Don Staats

ARE WE MISSING THE POINT?
I flew over to Julius Junge’s hangar today and looked over his projects. As usual, progress is being made. Were I in a religious order, visiting Julius would be the equivalent of “renewing the faith”. He is always building something and at the same time enlarging his already vast knowledge of home building techniques. After a few minutes of conversation we struck on a theme that has been buzzing around in my head for a few months. Talking with Julius clarified my thoughts and I would like to share them with you.

Our Chapter is approaching the 200 membership mark. This makes it one of the largest in this part of the country. We spend a lot of time doing those things that keeps us aligned with the Headquarters. We fly Young Eagles several times a year. We send young people to summer camp or whatever it’s called. We are working on our tax exempt status and are changing our by-laws to reflect the new emphasis. We have a major project in the works to enlarge our meeting space. We have appointed a new landscaper. We have suppers and pancake breakfasts. Our programs are entertaining and on rare occasion have to do with building airplanes. We have our picnics. We help the 99’s and Castroville. We support the Southwest Regional Fly-in big time (thanks everyone!). We are a very social group.

What are we missing here? We seem to do everything and we are staying more than busy. Does anyone else get the feeling that we seem to have forgotten the basic thing that got this whole movement started? THE PURPOSE OF THE EAA IS TO BUILD AIRPLANES. All else is froth and frosting. It seems to me that we no longer have this purpose at the front and center of our efforts.

I don’t know when it started locally but I think I can trace the dilution at national level back to the early 1970’s. Thats when we first started creating divisions to embrace a larger segment of the civilian recreational flying community. We had the Antique/Classic division, the Warbirds division and on ad infinitum. This is really great from a national perspective. It gives us more clout in shaping FAA policy and regulation to our own ends. It may well be that this all encompassing policy and the large world-wide membership is all that has kept our kind of flying from being regulated out of existence.

Later on we start expanding into other areas and come with up with experimentation to use auto gas. Good on that one—it made me legal. Eventually we turn our attention to the youth, to stir continuing interest in flying and develop the next generation of pilots. Currently we are celebrating the Wright Brothers flight. I understand now that a major effort is underway to reorganize the EAA (bringing the Foundation and EAA back under one roof) and who knows what will be next.

In all these efforts the chapters are tasked for support. Also, we are lumbered with ever increasing record keeping, more concerns over legal issues, etc.

Chapter 35 has gone along with all this, and rightly so if the EAA is to maintain its national position. Somewhere along the way we lost focus on the basic effort to build airplanes. Now some will point out the many projects our chapter members are undertaking, but that is not our main focus.

Others have expressed some of these concerns to me. Some say we should go back to those thrilling days of yesteryear when 10 or 15 guys met at someone’s house. The women all went out to the kitchen to drink coffee and the guys repaired to the garage to admire progress on the host’s project and lie about progress on their own. I think we are beyond that with the greatly expanded building opportunities and the prevalence of kits. I do think, however, that we need to regain our focus on BUILDING AIRPLANES.

One way to do this would be to set up a formal chairmanship for homebuilding. It would be the chairpersons role to help establish building groups. For example, we could have metal workers group, wood group etc. Or we could group by type if there are enough examples such as the RV series. Some mixture of both might be more reasonable. In addition the Chair would work to facilitate the acquisition of tools for the groups and building space for projects. The chair would also coordinate the group efforts as required and establish meeting dates aside from regular chapter meetings if that would be effective.

Some chapters have built several of a given type of aircraft. We would need to get with those chapters and see what their ground rules were and what worked or didn’t. The late Dick Cavin and a group in the Dallas area built a series of prize winning Thorpe T-18s many years ago. I understand there is a group of RV builders over at Lockhart. So this group effort is nothing new and in many instances has been most effective.

The Homebuilding Chair would coordinate these efforts and report back to the chapter and we would make this the program one or two times a year. These groups would be self sustaining and not depend on the chapter for financial support. Group members could chip in to buy tools, rent space etc. There size could be limited to maintain speedy progress. If too many want to join, form a second group. Each group could build some of the jigs and then swap. There are many ways this could work and each group would find their own way.

Paul McReynolds is already doing some of this with his work with the RV builders. We have an informal group of glass builders and there may be others. We need to consider establishing this Chairmanship and initiate these groups for those who wish the structure. It would give us a good place to point new members and encourage others to join our chapter. We need to get a reputation as a chapter of builders. This is the primary reason new people come out to visit. They are interested in building an airplane. If their interest is strong enough they will build it with or without our help. I would rather see them inside our tent, and with our help build a better airplane.

All the above is a reflection of my thoughts, although I have heard others express the same concerns. Personally, I am beyond the time of building but it seems a useful endeavor for those who are planning to undertake a project. What do you think? As a Chapter have we been so busy that we have been missing the point of EAA? What would you recommend?

Don Staats