A Message From Our Chapter President, Ron Fritz (June '05)

Here we are, almost halfway through the year. I hope most of you have at least started those projects that you waited, through the cold weather, to get started. Before you know it, the colder fall days will be here and you will have to go full speed ahead to finish them before the winter snows fall. Ah, such is life.

With the later sunsets our days are adjusted to take advantage of the extra daylight each day. The same pretty much occurs with chapter meetings. It’s more fun to sit on the deck at the Sparta airport and relate stories rather than get the chapter meeting started. I think we will be doing that for a couple months. My choice for a meeting program this month fell through at the last minute and I’ve been unable to replace it at the time of this newsletter writing. I have an idea but haven’t worked on it yet. I guess you will all have to wait and see what has come about.

Our chapter has obligated itself to take part in the Sparta Days festivities and we will again be assisting the Lions Club in the annual pancake breakfast on July 17th. Keep that date in mind and do your best to help us out on that day. We do benefit financially and the money earned pretty much runs the chapter for the year. We’ll be talking about this at the June meeting and will have to have most of our plans finalized by the July meeting.

In case you haven’t experienced it, the Sparta airport lounge is a pretty active place during good flying weather. There is usually a good gang of airport “bums” present and there is a good bit of great camaraderie going on. Drop in and join in on the fun.

See you at the meeting...

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

DATES TO REMEMBER

JULY, 17
Sparta - Paul C. Miller Airport (8D4) 7:30 - 11:30 am

Dawn Patrol Pancake Breakfast in conjunction with Sparta Town & Country Days with tractor pulls, lawn mower races & radio control airplanes airshows during festival days.

Sponsored by EAA 704 & Sparta Lions Club.
Call 616-887-5744.

July 25 - 31
EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2005!
Wittman Regional Airport, Oshkosh, WI