Presidents Letter

EAA92 Members and Friends,

Spring is here and we are gearing up for our annual Brat Booth at the Planes of Fame Chino Airshow. I’d encourage you all to volunteer to work the booth –it’s great fun, and you get close-in parking and free airshow admission. Go to our website to sign up as a volunteer.

We have also firmed up our Young Eagle event schedule for the rest of the year, with rallies scheduled for Saturday, May 18 at Yanks Air Museum; Sunday, September 22 at Planes of Fame / Cal Aero; and Satur-day, October 19 at Yanks Air Museum. EAA is working on a new registration system for Young Eagles and volunteers that will be available later in the year. In the meantime, continue to sign up as a pilot or volun-teer on our chapter website.

After 4+ years of running Young Eagles Events as our Young Eagles Chair, Debbie Cavanaugh is turning over the reins to her son Zack. Zack and Jenee Steury will work together to continue our tradition of introduc-ing the younger generation to the joys and career / recreational potential of aviation. We want to pro-fusely thank Debbie for her willingness to take over the full YE responsibilities following the untimely pass-ing of our former president, Robert Baker, in 2015; for her boundless energy and organizational skills; and for her always positive, can-do attitude. THANK YOU, DEBBIE!!

EAA began in the 50’s to help folks build their own airplanes, and the key chapter resources who assist in that effort today are our chapter Technical Counselors, Dave Prizio, Mike Wright, Roland Koluvek, and Gary Questa; and our Flight Advisors, Jay Steffenhagen and Don Myhra. If you are building or thinking of building your own airplane, come talk to these guys.

It is worth noting that the construction of E-AB (homebuilt) aircraft has grown tremendously over the years, to the point that the most recent numbers show that homebuilders are adding as many new piston engine aircraft to the aircraft registry each year as are all the traditional aircraft manufacturers combined. Quite a testimony to the efforts of EAA and the aircraft kit manufacturers and the builders.

We unfortunately had to vacate our Builder Center hangar space in February to make way for more maintenance space for Chino Aviation. We continue to scout for a replacement hangar for our builders, so if you find a possible hangar, please let us know.

Lastly, I want to offer our best and heartfelt wishes to our Lead Young Eagles Pilot, Ed Martell, who experienced an unfortunate aircraft accident at Catalina mid last year, and continues to recover and get his various injuries repaired. It was fantastic to see him flying right seat with Don Mikami at our last Young Eagles event. Keep pumping those weights, Ed!!

‘Til next time,

Jim Randall, President, EAA92

A Visitor from Far Off Oshkosh-Land

We don’t often get out-of-town visitors when our EAA Chapter 92 holds our Young Eagle rallies at Chino Airport. Mostly the ground volunteers and volunteer pilots come from our chapter, the local SoCal Pilots organization, other EAA chapters in the area, or friends and neighbors. But at our March 24 event at Planes of Fame / Cal Aero Country Club, we had an unexpected visitor from the still-wintery land of Wisconsin.

When I arrived at the Cal Aero hangar to help set up the ground school tables, there was a green-shirted stranger chatting with one of our volunteers. Turns out he was lost –well, sort of. He was in town for business the following week and had an idle day to explore Chino airport and the mu-seums. He was actually looking, at that very moment, for a restroom. He passed by Flo’s but was discouraged by the long line of people waiting to get in for Sunday breakfast and early lunch. So he drove down Cal Aero drive, past the Planes of Fame Museum parking lot, which was also packed and busy, and happened to notice the open pedestrian gate at the Cal Aero hanger. He parked and walked through the gate and around the corner -and surprise!! -happened into the middle of preparations for our Young Eagle rally.

But as it turned out, this guy was no stranger to Young Eagle rallies; he was Shane Baker, the president of EAA Chapter 93 in Madison, Wisconsin! So of course we did what any respectable EAA chapter would do –we put him to work.

We had a great rally with 45+ kids and 5 pilots, and Shane manned the Navigation ground school table. You could tell he had done this before, because he had the kids spellbound with his navigation lessons, as is evident in the photos.

After the rally, Shane managed to beg a ride in Jay Steffenhagen’s Bonanza, since he has a 1965 Cessna 172 at home, and had never experienced a Bonanza be-fore. When everyone headed home, I got his car through the gate so he could ex-plore the wonders of the Chino hangars.

