From our Inbox

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Recently, a letter arrived in our website's inbox. We're quoting it here verbatim, with links added as appropriate:

Ms. L.A.T. Writes:

Good Morning Mr. Matthews, Mr. Jones, Mr. Fish and Mr. Fomichev,

Dan Hill's Mosquito

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Dan Hill completed first flight and is testing his Mosquito XE 285 in August 2020. Here’s Dan doing fit checks on the cockpit in his driveway:

Dan's Message

Building a helicopter has been a "bucket list" item for me for a long time.

I thought it would one day be a retirement project, but then, at age 62, I realized if I waited that long, I may not be healthy enough to build and fly it. So, with encouragement from my wife, I selected and purchased a kit and completed it in my garage in about a year and a half of weekends while also working full time. I had an enclosed trailer made to transport it to/from the airport. The trailer also functions as a hanger in my backyard. It was a great project and I learned a lot building it. I would recommend that anyone interested in building an aircraft should not put it off if you have the resources. I would also like to thank Tech Advisor Bill Bennett for coming by and inspecting my helicopter and offering suggestions on things to improve.

The following photo is the Mosquito on the flight line at Taylor (T74) Airport.

Scott Fish's Cozy MK IV Milestone

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In December 2017, our Chapter’s Cozy builder Scott Fish reached the milestone of completing all the major structural components through primer.

The Cozy MK IV is a canard pusher aircraft, designed by Nat Puffer/Burt Rutan. It follows the composite construction process of the Long EZ/VariEZ aircraft.

With the arrival of Scott’s sons from college, they were able to assemble all the completed parts in the driveway and get an interim weight and balance. The weather was cooperative and enabled a few pictures as well. Work continues (wings removed) in the garage this winter on the electrical system and initial engine fitting. With some luck finding a hanger this year to complete integration, Scott hopes to get a first flight by the end of 2018.

Word from The President - July 2016

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Hello Chapter Members and Friends,

We have a happy news from EAA HQ. They just announced the 2016 award winners of the Major Achievement Award, Web Editor Award and Newsletter Editor Award. Every year each chapter nominates those "who have gone the extra mile throughout the year for the betterment of your chapter, EAA, and our aviation community," and the award recipients will be honored at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. This year our own Fi Dot Fomichev was given the Web Editor Award and is invited to the Award Breakfast! There are so many nominees and it is great to see him selected for his long hours and tireless contributions in many areas in our Chapter. It is a quiet and invisible work to most of us except that we can see and enjoy the Chapter website, the fruit of his labor. Congratulations, Fi Dot!

Word from The President - June 2016

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Hello Chapter Members and Aviation Friends,

Last week, my husband, Rob, and our third son had a chance to go help our second son and his family in Alaska to build a good-sized shed in their wide-open property. Spring days start at about 4:00am and the sun sort of sets at 11:00pm, so over a 14-hour day, labor caught up with him, including a sunburn. The weather cooperated well and they almost finished the project in less than four days. He must have gained his confidence from building a plane...

Word from The President - May 2016

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Hello Chapter Members and Aviation Friends,

It has already become a very busy year in my personal life and multi-tasking in every which way keeps me on my toes. It is exciting to see changes in people’s lives especially this season, graduating from high schools, colleges and finding new jobs, etc. This was the case for all our four children this year. Our oldest son retired from flying U-2s in the U.S. Air Force last year and was just hired by Southwest Airlines. Our daughter is expecting a baby girl in June. The second son and his family just moved from Del Rio, Texas to North Pole, Alaska for the U.S. Air Force assignment after instructing in T-38s for five years. Almost two years ago, our third son decided to get his college degrees after working for over fifteen years and now is graduating from University of Houston with two degrees and accomplished the highest recognition presented at the graduation ceremony next weekend. Each child so differently works hard in their own course of life, and as parents, watching them struggle and find the doors of opportunities gives us worry and also the excitement when they arrive at the goals they set.

Word from The President - March 2016

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Hello Chapter Members and Aviation Friends,

As Jack Pelton, EAA Chairman and the new CEO announced in the EAA Chapter Video magazine in our February Meeting, we will go through Youth training for the three areas. This is for the protection of the youth who are involved in EAA’s Youth programs and also the EAA members who volunteer their time and energy.

