May (2005) Meeting Minutes

EAA chapter 704 met at 7:00 p.m. on 5/9/05 for a regular meeting. The meeting was held at the Sparta Paul Miller Airport lounge. There were 25 members present.

President Ron Fritz called the meeting to order and reviewed the minutes of the last meeting as printed in the newsletter. He announced that we now have 35 paid members in the chapter.

There was $1725.57 in the checkbook along with $50.00 cash on hand. $40.00 was collected for dues and calendar sales. (Later $10.00 was added from the 50/50 raffle)

President Fritz asked for an update on the newly formed Sparta Pilot’s Association. Kathy Hakeem reported that there had been no meetings recently but they were in the process of polling neighboring airports to get a sense of what the relationship might be between airport management and the pilots at their locations.

A discussion followed about various projects in progress amongst the members.

P.J. Bevelacqua collected for a 50/50 raffle, which was won by Homer Teitsma.

After a brief break for snacks the group reconvened to hear Mr. Harvey Alley give a very interesting description of the early development of airmail service in West Virginia and Pennsylvania area. He told of how a dentist, Lydell Adams, from Chicago devised a method of picking up and dropping mail sacks from a moving, low flying, airplane. First they used a drag cable with a grappling hook on the end and later developed a boom arrangement. This was being done in the mid 1930’s and actually accomplished a surprising number of pickups and drops with very few mishaps. The service was called All American Aviation, which later became U.S. Air as we know it today.

Mr. Alley, who in times past had developed several slide programs involving a 3-screen presentation, offered to return in the future with other discussions for our interest.

Meeting adjourned

Jay Dean, Secretary/Treasurer