HANGAR FLYIN'

For those who only read the first sentence or two of each article, this is for you. The Galveston trip was GREAT! Saturday in Abilene was a great morning with calm winds and cool temperatures. Teresa and I departed our house in-bound to Abilene to link up with Carroll Bird and Charlotte. Tower and approach sequenced us and we linked up on the downwind with ease. Tim and Pam McMurray had already departed as had Buck Prier, Ray and Shirley Parrish. The flight down was spent in formation with Carroll while Charlotte flew in the number two position as she was needing some flight time. While preparing for landing at Georgetown, a large flight of Rv’s were de-parting for a formation flight to a fly-in in Waco. They had the sky over Georgetown airport full of an impressive for-mation! We linked up with Tim and Pam briefly as they departed for the next leg. Carroll's daughter and grandson met us at the airport for a visit.

After half-hour break for fuel, we were off to climb on top of the clouds and get to the coast. A few miles out of Galveston we learned that Pacers can fly backwards. And additional 50 knots above the white puffy clouds made it seem like Tim and Pam were not moving.

Landing in Galveston was a trick due to a twin Beech that was not taking on the radio at all. I held over the Galveston bay bridge doing 360’s until Carroll could get in to land. I believe the seagulls were nervous that I was taking their territory away.

We linked up with Ray at the FBO; after se-curing the planes, we were off to the hotel to drop our luggage. There we met up with Richard and Betty Baxter, Don and Jo Bledsoe and their daughters Becky and Vickie. A quick lunch was eaten before the Lonestar Flight Museum tour. By that time the majority of the group was together (Somewhat) for the first time.

The flight museum was truly outstanding. Acres of planes were indoors representing pieces of aviation’s past. they have been as-sembled in a great mass to preserve a piece of flying history.

The group went sep-arate ways after the museum. There was so much to see and so little time to do it. Some went to the rainforest pyr-amid while others went to see the I-Max movie Space, and yet others went to the aquarium. The motel provided us with a great meal of fresh gulf coast seafood. The majority of the group went to Guideo’s seafood downtown. After they finished eating it was 1:00 am, and the Hotel van was not running. The word is that Ray ran out in the street and stopped a van for the trans-portation back to the hotel for a short night’s rest before the flight home. The next morning the sky was blue and the air was cool for departure to Abilene.

Carroll and Charlotte went up the coast for a quick view of the coast. We linked up just in time, as my radio decided to stop receiving any transmission. We quickly became a fight of two. I never thought this trip would be some formation cross-country time for me. I never wanted to get very far away from Carroll’s RV-4 as I could not let him out of sight. He was my ticket to land in Georgetown!

A big round of thanks to all of those who went. You make the EAA Chapter 471 trips fun. Friends in strange places make it home away from home.

Tim & Pam McMurray

Gray & Teresa Bridwell

Don & Jo Bledsoe

Carroll Bird

Charlotte Rhodes

Richard & Betty Baxter

Judy Stocks - Lubbock

Buck Prier

Terry & Mickey Cole – Lubbock

Wes & Becky Hays

Rick and Sue Liles – Lubbock

Vicky & Becky Bledsoe

Ray and Shirley Parrish

- Chris Ulibarri

Young Eagles Chairman

Thank you very much to the great folks over at the Abilene Regional Tower, Charlotte Rhodes, Randy Moore, and Rick Cevallos for getting us our squawk codes and the rest of the Abilene Tower Controllers for such a outstanding professional performance as usual.

I'm working on an article for the EAA on our Young Eagles activities in our Chapter and if you all have any ideas I could add, please pass it on to me as soon as you can. Gray and I have talked about this and think it's a great idea especially since we do more than some chapters who have sent in articles and had them printed in the monthly issue. It will be great recognition for our chapter and will show the Great Spirit we have here in the Big Country and our love of flying.

We're planning a Young Eagles Appreciation day on the 15th of June to show our thanks to all for jobs well done and even to do some more flying. As I say, any excuse to go flying. Everyone in our Chapter is invited. Stay tuned for further details and information. I hope I named every-one who helped out so thanks again to everyone, and I look forward to future Young Eagles missions and for your excellent support.

* Note: John Rivera joined EAA Nationals the morning of Young Eagles event so he could fly.

Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 11:17 AM

Dear Chapter Members,

The Site Selection Committee is closing in on a recommendation and will soon have the list of potential sites down to three . The final presentations

will be made in July and the vote taken then.

