NEW OFFICERS FOR 2004 – 2005
At the November meeting the membership elected the following individuals to guide our Chapter for the next two years: President, Steve Carlson; Vice President, Dave Baker; Secretary, Lee Ann Carlson; Treasurer, Joanne Warner.

Lee Ann pointed out that the by laws indicated the Secretary must listen carefully to the President and take notes. She wasn’t sure she could do that. It was pointed out that since she told him what to do in the first place it didn’t matter what he said. Dave Baker attempted to get nominations from the floor for the position of VP, but when he saw the futility of his effort promised a “chicken in every pot”. Steve remained silent (probably he had been told to do so) and Joanne, calm as ever, merely smiled.

With our new officers encumbered with the proper attitude we should have some great leadership for the next two years. Thanks for your willingness to serve the Chapter.

A big “thank you” is due to those who have served for the last two years for their efforts. Under the leadership of Norris Warner (and largely through his hands on efforts) our Chapter has prospered as never before. Thanks Norris and to all the others who served as officers, events chairmen and women, volunteers and on the Board of Directors. Special thanks go to the members. Without your continuing support our Chapter would not continue to grow and flourish.

We look forward to working with our new officers in 2004 – 2005.

Don Staats

Rio De Janeiro Brazil - (November 20, 2003) American born Jennifer Murray is attempting to become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe in a helicopter via the North and South poles. She stopped over in Rio De Janeiro after completing about 20% of her journey which started in New York on October 22, 2003.

Murray and co-pilot Colin Bodill hope to reach the South Pole by December 17, 2003 to commemorate the Wright Brothers Centennial. They have arranged to have barrels of fuel and supplies dropped off at key waypoints along the way. They also have a search and rescue team on standby, in case of an emergency. Still it’s a relatively risky undertaking, they will have to combat high winds, snow and ice, and will be forced to fly at high altitudes over the south pole. Helicopters don’t do well at high altitudes and there are some that think it’s an impossible mission.

63 year old Murray holds two other world aviation records. In 1997 she became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe in a helicopter and in 2000 she became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe in a helicopter, solo. kgn

The Wild West
I have a sort of love/hate relationship with the Internet. While I love to surf for news from around the world and listen to the BBC, I hate the lawlessness of the Internet. The Internet today is kind of like the Bell Phone System was in the 1950’s, when party lines were common and your neighbor could listen in on your phone calls. The following are some suggestions based on years of experience, I would even call them the 10 Commandments for protecting your computer, your hard work and your privacy on the Internet. They say that knowledge is power. These tips will help you to surf the net worry free, and I hope they will empower you to work and compute with confidence

1. Back up your hard drive on CD’s. If you ever get a virus or a Trojan that you can’t identify and remove, you will need to format your hard drive and reinstall all your software. With lost updates and activations this process can take days. Now you can backup your entire hard drive with drive image software. I recommend True Image, or Drive Image. You can restore your system in a couple of hours, instead of days, with all your software, updates and activations intact.

2. Install and update your firewall. Try Norton Personal Firewall 2004.The good thing about Norton’s software is that they do such a great job at improving and updating it. Always upgrade to the latest version.

3. Install and update your anti-virus software. I recommend Norton Anti-Virus 2004. Always get the latest and the best.

4. Keep your Windows Operating System updated. Windows is the most exploited OS in the world, and MS only addresses the critical exploits, not all the exploits.

5. Use a secure e-mail client, try MS Outlook 2004 which has numerous security features built into it. Outlook prevents potentially harmful content from running by default. Better yet, avoid opening e-mail or attachments that you don’t recognize or expect.

6. Visit only reputable web sites. If you are unsure of the web site you are about to visit, set your Internet Explorer Security settings to High, just in case. Set it to medium for big name sites that you trust.

7 Use a separate computer dedicated for surfing the web and email, and use your other computer for your work and private things. Avoid using wireless Local Area Networks, by default they are designed to be totally open. Use Ethernet cable instead, and isolate your work computer.

