WV FUNFLYERS

November 2006

by Gretchen Watson 

November - 2006 Meeting/Dinner

          It was the annual men cooking for the women day and what a job they did!  They served up a delicious pile of turkey, potatoes and vegetables.  Not only that but it was a nice day for flying also.  

          Again, the field’s radio was one topic of conversation at the meeting.  The project is nearly finished with only the installation of the speaker needing to be completed.

          Our next dinner/meeting will be the annual Christmas gathering.  See the enclosed flyer with further details. 

          At the upcoming December meeting we will be electing new officers.  We need individuals to fill the four positions of President, Vice President, Treasurer and Newsletter Editor. 

          Also at the December meeting, we will be auctioning off a small part 103 legal airplane.  Bobby Queen who owned the Rotec Rally 2B donated it to the club.  It is a very good flying plane.  Raine Beller, the previous owner, actually won the WVFF Ace of the Base competition with it a couple of years ago.  If you are interested, come to the meeting and place your bid.  (Picture on the last page of this newsletter.)  If you would like to place a bid, before the meeting or if you cannot attend the meeting, call one of the following officers at:

Mickey: 304-545-8279

Raine:    304-552-0107

Steve:   304-415-2153

Leon - Lessons Learned

          Accidents unfortunately will always happen and we all hope that it won’t happen to us.  However, many accidents can be averted by conducting a thorough, non rushed, proper pre-flight. 

          Lesson 1:  One WVFF member, who recently purchased a newer, faster wing for his trike, had to take the sail off of the wing frame and send it to Tennessee for repair.  They did an excellent job of patching the hole.  After reassembling the wing it tested out just fine.  The damage was caused by a loose glove that fell out of the back seat.  It is hard to imagine that an item such as a soft glove can be thrown by the prop that hard that it would penetrate a wing.  Yet, it did. 

          Lesson 2:  Another WVFF member was doing some flight training when he suddenly needed to and thankfully did a wonderful job of landing the fuel starved plane in a not so good field.  The pilot and student were unharmed but the plane sustained some damage.  They knew the fuel was low upon beginning and lost track of the in-flight time.  It is so easy to get caught up in the flying and lose track of the time. 

          Those two incidents were costly but thankfully no one was harmed.  Flying is great fun but taking it too lightly or becoming lax or rushed during preflight as well as not staying on top of your planes resources can be tragic.  We all know that there will always be accidents but let’s avert as many as possible by taking the “pilot error” out of our flying.  Fly safe.

Sport Pilot News

          There are only two more months to take the sport pilot examinations before your previous flying experience will no longer benefit you.  If you plan to keep flying airplanes other than part 103’s, letting this deadline slip by will be quite costly.