What an interesting month it has been in isolation. Hopefully you have embraced it positively and used the extra time at home to catch up on those tasks you were always putting off.

It might be gardening, cleaning or home maintenance but equally it could be servicing and washing your aircraft.

I do hope the aircraft owners amongst you are keeping your flying recency up and your engines ticking over. My understanding is there is nothing to prevent you from flying solo and indeed in some countries in lockdown they are allowing flying every 28 days to maintain your aircraft engine health.

You will also be aware that both CASA and RAAUS have provided extensions on requirements to renew medicals, BFRs, instrument ratings and the like. Check out their websites for details if you are affected.

You may have heard this week that the 2020 EAA flyin at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, has been cancelled. Understandable given that preparations begin in May and USA is largely still in lockdown. Also, international airline travel is probably still a long way off for all of us.

I have seen that EAA are continuing to offer Webinars throughout May and June with lots of interesting subjects discussed. You can sign up on their website for live participation or pick up an older webinar anytime.

Regarding our own club activity, I know that there will not be a meeting in May but signs are hopeful that the easing of restrictions coming imminently, could make a June meeting possible with social distancing applied. I will be liaising with the Feathers Hotel as to what this would look like.

The easing of travel restrictions at least within the state means that we could soon organise a local fly away day trip to say the riverland or the south east as we had originally planned.

If any of you are finding the lack of social contact with other club members difficult, RAAUS have offered clubs the use of their Zoom video conferencing account free of charge so we can meet online.

You would need to have your own PC and internet connection, and be familiar will Zoom to join in.

I would like to hear from you if you are interested in using this format and if we get enough takers we can do this until face to face meetings resume.

As you know, last month we held our AGM almost exclusively by proxy. There were 4 council members in attendance and 17 proxies. Thanks to those who returned their proxy so we did achieve a quorum.

All the constitution changes were carried so I am pleased to announce that we can now formally offer social membership to the club at half the normal membership rate for those who meet the criteria for this category. Details are on our website.

The club council was re-elected unchanged from last year.

They are:

• Steve Nelson     President
• Chris Moore       Secretary
• Greg Tabe         Treasurer & Membership
• Chris Dearden   Webmaster
• Bob Scrymgour Meals
• Rob Wintulich    AV & Meeting Host
• Barry Windle     Ordinary Member

So keep an eye on the club website for the latest updates and I hope to see you all in the flesh soon.

Blue Skies,

Steve

The only thing it would be nice to have more of would be M & Ms. –Astronaut Shannon Lucid, after 6 months isolation on the Mir Space Station in 1996.

How the world has changed in just 3 weeks since our last club meeting. Limitations imposed on our daily lives to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 has changed literally everything we previously took for granted.

The experts are still unsure how long this whole process will take to return to normal but in the meantime we have to get used to our “new normal”. The good news is that there are the first signs that the rate of spread is slowing down.

So I ask that you all stay safe, apply the guidelines, and we will all come through it.

Needless to say that formal club meetings and other club activities are suspended for the time being but that is not to say that you cannot still keep in touch with each other by phone or the various video platforms.

We still have an AGM to conduct on April 8^th to allow the club to continue to function. This will be a purely administrative meeting. Fortunately, all the current councilors have agreed to stand again and there have been no new nominations received so the process for re-election is simple. Because of the latest limits imposed on group sizes I can no longer allow members to attend the meeting in person. You can of course still have your say by submitting a proxy to the club secretary.

As of yesterday only 3 proxies had been received so it is imperative that all members make their best effort to submit a proxy before the deadline of 1130am Wednesday 8^th April, so that we reach a quorum.

Presidents Report, Treasurers Report and Accounts available via these links.

Download and print this Proxy Form. You then add your personal details, a mark in the box (for, against or abstain) for each item and submit it to the club secretary.

This can be done by scanning and emailing (cpmoore@internode.on.net) or by post. If all of that fails for some reason then sending a photograph of your proxy would be acceptable as long as it is legible. So please act on this email as soon as you receive it.

As there are no events or club activities to report on I suspect this will be the last Plane Paper you will receive for the time being. The club website is still available to check out any updates that may be posted there, so continue to monitor it.

Rest assured, when things return to normal the club council has a number of events planned and ready to implement.

 COVID free skies,

 Steve

Last meeting we enjoyed a very interesting and enthusiastic speaker in antique aircraft owner Tim Brownridge. Tim owns a DH82 Tiger Moth and a Stinson SR9E Reliant.

After the talk Tim invited me to fly with him in his Stinson a few days later, which I very quickly accepted.

The following are my personal observations of flying a machine such as this. I met Tim at his hangar at Callington and the first thing I noticed about the Stinson is its size. This is no regular GA aircraft. It is LARGE. At 42 foot wingspan, 1816kg all up weight and a 350HP Wright Whirlwind 7 cylinder radial engine (same as used on the Southern Cross), it has a commanding presence. It has a very elegant double taper fabric covered Gull wing which is something never seen on today’s aircraft. You have to climb a ladder to get into the cabin and once seated I estimate you are sitting nearly 9 feet above the ground.

The interior is gorgeous. Plush burgundy leather seats and side panels, a simulated woodgrain instrument panel and circular wooden steering wheels, very reminiscent of the luxury motor vehicles of the same era (1937). It can carry 5 persons all up, plus a large baggage compartment and 400 litres of fuel. Cruise is a surprisingly fast 115 kts at 70 litres per hour fuel consumption. This puts the endurance just short of 6 hours and with that payload makes it a very capable aircraft. Given this design is 85 years old makes it exceptional.