In order to vote each chapter representative or their alternate must have attended the meeting in April and/or the next meeting in June.

Please be there; both June and July - the future of SWRFI is on the line.

We must approve a date change at this time.

Fall has not worked. We need to try late Spring. Some sites are best in late May and others in early June from a logistics stand-point. We have approval from Oshkosh for the third weekend in May and the first weekend in June. We need to approve both and go with which ever works best for the future site.

Meeting June 15, 2002 New Braunfels BAZ

10:30 a.m. Terminal Building

Lunch follows

Most chapter members know by now that Stan Shannon has been working hard to relocate the fly-in. Some spec-ulate that the Friday night party is to blame. Several chapter mem-bers had a great idea for aviators to come to-gether, eat, tell flying stories, and listen to a great band. Positive mention for the party was made in Sport Aviation and the Van’s Aircraft magazine, the Rvator. Our chapter gets the glory for a few of our member's hard work.

However, our chapter has a less than positive image in the eyes of other SWRFI members. In a past couple of SWRFI workdays none of our members left our chapter breakfast to go work for SWRFI. Several things went wrong that few know.

ONE: Stan has made several mem-bers angry one way or another and our members will not sup-port him. They will sup-port the Fly-in, and certain Chapter 471 members, if asked will help. But they will not support Stan.

TWO: It was our day for breakfast. Our mem-bers have developed a custom of gathering and eating breakfast with other Chapter members, flying some, and enjoying the day. Not to mention the great food.

If everyone will remember, it all started with a bunch of donated pancake batter. Now it is a full meal with a large menu.

THREE: Other SWRFI members fail to see all the work that we put in behind the scenes, before the event, and on behalf of the event. If all will remember my recap of items last fall, nearly all of the chapter per-formed some kind of task.

There may be more than I have detailed, but this is the major portion of it. Abilene is a great city and the airport layout is even better for fly-in’s. Several of us are working hard expending a lot of effort to keep the fly-in in Abilene. We all know that we like it here, just few admit it. This may be the last fly-in in Abilene so we ALL need to show our efforts this year and hope it stays in Abilene.

Recent security and identity theft concerns have led the FAA to cease its policy of using Social Security Numbers (SSN) as airmen certificate numbers. Effective June 1, 2002, all original airman certificates will be issued by the Airman Certification Branch (AFS-760) with unique certificate numbers. Pilots with existing SSN certificate numbers can complete a form and have the FAA assign them a unique certificate number. Through June 1, new Airman Certificates will continue to be issued using the SSN unless the airman requests a unique number. FAA's Request For Change of Certificate Number form is available for download at http://registry.faa.gov/docs/SSN_Change.pdf.

- June 8^th 8:00am Pride Hangar - Chapter 471 Breakfast

Short meeting will follow at 9:00

- June 15^th 10:30am SWRFI meeting, New Braunfels terminal building

- June 15^th 7:00pm Young Eagles appreciation party

- June 22^nd 8:00am Young Eagles Snyder, Texas

- July 13^th 8:00am Pride Hangar - Chapter 471 Breakfast

- July 13^th 10:30am SWRFI meeting, Kerrville, Texas

- July 20^th 8:00am Leave Abilene for the second annual

"Fly-in float out" in New Braunfels, return Sunday

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Hank Castle – Director 672-3895

Tiny Malm 692-9292

Gray Bridwell 676-8294

Carroll Bird – Director 572-3435

Clyde Fletcher 572-3005

Harold Cannon 673-1057

Tim McMurray – Director 698-4921

Carroll Bird 572-3435

Harold Cannon - Director 673-1057

Hobby Stevens 673-6736

Gray Bridwell 676-8294

Chris Ulibarri 691-9887

Mike Agnello 677-3897

Gray Bridwell - Director 676-8294

Billy Tucker 537-9526

Lon Beasley 698-1233

Steve West 572-4926

Billy Beaird 854-2656

Chris Ulibarri 691-9887

Frank Berg 698-7264

Bobby Nichols 672-6583

J.C. Lambert – Director 893-2519

Dennis Matheson 572-4921

Don Bledsoe 692-2088

Tim McMurray 698-4921

Lon Beasley 698-1233

Gray Bridwell 676-8294

Audie Gill 668-5044

Mark Rand 529-4521

Brian Bauries 691-9403

Loren Henson 692-4647

President Gray Bridwell

Vice-President Billy Tucker