His family came out for a holiday during his business meetings, and on Friday I got a call that he had a new, but unwanted printer that he offered to donate to the chapter. So I met them down near Orange County airport to transfer the printer, and then we went on a tour of the GA side of John Wayne airport.Shane has a 14-something year old son, Owen, who initially seemed pretty quiet. But on our tour of the GA tie downs, we came upon Bob Lange working on his new (to him) L-19 Birddog. Bob went through the full story on the L-19, and then Shane happened to notice Bob’s Army Mule. Bob fired it up and offered to teach Owen how to drive the stick shift. Owen hung back initially, not knowing how to drive a stick, plus it was much cruder that the John Deere he had at home, but Bob ORDERED him to jump on board –as only a Marine Lt. Col. can do. They took off up the tie-down row, and returned –with a HUGE smile on Owen’s face. I think Shane’s next job is to find Owen an Army Mule.

6of 12A Visitor From Far Off Oshkosh-LandWe continued our tour past the GA tie-downs and around to the east side of the field where the business jets live, and Owen, now energized, was suitably im-pressed. Madison’s Dane County airport is a Class C, similar to Orange County, with a mix of GA, airlines, and business jets, but due to the cold climate, most planes are hidden in hangars and not visible when you drive around.

Shane invited everyone to stop by Madison’s Dane County Airport, where Chapter 93 is based, the weekend before EAA AirVenture on their way to Oshkosh, be-cause the big bombers (including Doc) hang out there for Heavy Bomber Weekend, offering rides and exhibits. Click here for more details, and tell them EAA Chapter 92 sent you. They’ll put you to work.

EAA Chapter 1 First Annual Poker Run

June 15 @ 8 am

The event is planned to start at 8 AM… and will hopefully include our chapters at our 5 airports… Red-lands, Corona, French Valley, Cable (Upland) and Flabob.So, we are asking for your help and participa-tion.It can’t happen without all of us pitching in and joining forces!

We envision a ‘chapter manned’ table at a pre-designated area at each airport with a table and a deck of cards.When the airplane… OR CAR!…. stops there, they will choose a card for each hand that they have purchased and it will be marked by a chapter volunteer on their card.Best and Worst hand will be winners.Hands are $20 each.It doesn’t matter which airport people start from… and it will be there that they buy their hand(s)… and then proceed to the remaining airports… ending at Flabob EAA Chapter 1 for a BBQ lunch… 2 lunches included with each $20 hand. Should you like to fly into Flabob first, on that same Saturday, we have our regular monthly pancake breakfast, should you want a good breakfast before starting out.

I’m in the process of designing a flyer for chapter and general distribution, so look for that soon.BUT…. I need a commitment from each of you from your respective chapters that you can man a table and will be willing to participate in this event in hopes of bringing us just a bit closer… and we re-new or make new friendships, where we can support each other’s events.Together we’re better!!!!

Can you please let me know after you solicit volunteers or float this buoy with the chapter members if it’s something they would like to participate in doing.We would hope that this is something you can do and that it has value to you and your chapter members.

I look forward to hearing from each of you soon… we’d like to get the info out but can’t until we hear back.

Thanks for giving this your consideration! I really thing we all could have some good fun doing this.

Jim O’Brien, EAA Chapter 1 President

Chapter 92 News

Chino Airshow Volunteers Needed

Come volunteer to help at our Bratwurst stand and/or park airplanes. Setup starts on May 3rd And the airshow goes till the 5ith.

Builder Center

We are out of the build center. For information contact Brad Rawls: eaa92buildercenter@gmail.com

Base Ops

Base Ops is looking for a fridge. If you have an old one that you don’t use anymore please contact us and we will pick it up.

Recap on Christmas Party & Recognition Dinner

The event went well and was well attended and highly appreciated. The party budget was on par with our expectations, which we are very grateful for.

2019 Air Academy Summer Camp Scholarship

EAA Chapter 92 will be giving away two scholarships for the Air Academy Summer Camp, at Oshkosh Wisconsin. The camp includes room and board, plus EAA Chap-ter 92 will pay for the transportation air fare.

There will be 2 scholarships recipient selected by EAA Chapter 92 for Advanced Air Academy Campers (for 16-18 year olds*).

EAA Chapter 92 will be selecting candidates that have shown the most interest in avi-ation in a numbers of way like:

  • Attending Young Eagles event
  • Attending an aviation oriented high school program
  • Volunteering at EAA Chapter 92 event like Young Eagles or the Chino Planes of Fame Airshow, etc.

The scholarship recipient will have to present a short essay at regular EAA Chapter 92 meeting.

To apply for the scholarship send an email to secretary@eaa92.orgdetailing your in-terest in aviation before March 30th. Scholarship recipient will be selected and con-tacted for a final interview in end of April.

If your child is not selected, you can still register by applying directly at EAA.org, see link below, but do it soon because these camps are usually sold out by January.

For more information go to the EAA web site: http://www.eaa.org/en/eaa/aviation-education-and-resources/eaa-youth-education/eaa-aviation-and-flight-summer-camps/eaa-air-academy

*Camper age in July 2019, the camp educational material is designed for this age group.