Word from The President - February 2016

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Hello Chapter Members and Aviation Friends,

It was great to see so many members at our annual banquet at the Mexican grill, "Morelia"! It is a great feeling when you know you are supported! The EAA Chapter renewal is done and we are waiting for a few more member’s dues.

Word from The President - January 2016

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Happy New Year, 2016 to all Chapter Members and Aviation Friends!

Hope you had a wonderful time with your families and friends. As we start our new year, let’s commit ourselves with great enthusiasm to participate in the good cause of EAA and spread the "Spirit of Aviation" to our community, shall we?

Word from The President - October 2015

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Hello EAA Chapter 187 Members and Aviation Friends,

Rob and I had to postpone our RV-12 annual from March to September this year because of the painting, but both, painting and annual are completed now and we are happy to inform you that it passed the first flight test. Sweeping the uninvited creepy guests out of our hangar has been an annoying chore this last few weeks but a bit cooler breeze coming through the hangar is a welcome sign of the Fall.

Word from The President - September 2015

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Hello Chapter Members and Friends in Aviation,

Was it a cold front or what? Did you feel anything? This El Niño brings such extreme weather and it is hard to predict our future any more.

Word from The President - August 2015

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Hello Chapter members and friends,

It is August! it was a good thing we had that much rain during the first half of the year... except floods. Hope all of you who were affected by the Memorial Day flood have recovered from the damage. Please let us know if you are still working on it. Now we are starting the 100°F days again...are we really? Early morning flights or 10,000ft...maybe staying at home in A/C and making airplane noise are recommended.

Word from The President - July 2015

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Hello Chapter 187 and Friends,

Hope you all had a great July 4th weekend with your families and friends. Our four children all came home with their children and our home was converted into a hotel for a week. Rob and I celebrated our 40th anniversary on July 3rd with our families. Everything feels short once it’s passed, but looking back all the events and things that happened in our lives, it has been 40 years. It is strange to think two individuals who happened to meet one day now have 20 people in the family.

The Chapter July meeting is tomorrow, Thursday, July 8th at 6:45p.m. Those who didn’t have a chance to fly out to explore this year, you will enjoy this adventure in the wilderness. Chris McCrank is an avid aviator flying a glider, getting involved int STOL competition in his Aviat Husky with big tires, and exploring, etc. Please come out and join us tomorrow evening. We are meeting at the Taco Cabana for pre-meeting dinner at 15002 FM1825 Pflugerville, TX 78660. East side of I-35 at Pflugerville. Anyone who is hungry, please join us at 5:30p.m.

As we talk about creating families, I have been researching about our Chapter 187 history and it is interesting to know that there are not very many documents at EAA HQ that describes the start of our chapter. Now that they have technology advantage, they have all the records stored away and pull it out anytime. We missed our chapter’s 50th birthday, but we can celebrate a 51st birthday this year. We will have ice-cream social in August. You can create your own banana split and the ice-cream parfait to your tummies content.

Are you all ready to go to Oshkosh for EAA AirVenture? Your tents, reservations for dormitory rooms, hotels, airlines, tune up your planes. preflight the approach... you have a week to get ready! Enjoy your vacation learning and sharing. The AirVenture starts on July 20th and ends on 26th.

See you at Oshkosh, WI!

Haruko Reese
EAA Chapter 187 President

Word from The President - June 2015

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Hello Chapter Members and Friends,

Twenty seven days of continuous rain refilled all the lakes around Austin and that is a wonderful sight to behold. On the other hand, it is devastating to see the destruction and loss of lives because of the weather. If you still have things to clean up in your hangars and homes, please let us know to organize help.

Word from The President - May 2015

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Hello EAA Chapter Members and Friends,

Spring is here and what a wonderful time to fly a kite...um, your plane! There are many Fly-Ins planned everywhere in TX. Our Chapter Young Eagles Rally is scheduled on Saturday, May 30th at 9:00 a.m. at Rockdale Airport (KRCK) along with Rockdale Tiger Flight Open House. Please volunteer for pilots and ground. You can see the kids building project of an RV-6 in person. It is exciting to see the High School and Middle School students learning how to build an airplane. The details are found at eaa187.org and rockdaletigerflight.org. This RV-6 Project will also be displayed at Austin Mini Maker Faire on Saturday, May 16 and Sunday, May 17, at 10:00 a.m. at Palmer Event Center in Austin. Chapter members can volunteer for this event also. It is an exciting time of the year!