It is a fairly conventional cockpit layout with several interesting exceptions. Heel brakes are used which are not often seen these days. The elevator trim is a rotary handle in the cabin ceiling. Electric engine start is by a foot operated switch on the floor between the rudder pedals. Fuel quantity gauges are in each wing root up by your ears like a Piper Cub. The magneto switches and the electric flap switch are either side of the throttle and look very similar. Tim has confessed to accidentally turning off the engine when intending to lower the flaps! There is also a very nifty 24 hour analogue clock which takes a bit familiarity to interpret. And when it gets hot the cabin windows can be wound down, just like in a car!

Aircraft handling is entirely conventional albeit a little heavy as one would expect of an aircraft this size. I expected a wing drop during the stall, given the high taper of the wingtips. Yet it was very benign with only the tiniest of right wing drop. Visibility into turns is somewhat restricted given the high wing and the leading edge out in front of the pilot. It felt very solid and stable on approach at 70kts and touchdown was soft given the forgiving nature of the undercarriage design. The flare is commenced earlier than normal GA aircraft remembering how high you are seated above the ground. The only “gotcha” is the tailwheel. It is fully castoring and not lockable so you have to be on your rudder pedals quickly after landing to keep it straight, particularly in a crosswind.

Overall, a delightful experience which I feel very privileged to have had. Thanks Tim.

Last week we had about 15 turn up at Lyndon Wright’s workshop in McClaren Vale to view his dual projects of a Savannah LSA and a 1968 Porsche 911 restoration. Both were very nicely done, a testament to Lyndon’s engineering skills. Both projects are nearing completion but the Savannah has been taking a back seat for the last 18 months as Lyndon concentrates on getting the Porsche on the road first. He has a thing about older German technology so he has chosen to paint the Savannah to represent a WW2 era German observation plane.

At this months meeting we have as our speaker Captain Steve Burnard. Steve is recently retired from a long career with Dragonair (now known as Cathay Dragon) in Hong Kong. The bulk of his flying would have been from Hong Kong into various mainland Chinese airports which from experience I know were always interesting and challenging. He also operated into Kathmandu in Nepal which is renowned as one of the worlds more difficult jet airports. Come and hear his reminiscences entitled “Cathay Dragon Tales”.

Blue Skies,

Steve

Experience is the knowledge that enables you to recognise a mistake when you make it again.

Having left the teens behind and entering a new decade we look forward to meeting again with friends and enjoying some exciting club events planned for this year.

Our regular monthly meetings resume on February 12^th at the Feathers Hotel. Dinner beforehand can be ordered in the usual way through the club website.

Our speaker is Tim Brownridge, an owner of not one but two antique aircraft, a Tiger Moth and a Stinson Reliant, and is the secretary of the Antique Aircraft Association of Australia. He is formation qualified and took part in the recent Vimy Centenary flypast. He also captured a lot of inflight video which he edited into a superb short film of the event. His talk is entitled “Vintage aircraft ownership, why would you?’

Looking back over events that have happened since the last newsletter.

The club hosted their annual flyin BBQ at Murray Bridge on December 15^th. It was well attended with 40 plus attendees and several arriving by air. My thanks goes to all those who helped out with setup, cooking and providing salads. Paul Baishont gave us an educational talk on Naips in the club hangar where I counted 27 people listening in. This seems a popular format in place of our normal December meeting so I would like to hear feedback to confirm that and we can continue. I would also like to hear what educational subjects you would like to hear about and I can find the appropriate presenters.

 On January 11^th member Terry Wilson hosted a flyin to his property near Morgan in the Riverland. It was not expected to be a large affair but in the end there were 8 visiting aircraft including 3 from the Barossa Birdmen club at Truro Flats. Terry’s hangar has a basic but ingenious fitout that makes it possible to enjoy extended stays there. He provided a great lunch which was most appreciated.  But I think the best part was the camaraderie between all pilots when they gather together like this.

I do hope it will be possible to do flyins like Terry’s regularly.

There are numerous aviation events coming up which I would like to draw your attention to.

15^th February there is a book launch of Rod Lovell’s book “Hero to Zero” at the South Australian Aviation Museum at 11am. Rob will also be our club meeting guest speaker in April.

Also on the 15^th the Southern Districts Flying Club are hosting a CASA AvSafety Seminar at Strathalbyn.

22^nd February we are hosting a workshop visit at McClaren Vale. After all the flurry of building activity last year I was concerned there were no more building projects out there. Member John Heather has located another project. Motor mechanic, Lyndon Wright is building a Savannah and as an added bonus is also restoring an old Porsche 911 in his workshop. He has agreed to us visiting from 1pm at 2 Hall St McClaren Vale. It might be a good opportunity to stock up with wine from the cellar doors whilst you are in the area. See attatched photos of his workshop.

26^th February there is another CASA pilot safety seminar at the South Australian Aviation Museum. Entry is free, you just need to register on the CASA website.

1^st March We have received an invite to the annual Hutton Vale Flyin at Angaston hosted by the Aldinga Aero Club. It looks like a gourmets delight judging by the lunch selections! There is also wine tasting available for the non flyers. Details, including a landing strip brief, and who to contact are on the club website.

7^th March we are doing another Bunnings Sausage sizzle fund raiser. This money goes towards covering the costs of 2 flying scholarships. We have enough helpers for this day but you are welcome to volunteer for the next one so please contact Greg Tabe if you can do a half day shift. We expect to do a fundraiser day every three months.

Please be reminded that 2020 annual membership fees fall due on January 1^st. They have been set at $80, a small increase from the $75 we have had for several years now. They can be paid into the club bank account shown below. You may need to update the EFT bank details on your computer as the club changed it’s account from the NAB to the Bendigo Bank a few months ago. The old account is now closed and will not accept any payments. Alternatively, you can pay by cash or credit card (2% service charge) at the next club meeting.

Steve

Ensure that your dream consumes your life so that life does not consume your dream – Pioneer Aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery