you heard that right the, Chapter will be hosting a pancake breakfast this year. Our last Fly-in breakfast was held a Romeo Airport. Since we moved to Ray Community, we have been oc-cupied with settling in and making Ray our perma-nent home. We have acquired and rebuilt our-selves a fine hangar and seen many improve-ments to the airport itself including; resurfacing the runway, building a taxiway, significantly ex-panding our fueling apron, improving drainage, constructing additional hangars and a variety of other improvements, all of which have taken a significant amount of time and effort. Now it’s time to get back into the swing of things. Two of our members have stepped for-ward to coordinate the event. They are Pete Dugdale and Bob Hunt. There will be a lot to do to make this event a success and we are counting on many of you to pitch in and lend a hand. The event has been scheduled for Sunday, July 20, 2014 so there is plenty of time for plan-ning and preparation. We want you to check the day off on your calendar and be ready to assist. More details will be printed here as the time grows nearer. Although it is too soon to start a volunteer list, here is a preliminary list of personnel required: Cooks Cooks Helpers Servers Table Watchers Money Takers Runners Aircraft Parking Car Parking Set-Up Crew Notice of the Event has already been posted on the MDOT Web Site, so we mean business.

Boy, I can taste those p a n c a k e s now. Can’t you? Ed

March Speaker Review (cont)

He enjoyed the next couple of days at the festivities in the company of many happy RVers, Vans RVs not motor homes. His host where he stayed as a guest told him of two museums he should stop at on his way home. The Evergreen Museum, (home of the Spruce Goose) and the Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum (located in Hood River, OR.) John thinks the Evergreen Mu-seum is in bankruptcy and the disposition of the spruce Goose may be “up in the air” so to speak. I did look at the web page for the facility and it is cur-rently in operation. The best advice would be, “If you’re out that way definitely stop in.” The Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum is a pri-vately owned facility more on the order of the facility at Lakeland, Florida. John says it is an excellent museum, well worth a visit. It’s probably a good idea to ask local pilots about these kinds of attrac-tions, as they may not be well known outside of their regions. John’s trip totaled 3553 miles and nearly 40 flying hours without a hitch. Well-done John.

Rex Phelps along with the rest of the board of direc-tors encourage the chapter membership to consider speaking at a chapter meeting if you have a topic of interest to the building, flying community. Chapter 13 member John Kean accepted this request and provided an excellent presentation on how to con-duct a long cross country trip safely. In the near future we’re trying to line up Joe Gores for a talk on “How to Spend Other Peoples Money”.

Looking for Chapter History

Here is a photo of Nick Seraphinoff’s Stits “Playboy” at the EAA Hales Corners event in 1963,

donated by WACO Bob Grider.

Have you got any material like this? If you do, we

would like to see it. Ed

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Bay City Breakfast Munchkins Submitted by Tom Vukonich March 9, 2014 was a cloudy, sunny, damp, cold, slippery, foggy, snowy, clear day a small band of hungry Chapter #13 members flew to the James Clements Airport in Bay City for a $100.00 break-fast. As we approached the airport we could see a frozen river lined with frozen ice fishermen hud-dled together waiting for a bite.

At the airport ad-ministrative build-ing we checked out the World War I history in the wai t ing room while we waited for our chauf-feured ride to the restaurant. Our destination was Krzysiak's House Restaurant in Bay City.

Don and Lois started Krzysiak's House Restaurant in 1979 when they purchased a local Tavern known as Big Dan's Bar. They had a dream of opening a res-taurant which

served home cooked food with a European flair at a reasonable price. Today, their dream is being fulfilled as Krzysiak's House Restaurant has be-come one of the most famous in the area.

The tour group included L to R: John Kean, Ron Lendon, Ron Walters, Bob Mahieu and Dierdre, and Tom Vukonich. It was a worthwhile trip. Check it out.

Chapter Historian

For the past two months we have been asking our membership to contribute historical copies of Chap-ter #13 Newsletters (Dope Sheets), and we are pleased to report that the response has been most gratifying.

This Month’s contributors included Bill Appleberry, who donated Newsletters dating from 1994 thru 2001.

In addition, the team of Nancy and Ron Walters passed along a good deal of material, beyond adding to our Newsletter inventory. Other historical material included;

Nancy’s monthly notes from the pe-riod of her presi-dency, a number of annual Chapter Rosters dating into the 1980s, some 850 digital photos of EAA events, other vintage publi-cations and the like.

At this time we have assembled 42 years of News-letters out of 59. We are short 17 years of publica-tions. Still missing are 1955 thru 1962 and 1977 thru 1985. If you think you may have some of the missing years, please locate them and bring them in to help complete the Chapter history.

