EAA Chapter 81 Project Meeting Minutes

Meeting was called to order at the hangar of Eric Witherspoon at Marana Regional Airpark at 1005 by President Duane Boyd. There were about 30 members and guests attending. It was announced that lottery tickets were to be acquired for the free drawings for two books: Turns Around a Point and Jackie Cochran: Story of the Greatest Woman Pilot in Aviation History.

Treasurer’s Report: Mick Myal reported that the Chase checking account contains $3555.90. The books were audited by Secretary Bob Miller (actually by his wife Lori, but Bob looked it over) and balanced to the penny. Mick also announced that Chapter 81 patches and badges were present and available for distribution at this meeting.

Secretary’s Report: The minutes of the 4/18/09 Chapter Meeting were printed and available for all to read at this meeting, as well as being published in SkyWriter and the Webpage. They were not read at this meeting.

Old Business: Erik Fjerstad reported that of the 100 paid-up Chapter 81 members, only 47 are now receiving the printed SkyWriter (the rest by E-mail). Any who wish to receive the printed newsletter are welcome to continue doing so, but the savings to the chapter are substantial if we don’t have to pay for mailing.

New Business: Webmaster Bruce Noon informed us that there is now a Photo Utility in the Webpage, with room for all the photos that members might like to submit. There were 2 newcomers at this meeting: David Cuevas, son of Chapter 81 member Jose Cuevas (and newly back from Iraq), and Bob Smith from Patagonia.

All of this business, amazingly, was conducted in the first 10 minutes of the meeting, leaving the rest for the good stuff: the Project. Eric Witherspoon has built an amazing airplane, a plans-built Sonex taildragger (although Eric claims that its ground handling is so benign that very little tailwheel skill is required). The canopy (but not the windscreen), flaps, ailerons, and some channel were prefabricated; Eric did most of the rest with locally acquired materials. The wing spars are fabricated with driven rivets, and the rest are aircraft pulled rivets. With a 120 HP Jabiru 3300 6-cylinder engine and a Sensenich wood prop, this all-aluminum side-by-side two seater achieves incredible performance (speeds up to 187 MPH and rate-of-climb of 1100 to1200 FPM). Three years and 1250 hours went into building this beautiful aircraft, and he has so far flown off 27 hours and done 107 landings. On the first flight, both EGT and CHT were high, and it took considerable finagling to get the baffing just right (not surprising, as the cowling was originally intended for a Corvair engine). The oil cooler plumbing, to quote Eric, developed “every possible leak,” and his advice to us is to save a lot of trouble in fabricating your own oil cooler hoses and buy commercially made ones. Precision Technologies made his FAA Certified hoses, and solved his oil leak problem. Eric went with a glider airspeed indicator, which tested “right on” out of the box. Once leaks and temp problems were solved, Eric left the pattern on the 8^th flight. He initially limited himself to 3-point landings, but has now discovered the joy of the 2-wheel landing and loves to roll down the length of the runway with the tailwheel in the air (and improved forward visibility). Takeoff requires “lots of right rudder,” and best rate-of-climb speed is 85-90 MPH. Many of us noted that the outer edges of the main gear tires were worn; Eric reports that this is a common occurrence with the Sonex, and it obviously does not hurt the tracking. To even out tire wear, he will have to pull the wheels and flip the tires. Eric’s Sonex was much-admired and reminds us that not all experimental aircraft were built from a kit. Lots of coffee, donuts, and bottled water were consumed before Eric’s hangar reached the temperature of spontaneous combustion, and a good time was had by all.

The next meeting will be at the Ryan Field meeting room on June 13 at 10 AM. Erik Fjerstad promises to deliver a riveting demonstration on, er, riveting. There will be no July Project Meeting due to its proximity to Oshkosh, not to mention that it is too #!$&* hot!

Respectfully Submitted by

Secretary Bob Miller