EAA Chapter 648 Longmont, Colorado Our Next Meeting will be May 13th at 7pm at the Colorado Classic Aircraft Building at Vance Brand Airport.

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1 May Contents. April Meeting Photos. May Program. A Message from the Chapter President. Minutes of the March Meeting. Newsletter Quiz. Other Items of Interest... List of Officers for Chapter 648 Ed Spengler spang1@comcast.net Editor 1

2 Photo Record of Chapter 648 Meeting, April 8 th, at Aaron Miller s residence With Ed out of town and Connie arriving a bit later in the evening, it fell to your President to record happenings at our April meeting. Following a great tradition of meeting at the homes of members involved in a building project, we met at Aaron Miller s home at the Erie Airport to see progress on his Vans RV-8. The pictures below caught members in varying groups, conversation topics, and parts of Aaron s project. I must confess, I still do not know all members by name and will make that a priority for myself and the membership at large. WE NEED TO WEAR THOSE MEMBERSHIP NAMEPLATES AND FINE MEMBERS WHO DON T! (Imagine how far I d get with that idea.) I was tempted to add a caption to each picture guessing what was being discussed, but decided otherwise. For years I was not amused by old men trying to be funny and at 75, I m now in that category and need to avoid the temptation. So here goes my attempt to add a reasonable and meaningful set of captions. Omissions of names are a clue to my failure to know all attendees. Our host. Picture is cropped and fails to properly show Aaron and Lisa s beautiful kitchen. My apologies for missing a name here. 2

3 A good shot of Dave and Steve. If If I remember correctly, the view from the window is toward the South-West and shows where Aaron will build his hangar. Cathy, Dave and Ted. It s nice to see wives and guests at our meetings. I encourage all to bring your wives, friends and guests to the meetings. Remember, more of them means less of me. Here s where I m remiss. I was introduced but didn t remember the name. Of course, we recognize Mike and get another view of the kitchen. 3

4 Once a Tech-Inspector, always a tech-inspector! I m guessing Bill is checking the job Aaron has done assembling the left wing. An interesting shot in the basement. Aaron is showing Connie his in-house weather station. Comparable to a fullblown AWOS station, it provides instantaneous and accumulated weather data. I couldn t pass this picture up. A good shot of Doug, who once again is an official Tech Inspector and will be returning full time to the area in a few months. I missed seeing the paint job on his RV-6 with the holes, broken members, and patches. 4

5 Carol, Bob, Haiko, Willie and I believe, Bill, upstairs. Conversations like these are always worth hearing. A follow-up to the previous picture. Good to see Haiko s face, but I lost Willie in the process. 5

6 Here we have Willie and a great shot of Mike with the group. Based on the expertise and experience of the people shown, I repeat my claim that these conversations add to the advantage and enjoyment of attending meetings. A good shot of Bill and my apologies for catching Mary from the back. I need to get the Coursair pictures from our visit to Steve Croft s to Mary who is an F4U fan. Steve and Bill looking over one of the RV-8 wings. Main spar is visible along with several tank-attach brackets 6

7 A good shot of Dave, Cathy and Ted looking over part of the empennage. Have to say, the quality of Aaron s work is excellent. May Program This month Barry Barnow will talk about his experiences and legal battle with the City of Boulder. Barry was the person who had the "through the fence agreement" at the Boulder airport which was taken over by the City. He recently won his lawsuit for damages and was awarded around $260,000. Barry is a very nice and interesting man who I've come to highly respect. (D. Socash) A Message from the President On several occasions, members have commented on and suggested organizing group trips (Fly-In s) to near and/or far locations. Two or more planes would constitute a trip. There are of course different levels of experience in flying cross-country among the members and certainly differing opinions on when to go or not go based on weather conditions. Scotts Bluff restaurant, Crazy Horse memorial in South Dakota, the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, the Barnstormer, and even a short hop to the Runway Grill are possibilities. I m guessing members could add a dozen or more destinations to this list. With sufficient separation to eliminate the demands of close formation flight, I think this would be an enjoyable and beneficial chapter activity. Perhaps we could have a brief discussion on this during the May meeting. Members who have gone on group flights could relate their experiences and perhaps set the stage for planning some specific trips during the upcoming summer and fall flying season. Dick Socash President, EAA Chapter 648 7