Tom Vukonich, Chapter Historian

Is Your Ch #13 Membership

Current? If you receive your copy of the monthly newsletter via the US Post Office, you will notice the year your dues are paid up through, written by hand, on the mailing label. Please check to see if you are cur-rent. If not, stop and see Treasurer Steve Greene at our next meeting.

Dues are important. They make up the better part of our annual Chapter income, small as they are. Without your support we cannot continue to make improvements for the Chapter.

Thank you

Bill

Nancy and Ron

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From the Flight Surgeon Gregory Pinnell, MD This time of year we frequently need to “self-treat” symp-toms with over the counter (OTC) medi-cations due to colds, flu or allergies. Most of us know that most of these medications can cause drowsi-ness. But it is often forgotten that the effects of the drugs can last 12-24 hours depending on type. It is always best to wait till all the symptoms are gone and you have been off the OTC’s for at least 24 hours before flying. Fly safe. Gregory Pinnell, MD Senior Flight Surgeon USAFR Airdocs, MSB International Airport 8430 Garfield Road Freeland, MI 48623 www.airdocs.net 989-245-4494 Fax 517-580-0970

History Photo

Here is another photo from 1963, courtesy of

Chapter member WACO Bob Grider. It shows

Steve Lowell’s

Loving’s “Love”

under construc-

tion. This aircraft

was designed by

Chapter #13

founding member

Neal Loving.

Here is a shot of

Loving’s original

plane on display

at the AirVenture

Museum. Thanks

for sharing, Bob.

Under Construction

Rex Phelps’ New Kitfox

Last year Rex and Cliff Durand were flying into Oshkosh, bound for the AirVenture Program. Just before they reached Witt-man Field, the engine quit suddenly and Rex had to make a forced landing in a field. He made a suc-cessful landing and no injuries were sustained by Rex or Cliff. The plane however, did sustain frame damage. After a review of the under-carriage the plane was deemed a total loss.

The problem was attributed to a defective fuel line. .

Not wanting to be grounded, Rex doubled up on his efforts to construct his

new, updated Kitfox project. He started to work on the project in his basement and more recently moved the job to his hangar. At this point in time he is in the process of covering the wings. Just look at the geometry of the wing panel interior. (photo below) It’s truly a thing of beauty.

Soon it will be warm enough to open the h a n g a r door. If you are in the area and he is open for business, stop and pay him a visit. I’m pretty sure he will be happy to show you around. What he has accom-plished in a short time is truly inspirational.

I know I’m pumped. You will be too.

Ed

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Meeting Minutes for the March 13,

2014 Officers’ Meeting,

Submitted by Secretary Cliff Durand

Those board members and chapter members at-tending the March 13, 2014 board meeting were: Rex Phelps, Mike Fisher, Steve Greene, Dick Green, Laurelle White, Bob Mahieu, Rex Phelps Sr. Peter D u g d a l e , T o m Vukonich, Dennis Glaser, and Cliff Du-

rand.

. The Secretary Re-port for the February 13, 2014 meeting was read and accepted.

. The Treasurer Re-port for the month was given by Steve Greene as follows: Checking: $15,473.55, Receipts: $946.00, Ex-penses: $260.49, CD: $262.88, Petty Cash: $200.00, Paid Membership for 2014: 98 as of 3/13/14. Steve also brought up the fact that he thought that Dennis Glaser’s efforts have had a significant increase in membership renewals. If you receive the newsletter by snail mail; your membership expiration date is posted on the mail-ing label please take a moment to make sure that your membership is up to date and current, if not, see Steve Greene.

New Business

. Speakers for the upcoming month. Our speak-ers will be Bob Mahieu and Bob Hunt who went across the pond for a trip to England. A lot of this trip consisted of visiting airfields and some flight experience. We have other speakers waiting in the wings (so to speak) for upcoming months.

. Dawn Patrol: We are planning on hosting our first Dawn Patrol at Ray on July 20, 2014. The Chairmen for that event are Pete Dugdale and Bob Hunt. We cannot do this alone, please pencil this date in on your calendar and plan to volunteer your expertise. Look for more information in the newsletter and upcoming announcements.

. Our sound system is back in good working or-der thanks to Bill Appleberry and Pete Dugdale.

. Pete Dugdale reports that the hangar is in good shape. Wrap up work on the ramp will begin when the WX breaks. A little more tweaking of the

electric heater to curb the electric bills may be needed. Pete will take care of this issue.

. Young Eagles report: Dennis Glaser reports that Sarah White will definitely be attending Air Academy at Oshkosh. Andy Roush is high up on the waiting list and is awaiting his call to attend. Dennis may need a stand-in for Young Eagles on the July 13th event, he will have everything organ-ized, see him if you would be available to help him out.

. Tom Vukonich reports that his drive to archive all the newsletters from 1955 on is coming along. He is still missing about 17 years worth, if you have copies of older newsletters, please consider donating them to the chapter or let Tom make cop-ies.

. In the “Other” category: Rex has been in touch with a carbon fiber manufacturer. They will be sending samples to him. So if you are interested in seeing what is available, contact Rex. Dick Green has requested to be the speaker for the May meeting; his subject will be the Michigan Air Tour.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:55 p.m.

The next meeting is scheduled for April 10, 2014

Respectfully submitted:

Cliff Durand-EAA Chapter 13 Secretary

Ray Airport

Save the Bomber Plant

The bomber plant at Willow Run Airport is truly a Michigan Landmark, if ever there was one. We hope that everyone who was able to answer the call has done so. If not, please pull the donation sheet out of the February Newsletter, fill it out, and send in what you can. Many have donated funds that are not aviators or even particularly aircraft conscious, but they can see the value. This is an aviation history monument in our own back yard. You are all Experimental Aircraft Association mem-bers so, ask yourself “If not Us, then Who.”

Unless the deadline for donations is extended, this is the last request you will hear from us. Of course, when news updates are released, we will notify you of the status of the project and program proposals.

Keep’em Flying. Ed

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Aviation History

Vietnam Era Story

By Lawrence E. Pence - Colonel, USAF (Ret)

In mid-1967, as a junior Air Force Captain, I was detailed to 7th AF Hq in Saigon as an Air Technical Intelligence Liaison Officer. My job was to provide 7AF and the air war, technical intelligence in whatever area or discipline needed. Also I was to collect such technical in-telligence as became available. This was a tall order for a young Captain, and this assignment provided much excitement, including the Tet Offensive.

At that time, Operation Rolling Thunder was un-derway, the bombing of military targets in North Vietnam . The weather in NVN was often lousy, making it difficult to find and accurately strike the assigned targets, so a radar control system was set up to direct the strike force to their tar-gets.

This system was installed on a remote, sheer-sided Karst mountain (photo on page 8) just in-side Laos. The site could be accessed only by helicopter or a tortuous trail winding up the near-vertical mountainside, so it was judged to be easily defensible.

The mountaintop was relatively flat and about 30 acres in size. On it was a tiny Hmong village,

a helicopter pad, an ops shack for the CIA-

owned Air America Airline, and the radar site.

The radar system was an old SAC precision

bomb scoring radar which could locate an aircraft

to within a few meters at a hundred miles. In this

application, the strike force would fly out a given

distance on a given radial, and the site operators

would tell the strike leader precisely when to re-

lease his bomb load. It was surprisingly accurate,

and allowed the strikes to be run at night or in

bad weather.

This capability was badly hurting the North Viet-

namese war effort, so they decided to take out

our facility (Lima Site 85). Because of the diffi-

culty of mounting a ground assault on Lima Site

85, and its remote location, an air strike was

planned. Believe it or not, the NVNAF chose bi-

planes as their “Strike Bombers!”

The aircraft used were Antonov designed AN-2

general purpose 'workhorse" biplanes with a sin-

gle 1000hp radial piston engine and about one

ton payload. Actually, once you get past the obvi-

ous "Snoopy and the Red Baron" image, the AN-

2 was not a bad choice for this mission. Its big-

gest disadvantage was, like all biplanes, its slow

speed. The Russians use the An-2 for a multi-

tude of things, such as medevac, parachute

training, flying school bus, crop dusting, and etc.

Painting by Keith Woodcock, 2007

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Aviation History (continued)

The NVNAF fitted out their AN-2 "attack bombers

with a 12 shot 57mm folding fin aerial rocket pod

under each lower wing, and 20 250mm mortar

rounds with aerial bomb fuses set in vertical tubes

let into the floor of the aircraft cargo bay. These

were dropped

through holes cut

in the cargo bay

f loor. Simple

hinged bomb-bay

doors closed

these holes in

flight.

The pilot could

salvo his bomb

load by opening

these doors. This

was a pretty good

munitions load to

take out a soft,

undefended tar-

get like a radar

site. Altogether,

the mission was well planned and equipped and

should have been successful, but Murphy's Law

prevailed.

A three plane strike force was mounted, with two

attack aircraft and one standing off as command

and radio relay. They knew the radar site was on

the mountaintop, but they did not have good intel-

ligence as to its precise location, It was well cam-

ouflaged, and could not be seen readily from the

air.

