May 14, 2005 EAA Chapter 110 Meeting Minutes

The meeting was called to order by President John Feemster at 11:05 pm 
at Wings of History Museum, San Martin, CA.  All chapter officers were 
present.

1.      New Business
        a.      The meeting was held at the South County Airport/WHO Open House.  
The chapter had John Feemsters Quicksilver ultralight trainer and Rich 
                Grialous Sonex LSA on display along with our new chapter banner.
        b.      John Gould reported that the new So. County hangars should be ready 
in July.  Several chapter members are on the list and hopefully will 
get hangars.
        c.      Jim and Mary Doherty are looking for a hangar to assemble their 
Odyssey if anyone has any space available.
        d.      Gerry Gabe (sp?) a P-51 pilot from Hollister gave us an update on 
the political situation at the Hollister airport.  Gerry is on the 
airport commission at   Hollister.  The new airport manager has been on 
the job for six months but is being caught between the needs/objectives 
of the pilots and the political pressure        from the city council to 
generate more revenue for the city.  Apparently the city council has 
little knowledge of the airport or its needs and looks at it only as a 
        source of revenue to fund other city needs.  Because of this they are 
jerking the airport manager around so that he appears to not be working 
for the best            interests of the pilots/airplane owners.  The airport is 
an enterprise fund and the money it generates is supposed to be used 
for the airport, but the city is                ignoring that and siphoning the 
money off for other city purposes.  Gerry said that if the airport was 
an airport district then it could be runas a more               autonomous entity 
and keep the funds that it generated for use at the airport.  Bottom 
line is that they will raise prices at the airport and they will siphon 
the     money off.  As an example, the airport is trying to attract jet 
aircraft to be based at Hollister, at the expense of existing hangars 
including Wetherly.  What the   city is totally ignoring is that the 
taxiways are too narrow, they are unlighted, there are no turn around 
areas and there is no instrument approach.  Apparently  the city is too 
ignorant to understand that the airport is not capable of supporting 
the jets without investing a lot of money in infrastructure changes.  
Gerry   suggested that the aviation community get involved politically 
with city and county governments to be prepared to deal with issues of 
this type, as they will         arise at all the local airports due to the 
cash crunch that allof the local cities and counties are facing.

        John Feemster (I think) will follow up by contacting the other local 
EAA chapters so we can form a united front to express our concerns.

        e.      Howard Hawkins was introduced by John Gould to give us a 
presentation on the SkyArrow aircraft that Howard flew from San Diego 
to attend the   So. County Open House.  The aircraft is a tandem two 
place pusher constructed in Italy of carbon Fiber material.  It cruises 
at 100 mph, burns 5-6 GPH with  a 100 HP Rotax engine and has a 550 lb. 
Useful load.   There are 300 flying in the world at this time.  As 
equipped it sells for $140,000, but a LSA version       without radios is 
planned to be selling in the future for $70,000.

        2.      The meeting was adjourned by John Feemster at 11:55 so the 
membership could partake of the WHO barbeque lunch.

Respectfully submitted,

Rich Grialou, Secretary