8 MeetingMinutes for April 8th, 2013: None Reported. NEWSLETTER QUIZ Each month, we will ask a "question" in the newsletter. Answers can only be given if you attend the meeting referenced in the newsletter. At the end of the year, there will be a prize to the person who has the most correct answers. Some will be easy and some difficult. April Question: Are humans affected by density altitude just like aircraft engines? This question comes courtesy of Bill Hannahan. April Answer: People and engines do not respond the same way to density altitude. The lungs function by the diffusion of gas molecules through a thin membrane separating two fluids, blood and air. An increase in temperature would increase diffusion rates, thus improving oxygen saturation, just the opposite of the effect on an engine. Lung design is optimized for gas exchange, which just happens to be good for heat exchange too. The blood flowing through the lungs has far more heat capacity than the air, so the temperature of lung tissue, the temperature at which diffusion is taking place, is always the temperature of the blood, independent of outside air temperature. Humans respond to pressure altitude, not density altitude. May Question: It takes as much energy to go from a 10,000 foot altitude to sea level as it does to go from sea level to a 10,000 foot altitude. Burning fuel provides the energy to go up. What provides the energy to get down? Other Items of Interest. Ed s One Day Trip to Sun-N-Fun - by Ed Spengler Well, the convention I was attending got a little boring. So a guy that lived in the New England area decided to rent a car and we drove the short distance from Orlando to Sun-N-Fun in Lakeland. 8

9 We could only be there for one afternoon but as usual, it was delightful! 9

10 We meandered around and found our self right at the location where Bob Hoover deplaned. Here is the jet he came in on after several low, high speed passes. And the air show was fantastic. 10

11 Although it does not look like it. The guy in Crazy Horse was under power and taxiing to the active. On our way out.. my feet were really hurting by this time. But all in all, it was a great day for playing hooky! Aerial Combat - presented by: Haiko Eichler This came from a guy who runs a 2,000-acre corn farm up around Barron, WI, not far from Oshkosh. You might have seen this before but it is always a good read! He used to fly F-4Es and F-16s for the Guard, and participated in the first Gulf War. 11

12 His story: I went out to plant corn for a bit, to finish a field before tomorrow morning and witnessed The Great Battle. A golden eagle -- big, with about a six-foot wingspan - flew right in front of the tractor. It was being chased by three crows that were continually dive bombing it and pecking at it. The crows do this because the eagles rob their nests when they find them. At any rate, the eagle banked hard right in one evasive maneuver, then landed in the field about 100 feet from the tractor. This eagle stood about 3 feet tall. The crows all landed too and took up positions around the eagle at 120 degrees apart, but kept their distance at about 20 feet from the big bird. The eagle would take a couple steps towards one of the crows and they'd hop backwards and forward to keep their distance. Then the reinforcement showed up. I happened to spot the eagle's mate hurtling down out of the sky at what appeared to be approximately Mach 1.5. Just before impact, the eagle on the ground took flight, (obviously a coordinated tactic; probably prebriefed) and the three crows that were watching the grounded eagle also took flight -- thinking they were going to get in some more pecking on the big bird. 12

13 The first crow being targeted by the diving eagle never stood a snowball's chance in hell. There was a mid-air explosion of black feathers, and that crow was done. The diving eagle then banked hard left in what had to be a 9G climbing turn, using the energy it had accumulated in the dive, and hit crow #2 less than two seconds later. Another crow dead. The grounded eagle, which was now airborne and had an altitude advantage on the remaining crow that was streaking eastward in full burner, made a short dive, then banked hard right when the escaping crow tried to evade the hit. It didn't work - crow #3 bit the dust at about 20 feet AGL. This aerial battle was better than any air show I've been to, including the War Birds show at Oshkosh. The two eagles ripped the crows apart, and ate them on the ground; and, as I got closer and closer working my way 13

14 across the field, I passed within 20 feet of one of them as it ate its catch. It stopped and looked at me as I went by, and you could see in the look of that bird that it knew who's Boss of the Sky. What a beautiful bird! One of the best Fighter Pilot stories I've seen in a long time. 14

15 Webinars You can view EAA Webinars at: You can find the webinars featuring Mike Busch such as Leaning Basics and All about Spark Plugs. Check it out. Officers: President: o Richard Socash rege.so@gmail.com V. President: o Ted Keryluk tkeryluk@netscape.com Secretary: o Connie Socash csocash@hotmail.com Treasurer: o Haiko Eichler heritmail@aol.com Tech Counselor: o Bill Hannahan wfhannahan@yahoo.com Newsletter Editor: o Ed Spengler spang1@comcast.net Disclaimer: Be aware that as always, in past, present, and future, any communications issued by Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 648, regardless of format, and/or media used, which includes, but is not limited to, this newsletter and audio/visual recordings, is presented only in the context of a clearing house of ideas, opinion and personal experience accounts. Anyone using ideas, opinions, information, etc., does so at their own risk. Therefore, no liability is expressed or implied by the Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 648, or any of its members. Any event announced and/or listed herein, except as noted, is done as a matter of information and does not constitute approval, sponsorship, control, or endorsement of said event. This newsletter is published by Chapter 648 of the Experimental Aircraft Association for the use, education, and enjoyment of the members and others to whom it is provided. No claim is made for technical accuracy of material presented. Editorial content is the opinion of the contributor and does not reflect the position of Chapter 648 or the Experimental Aircraft Association. Submission of articles, comments, or inquiries for publication in the newsletter are encouraged. Meetings are normally held on the second Monday of each month at 7:00 P.M. The place is determined each month. 15