Oshkosh, the biggest aviation spectacle on earth has just concluded and by all accounts, one of the best ever. Some aviation folk from Adelaide attended this year so I am hopeful we will get a first hand report at next week’s club meeting.

Closer to home we had 20+ attendees to Richard Young’s Sonex workshop visit at Virginia last week. Considering it is a scratch built project he has made remarkable progress in a relatively short space of time. He is on track for a projected first flight by years end. Thanks to Richard and his wife Di for hosting this event. Pictures of the event are on the club website.

At the last club meeting Barry Windle and Luke Bayly spoke about having nominated for the RAAUS board at the next election. During August all RAAUS members will receive a printed copy of Sport Pilot magazine, together with ballot papers. There are eight nominees for two board positions. You are entitled to make two votes. This is our best chance for sometime for South Australian members to get a voice on the board again, so I would urge you all to cast your vote.

Your council is currently reviewing the usage rate of the Club Sonex aircraft and I must say it has been rather disappointing recently. The original costing plan and hire rate was based 100 hours per year of flying. To date the aircraft has flown 122 hours in 2 years and 9 months which is less than 45 hours per year average and only 20 hours so far this year. At this rate of flying the club is effectively subsidising the hire of the aircraft for fixed costs like insurance, hangarage and maintenance, instead of what should have been a cost neutral plan. At the next meeting I would like to hear your comments and ideas about how to proceed forward with club aircraft ownership.

Our speaker for the next meeting is Larry Jones, CFI of the Strathalbyn Club whose talk is entitled “40 years of weight shift”.

For us 3 axis control pilots this is delving into a completely different side of aviation and I must say that having flown a trike it is very different to conventional aircraft. Come along and hear Larry expand on his experiences.

Blue skies,

Steve

In response to how he checked the weather, “I just whip out my blue card with a hole in it and read what it says: When colour of card matches colour of sky, FLY”.

-Gordon Baxter, Texas radio announcer and pilot.