Word from The President - April 2015

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Hello Members and Friends,

Happy Easter to you all! It came early this year.

Sorry about the delay in publishing this letter. I was involved in an Easter oratorio and we just finished our performances last week. Singing and conducting are my happiest moments…as well as flying and swimming at Barton Springs, not at the same time.

Word from The President - March 2015

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Hello EAA Chapter 187 members and aviation friends,

"Wind, sleet, freezing temperature and nice warm sunshine"... what weather we have gone through. It is about time to bring in the spring-appropriate weather so that we can fly…or get motivated to finish our project planes, maybe.

Word from The President - February 2015

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Hello Chapter 187 Members and Friends in aviation,

I hope this letter finds you all doing well in your life.

Obituary: Brian Moses

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Brian Moses, 89, of Sun City, TX, left us on Thursday, January 9, 2015. He is survived by his beloved wife Phyllis, and his children Bob Moses of Dallas, TX, Dale Moses of Bells, TX and Ila Moses King of Cleveland, TX. In addition, his 5 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren will miss the attention he loved to give them. He is also survived by his two brothers Truman and Phil Moses of Pottsboro, TX.

To know Brian was to know his Passion for aviation both as a corporate pilot and an inventor of many safety-related components for corporate aircraft. He was a Mason for 50 years and a longtime Member of Quiet Birdmen, (QB) an aviation organization.

Also surviving are members of Phyllis’ family, L. R. Green of Pottsboro, TX, Julie Matthews, of Georgetown, TX; Phillip Green and his wife, Dana of Royse City, and numerous other grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

A Memorial Service will be held on Wednesday, January 14, 2015 at The Worship Place located at 811 Sun City Blvd. in Sun City, TX at 1:00 pm. The family has asked if you would like to send a donation in lieu of flowers, they suggest Mission Aviation Fellowship, or Wounded Warrior Project.

This originally appeared on Statesman Obituaries

Word from The President - December 2014

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Hello Chapter Members and Friends,

It was great to see so many people at the Hangar Hop at Hangar Row C at GTU, sponsored by Deene Ogden with his RV-12 (light sport), Bill Farmer with his Super Cub (light sport), Mike Robbins with his Debonair and Bobby Lucroy with his RV-8A built by Seth Hancock. There were 26 people including a Boy Scout Troop 5 member and his father. Great big thanks go to Dan Badwey who is the co-owner of the Debonair with Mike for contacting and setting up. Each owner had interesting facts and history to share and it was hard to move the group to the next hangar.

Philadelphia Club of Advertising Women

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Curtis Benkendorfer, the Georgetown Airport Manager, shared this great picture of Philadelphia League of Advertising Women arriving in a Ford Tri-Motor. When we asked for some back-story, Curtis came up with a pretty interesting piece.

Word from The President - October 2014

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Hello EAA Chapter 187 Members and Friends,

I am happy to inform you that preparations for the EAA Ford Tri-Motor Tour in Georgetown Municipal Airport on November 6th through 9th, 2014 are well underway. Arrangements with the City of Georgetown, the airport, and EAA HQ are almost done. The two big banners with the name of our chapter are printed. We did obtain a free crew car and hangar for the week. The rest of the work is to organize volunteers, and find sponsors to defray the cost of the crew, fuel, hotel and maintenance. If your workplace is willing to donate to help maintain and share this beautiful and historic aircraft, EAA offers a 10-seat flight in ford Tri-Motor for every $1,500 donation. Please check with your employers and neighbors! They can use the flight as employee awards or customer thank-yous.

2014 San Antonio FSDO Accident Data

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Mike Jordan of San Antonio FSDO visited us in September, giving a great talk on accidents and incidents in the area covered by San Antonio FSDO.

We've worked with him to make his slides available for download, you can find them here.

Word from The President - September 2014

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Hello Chapter Members and Friends

The summer is virtually ending when school starts even though the summer heat remains beating down on us. The forecast says that it will be a wetter than normal fall and winter, so it might fix our long lasting drought for a change. Maybe that means less flying??

Word from The President - August 2014

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Hello, Chapter Members and Friends!

