Lee Ann and Steve Carlson

President's Message for the New Year
Happy New Year, everyone! Team 35 looks forward to a great year. We should see some great programs with most of them focusing on aircraft construction. This is what the membership wants to see the most. We have a great cast of characters filling our board seats this year and each of them is an aircraft builder, restorer, or vintage owner. This is all to ensure that our chapter heads in the direction that we have indicated we desire to go. Look forward to many “How do you do that” type of programs.

Our new membership chairman, Norris Warner, is off and running, but he could use some help. Look around our chapter house at the next meeting and see if you see the future of aviation. If you see too many of the same- I tread dangerous ground here- old faces, then go out and bring the future in. I would like to challenge every member of the chapter to bring one prospective member to one chapter program this year. If every one of us did this we’d have introduced an additional 180 folks to our unique way of life. If building airplanes in our homes, garages, and hangars is as educational and rewarding as we think it is, then it is worth sharing with your neighbors and your coworkers, as well as your family members. Our chapter has grown tremendously in the past two years, let’s keep the trend going.

We will have a board meeting prior to our regular meeting in January. This meeting will start promptly at 4:00pm. One of the subjects will be the newsletter printing and distribution. Please feel free to join your board in these discussions. Your board values your input on these decisions. Long range projects include our quest for 501.c.3 status with the IRS, (I hope I spelled that correctly), and then chapter house expansion. I look forward to seeing you there.

These holidays have jammed me up against the scheduling wall so I was not able to talk to Phil Capestany about his program for this month prior to the newsletter deadline. I am sure he has a great program for us.

We had a very good turn out for the Grey Eagles fly in at San Geronimo on 17 December. This was the best way to celebrate 100 years of flight. Wednesday was a beautiful day, cool and dry. The Warrior flew like a homesick angel. Norris Warner, Brad Doppelt, Ed Seurer, John Latour, Bob Cabe, Ed and Mrs. Eades, and Richard Gramling were all in attendance. After burning up the usual route out by the dam and back, my wife and I followed the crowd to Uvalde. There we found a friendly ramp gathering around a free lunch and avgas for $1.25. This former military base features a junior college right on the field in the old base buildings and some new buildings as well. The college has a flight school and aircraft maintenance training.

Our Cozy project is off and running. The first bulkhead is complete and the second one is ready for glassing. It’s a lot like saying that the mountain is conquered when we’ve only just laced up our boots for the first time, but somebody said, “The greatest journey begins with a single step.” We will keep you posted. If you’ve made some progress on your project, even if your efforts seem as small as mine, write it up and send it in. We can walk the mountain together.

Steve Carlson