The AN-2 strike force rolled in on the target, mis-

took the Air America ops shack for the radar site,

and proceeded to ventilate it. The aforementioned

"anti-aircraft artillery" force - one little Thai merce-

nary about five feet tall and all balls- heard the

commotion, ran out on the helicopter pad, stood

in the path of the attacking aircraft spraying rock-

ets and bombs everywhere, and emptied a 27-

round clip from his AK-47 into the AN-2, which

then crashed and burned. At this juncture, the

second attack aircraft broke off and turned north-

ward towards home.

Our "air defense interceptor" force was an un-

armed Air America Huey helicopter which was by

happenstance on the pad at the time, with the pi-

lot and flight mechanic having a Coke in the ops

shack. When holes started appearing in the roof,

they ran to their Huey and got airborne, not quite

believing the sight of two biplanes fleeing north.

Then the Huey pilot, no slouch in the balls depart-

ment either, realized that his Huey was faster

than the biplanes! So he did the only thing a real

pilot could do—Attack.

The Huey overtook the AN-2's a few miles inside

North Vietnam , unknown to the AN-2's as their

rearward visibility is nil. The Huey flew over the

rearmost AN-2 and the helicopter's down-wash

stalled out the upper wing of the AN-2.

Suddenly the hapless AN-2 pilot found himself

sinking like a stone! So he pulled the yoke back in

his lap and further reduced his forward speed.

Meanwhile, the Huey flight mechanic, not to be

outdone in the macho contest, crawled out on the

Huey's skid and, one-handed, emptied his AK-47

into the cockpit area of the AN-2, killing or wound-

ing the pilot and copilot. At this point, the AN-2

went into a flat spin and crashed into a mountain-

side, but did not burn.

It should come as no surprise that the Air America

pilot and flight mechanic found themselves in a

heap of trouble with the State Department rear

echelon dignitaries’ concerned about a possible

international “incident”. Never the less, they ac-

complished a couple of firsts: (1) The first and

only combat shoot-down of a biplane by a heli-

copter and (2) the first known CIA air-to-air vic-

tory.

In closing, here is a photo of an Anatov AN-2.

Many of you will recall that we had one of these

planes tied down in the northeast corner of Ray

Community Airport for several years.

Karsk Mountain

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This posting was brought to our attention by Cliff Durand, who has visited the show in the past and felt that it would

be of interest to other members of our group. Here are additional photos of the nature of work on display. Many of

these models are fully functional, including the engines.

North American Model Engineering Society

The North American Model Engineering Society (NAMES) is dedicated to promoting the hobby of model engineering by sponsoring the annual North American Model Engineering Exposition.

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AIRCRAFT RELATED WANTED/FOR SALE

Hangars Wanted, Posted at

Ray Airport Office:

1) Looking for any hangar that is for sale. Call Romaine at

513-544-6707 (cell phone)

2) Looking to buy one of the big hangars. If anyone is look-ing to sell, please call 586-489

-7917. Bob West

FORE SALE: FASTBACK 1960 CESSNA 150-A

Posted from Barnstormers.com

$25,999 • FOR SALE BY OWNER • 1960 Cessna 150, Fastback O-200, 56 SMOH, 3712 TT, Paint 10/10, Always hangared,

New Leather Interior, Annual 7/13, Bendix/ King 97A, Mode C, Intercom, Other Up-

d a t e s 2 0 1 2 - 3 : Mags, Alt, Ba t te r y , E L T , C a r b , S t a r t e r , horizon-tal indica-tor gyro, d i r e c -

tional gyro, Corr X Treatment. NO damage, all logs. @ KTEW Call for questions. No trades. • Contact Jennifer A. Huldin, Owner - located East Lansing, MI USA • Tele-phone: 5177124888 . 5173886516 • Posted

February 8, 2014

Cessna: Price: $ 16,000.00

3271 Luce Rd Flushing Michigan 48324 United States Contact Person: Mike or Chris Phone: 517-672-1020 / 248-766-8351 Brand: Cessna Model: 150H Registration Number: N22063

Year Built: 1968

Hey, Spring’s Around the Corner Soon you will be pulling your aircraft out of its han-gar. That is, if you can move it around everything else you’ve got in there. If you’re pondering selling off any of that stuff, including the aircraft, please let the Newsletter staff know so that we can post no-tice in the Dope Sheet. Its only fair that you offer it to a Chapter member first, and not some stranger. Thanks. Newsletter Want-ad Staff

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248-794-3784

tpvvuk@yahoo.com Address Service Requested

THE DOPE SHEET

Tom Vukonich, Editor First Class Mail 2961 Secluded Pines Dr Oxford, Michigan 48371

stamp

here

Here is a photo of President Rex Phelps discussing the ins and outs of

Kitfox construction with fellow Kitfox builder Vice President Mike Fisher.