How was your summer? What was the most memorable moments? I hope you all had a great summer. Rob and I again went on our eighth trip to Oshkosh together. After my eighth year BFR episode, our 9th grand child born with pretty serious complication for my daughter -in-law, and battling with oil leak, brake problems and painting fiberglass on our plane till the very last minute, it was such a relief to finally leave for Oshkosh AirVenture.

Bob Elliott's Airventure 2014 Gallery

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Some of Bob Eliott's Airventure 2014 photos. Enjoy!

July 3rd Young Eagles: Pictures!!!

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Jimmy Cox organized Young Eagles just this past Wednesday. About twenty kids showed up; and Jimmy and Anthony, our former President, had a "ground school" and then flew them around. Everyone had tons of fun, check out our gallery below!

Word from The President - June 2014

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Happy June 14th, Dear Chapter Members and Friends!

What is June 14th? Larry, our B-17 director just told me that June 14th is the EAA International Young Eagles Day. Maybe, we can plan some activity next year to coincide with this day.

The May Chapter Picnic: Pictures Inside!

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May 17th ended up being a great day of hangar talk, checking out the Beej'es Skybolt, burgers, drinks, and fun.

Our June Speaker: William "Greg" Gregory, USAF

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Colonel William James "Greg" Gregory, U.S.A.F., retired, was born in Smith County, Tennessee in 1920. In 1941, while in his Junior year at Middle Tennessee State University, he entered the U.S. Army Air Corps in the aviation program, just three months before the start of World War II. After completion of flight training at Randolph Field, San Antonio, Gregory began combat in north Africa flying the P-38 Lightning, the first of many Lockheed aircraft in his career. As a Command pilot, Gregory is also a combat veteran of the Korean and Viet Nam wars. A military career that spanned over 30 years during the most significant chapters of the development of aviation, Col. Gregory piloted 55 different airplanes while in the Air Force, including a number of aircraft flown with the US Navy. He is one of a few Air Force pilots attaining Aircraft Carrier Qualification, off the USS Lexington.

SINnFun 2014

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Oops! "We're off to SINnFUN" was the text message to my wife Wendy as Bob Wiseman, my Mooney partner, and I closed the cabin door and buckled up in preparation for takeoff from KGTU. This was followed by a quick "TYPO" message as I really didn't need to leave the wrong impression as I was about to leave town for a week (I love it when APPLE spell check tries to help me out!)

The Bally Bomber

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This is not an RC aircraft. This is a fully flyable, experimental aircraft. With the four engines, retracts, and a total of over 240 hp, this would be considered a complex category of airplane and require a special certification on your pilot's license to be allowed to fly it.

Experimenting, Because I Can - Alternate Air Induction

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I got the Vans snorkel kit for my air induction requirements. This is a great kit, that is very complete. It even came with an alternative air door assembly and pull cable + bulkhead knob. Problem was, the cable kit was too short for my biplane. I started to make steps to procure longer cable and housing, when I noticed how heavy and overkill the cable and conduit was for the duty it had to perform; it might never get activated in anger in its lifetime, and if used, one pull is required. So, I got to thinking of lighter alternatives...

Biplane Expo Musings 2009

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Setting out at 4 a.m. isn't the best start to a road trip, I guess. The first hour was difficult, seeing as I hadn't gone to bed until midnight, but as soon as the sun started to break on the horizon I began to freshen up a little. After three hours of driving, encouraged by a Mc Donald's coffee, I deviated to my first stop, this was a fleeting visit to the Toot guys up in Dallas.

Tribute to Texas EAA Pioneer

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Not only was Tony the inspiration for the formation of Austin's EAA Chapter 187 in 1963, he later founded the Georgetown Fly-in which is now the Southwest Regional Fly-in held in Abilene.

Aviations's Ten Commandments

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  1. Thou shalt abstain from the intersection takeoff for, verily, the runway behind thee, as the altitude above thee, cometh not to thine aid when thou needest them.

Texas Aviation Hall of Fame Induciton

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On Friday night, 9 November 2002, Tony Bingelis was inducted into the Texas Aviation Hall of Fame located in the Lone Star Flight Museum, Scholes Field, Galveston, Texas. His wife, Morene, was there to accept the award, along with her daughter, Sandra.