8. Avoid buying products online. The truth is the Internet and your computer are not a secure marketplace, and anytime you use your credit card online, you are taking an identity theft risk. Use a corded land line phone instead.

9. Avoid free software on the Internet, often times they have Trojans built right into them. A Trojan can render your firewall useless.

10. Use passwords that combine letters and numbers. Make it hard to guess.

It is everyone's hope that someday these guidelines will become obsolete, but until Microsoft makes an OS that is secure, and the Internet’s infrastructure changes, we are stuck with firewalls, virus scanners and patches. There is an entire industry dedicated to computer and internet security and it is growing.
The market seems to be demanding a more secure Internet experience and with each exploit that is defeated a more secure environment emerges. The Internet is still in it’s infancy and in a way we are all pioneers in a virtual Wild West. kgn

GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS PAST
I seem to spend more time dwelling in the past, especially on festive occasions. I remember relatives and friends from those events that are no longer with me. Its sad in a way, but also good that I retain such fond memories and thoughts. Our Chapter Christmas party is one such event. I look forward to it each year and although the food is important I just want to be there to share the evening with others.

One of my first Christmas meetings was at the Circle K Steakhouse in Cibolo. The late Mack Kardys was VP then and arranged it. The food was good and we were all crowded into a back room where noise and laughter rang out the entire evening. Other sites included Captain Jack’s Steak Loft in Helotes, arranged by George Waterman, a restaurant on loop 410 that is now a Chinese buffet, a clubhouse in a development where Ruth and Jim Herron lived and for a few years a room somewhere on St. Mary’s campus. These events were pot luck suppers and BYOB (and most of us did).

The pot lucks continued until some of the ladies in the Chapter said enough! We are doing too much work to enjoy the occasion. We started catering after that and it seems to work out. We’ve had Bill Millers and several others including the great turkey dinners from Bandera, thanks to Norris.

Several years ago Linda Campbell started the gift exchange. Some years they are funnier than others. Dave Baker has brought a sense of fun and joy to the event and I look forward to his comments every year.

I think we have really hit a high mark in these last several years on the food. Thanks to Skip Barchfeld we get a great price from Bill & Rosa’s and the food is something less common than most blue plate specials. Some years it is better than others but it is always good. I am looking forward to many more years eating food prepared by Bill and Rosa’s and I stop at their place every time I drive through D’Hannis.

As I said, it’s not the food that brings me, it’s the company. At Christmas we share ourselves with our families. For those of us with small families our dinners at home are happy, but there is not the crowd around that we remember from Grandmother’s time. For that kind of crowd and that kind of celebration I come to our Chapter gathering. After all aren’t we family?

Don Staats

Pilot Quotes...on flying

Though I fly through the valley of death, I shall fear no evil ... for I am at 80,000 Feet and Climbing. (sign over the entrance to the SR-71 operating location Kadena, Japan).

You've never been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3. (Paul F.Crickmore -test pilot)

Navy carrier pilots to Air Force pilots: Flaring is like squatting to pee.

If the wings are traveling faster than the fuselage, it's probably a helicopter -- and therefore, unsafe.

Adrenalin Rush
By Hal Stanford

I grew up flying with my father and uncles in assorted Cessnas and Pipers but when my brother-in-law bought an American Yankee, I was in for a new type of plane and pilot. Weldon Griffin married my sister when I was just barely five years old. Over the years I slowly learned more about this man of few words. I found out that when he was a member of “The Gear Grinders” car club, his nickname was Tarzan! This let me know that there was a little James Dean under that Vic Damon exterior!

I was busy zig zagging my way through the sink holes and flash floods of adolescence, when Weldon asked me to fly with him to Eagle Pass where he had a job installing a video security system for a small business there. We took off late that morning from Southside Air Park and headed due west. About 50 miles outside of San Antonio, we were flying over some pretty desolate countryside and—out of the blue--Weldon asked me if I had ever done any acrobatics.

