Round Robin

June 26, 2005

Doug Rice at our Squadron 110 meeting on June 18:

Briefly noted:

Steve White is at that 80% / 80% point with his Challenger kit, and pretty darn excited!

John Gould reported that the Genesis is being painted, first with red for the trim color, then yellow. The group is hoping to finish assembly at the Weatherly Hangar soon. Here’s N110GG in her trim coat.

Jim and Mary Doherty’s Odyssey is nearly complete. Jim is going to take the airplane to Mark Beirele’s place for test-flying soon. Good luck Jim and Mary!

On Wed., June 22, several of our members met with South County Airport Pilots Association (SCAPA) people in Carl Honaker’s office at Reid Hillview. Below are John Gould’s excellent notes – an item that caught my eye is that SCAPA is open to the idea of a separate runway for ultralights.

3:00 PM RHV SCAPA EAA meet Carl Honaker

Today six EAA members met with two SCAPA members (Steve miller and their treasurer, Mark?) First thing we did was to round robin introduce ourselves, I was the only one both an active original SCAPA member and EAA member. EAA had 6 members: Steve Mann, Mike Arndt, John Feemster, John Gould, George Nicholson and Lou Janis. THE AVERAGE AGE WAS OVER 50. Lou and Mike are part 103 pilots and John Feemster is a part 103 BFI instructor. All three have quicksilver aircraft located at Hollister for lack of hangars at E16. Ken Betts and Carl Honaker represented the county.

Steve Miller started emotionally stating there is a safety problem because E16 is a congested area. George pointed out that it is not true and still acceptable for experimental fly offs of the first 40 hours. Carl also commented that he did not believe it a congested area but would check with the FAA.

Later Steve offered that a SCAPA member, Frank G, would donate his equipment to construct an ultralight runway to the Southwest corner, but that SCAPA would not accept Ultralights utilizing the main runway. Carl will study the offer and discussed an example of the helicopter training area created at RHV with the FAA blessing.

Carl explained that there are FAA rules and there are airport managers guidelines and procedures. An example would be to have a procedure that all aircraft operate with radios at E16. He added that airport rules must not discriminate.

Steve provided Carl examples from other airports about ultralight rules and patterns. (Paso Robles, Auburn, Marina, Petaluma.) EAA also provided the Petaluma example. Carl will review them.

You can check SCAPA’s web site at: http://www.q99.org/

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Vaughn McIlrath 6-26-2005