Saying this to a boy who thought the roller coaster at “Kiddie Park” was exciting, caused my stomach to do a quick flip flop. I tried to act confident as I replied, no. He then said that we were going to do a couple of simple stalls. I was just happy that the words loop or spin weren’t used! He told me that we would do a power on stall at which point he pulled the yoke back and the wide orange nose filled the sky. After some long seconds the right wing tip (on my side) went through kind of a shiver, and a loud stall warning indicator went off in the tight little cockpit. I watched his actions closely as he pushed the yoke forward and the ground quickly was in full view and getting closer! What seemed like a minute passed and he pulled us out of the dive, leveling out under the puffy white clouds of S. W. Texas. I looked over at Weldon and gave him a little smile of reassurance that I had been alright with that level of chaos. Next he said we would do a power off stall. Any new found confidence didn’t last too long as Weldon repeated the earlier procedures, but at the peak of our nose up attitude, he turned the engine off!! The sight of the prop standing dead still in front of me is a sight that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. Again, the shudder then the stall warning, then heading for the ground when Weldon casually reached over and turned on the ignition key. I remember thinking to myself, hurry!

We pulled out and were again heading for the border. Weldon asked me what I had thought about the stalls. I told him that it had been interesting. Interesting in that I learned more about flying that day, more about my brother-in-law and ultimately more about myself. I wasn’t the cocky self assured teen that I tried to portray. I was just a young man who liked flying among the clouds in a safe airplane with a competent pilot. I know that some of you reading this story don’t find practicing stall procedures very exciting, but remember the glee and wonder on the faces of the little kids on the “Kiddie Park” roller coaster. That was me, Hal Stanford, now a proud member of EAA Chapter 35.

Our Young Eagle events are still going strong with seventeen scouts earning their aviation merit badge in November and a final event planned for December.

Seventeen scouts and six scout leaders arrived at San Geronimo in the early evening of Friday, November 14th. Once the scouts arrived they put up their tents and began working on their aviation merit badge. We divided the scouts up into three groups with Norris providing information on aircraft past and present, engine operation, and job opportunities in aviation. Jim Havens brought over the L-Bird and showed another group of scouts how an airfoil generates lift, the control surfaces used for level flights and turns, and how to pre-flight an airplane. I took the third group and explained how to read an aeronautical chart along with plotting a course and correcting for winds. By 9:00 p.m. all the scouts had gone through the three groups. Rain did postpone the final group’s aircraft orientation to the next day, as Jim had to put the L-Bird back into the hangar. The scouts then ate dinner and turned in for the night.

Saturday started out with an orientation of the San Geronimo airport and runway markings while waiting for the ceiling to rise. We managed to start flying Young Eagles at around 10:30 a.m. and had everyone flown by around noon. We had three pilots including Jim McIrvin in his Cessna 195, Bob Cabe in Dave Baker’s Sundowner, and myself in Ed’s Tri-Pacer. Jim was even nice enough to provide the adult scout leaders with a flight. All the scouts earned their aviation merit badge and everyone had a great time.

We still have one more Young Eagles event to be held on Saturday, December 6th. We will be flying a group of about twenty kids from the Boys and Girls Club beginning at 10:00 a.m. I think that with about four or five planes flying we will be able to fly all of the Young Eagles in a couple of hours and be done by lunch time.
Our total count for the year stands at 364 Young Eagles and we are not quite done yet. This year we had a total of twenty pilots from our chapter flying Young Eagles, the most ever. Of course we had almost forty volunteers donate their time to ensure all of our events were completed safely and successfully. With our chapter’s help the national total for Young Eagles surpassed the 1,000,000 mark and now stands at 1,010,608. Thanks to everyone who helped make this year such a success. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Brad Doppelt