Our next meeting will be held at Mel McKinney's airport in Susquehanna, Pa. on Saturday the 21st of August at 3 PM in the afternoon.   We hope the weather will be favorable and that most everyone will be able to attend.  Mel also said, if anyone wants to come and camp out along the river they are all welcome to come.

For flyers, the coordinates of Mel’s location are Lat 41 deg 57 min North – Long 75 deg 39 min West. For drivers, get off route 81 at the Hallstead/Great Bend exit.  At the bottom of the ramp, turn onto route 11 south (it’s a right turn if you come from the north – a left turn coming from the south).  Follow 11 for a half mile and cross a temporary bridge.  Turn left after crossing the bridge onto Harmony road (going north on route 11 it will be a right turn before the bridge).  Go 6 1/2 miles to Mel’s farm.  

    Jim Croisant will be our cook.  I forgot all about the food part last month and Jim picked up on it; many thanks to Jim for reminding me and volunteering on the food service.   I was more concerned about the weather and if the guys were going to make it back home ok so I forgot about it completely. 

    Despite threatening rains, we managed to have a real nice get together at Dave Thomas's brother's place near Hop Bottom, Pa.   Dave Thomas and his friends and relatives really gave us good hospitality and the food was really fantastic.  Dave, be sure to tell Judy, for us how much we appreciated her excellent cooking.  I never had Jumbleliah before but I thought that was great along with all the other food she prepared.    

     We had a total of 13 guys show up at the meeting; the thirteenth was Dave Schwartz for trying to get that fast Piper in.  I'm sure he was wishing he had his old Kitfox.  We were glad he knew when to abort.  That is a part of good pilot discretion knowing when to quit or continue on.  A wrinkled airplane or a damaged pilot is the last thing anyone wants to see.  One thing for certain he missed a good meal and we missed him too.  Mel McKinney and another individual locally were able to fly in with their ultra-lights and give us a nice pass and review over the picnic area. 

     Our meeting started at 5:27 PM with the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag.

     The first order of business was the election of two officers our new President and new Treasurer.  We had two volunteers Mel McKinney , for President and Gil Aitchison for our new Treasure.  We told them if they couldn't be there for any reason, we would support them by backing them up and continue on.   We know it isn't always possible to make every meeting. 

     At this time we like to thank our past President Ray Osterhout and our past Treasurer Dave Schwartz for doing a terrific job of keeping the club straight for so long.

     Our round table review started with Mel McKinney mainly because the bad weather was getting closer and we wanted him to head for home to beat the front.  Mel at that time was gracious in having his airport available for our next meeting and he also said he'd been trying to keep the grass mowed and was doing some flying

between the rain showers.

     Norm Dibble had a forced field landing in a hay field in the Town of Fenton area.  He was being closely observed by Gil Aitchison from the air and was assisted on the ground.  Just a reminder it's always nice to have a buddy system when you fly so you can make it home safely or have someone be able to report where you are if you should have to go down. 

     Dave Thomas had an expensive accident occur when a cotter pin came out of his landing gear causing damage to his prop and other parts of his craft.  He was able to fix his aircraft, now he has to work on his ailing truck.

     Tom Lewis has been busy flying with students.

     John Torta bought Gary Pressler's Flight Star.

     Dan Chapman flew for a total of 15 minutes, it seemed every time he wanted to fly the weather was not in his favor.

     Gil Aitchison has been doing a lot of flying (about 35 hours so far this year) and has spent some time around the Norwich area and also the Mason Dixon area where were many Ultra-Lights fly.   There will be a meet at Foulton N.Y. soon.

     John Finn needs to get his motor mounted.

     Jim Croisant and I spent time at the Broome County Aviation Day as volunteers to help around the Thunder Birds Aircraft area.  These pilots are some of Americas best and we were astonished, as usual, what they could do with their aircraft.

     The meeting was over at 5:50 PM and we ushered Mel McKinney off to the air field.  Everyone had a nice time and we're sorry that Al Osterhout wasn't able to find Dave's place for the meeting.  We sincerely hope no one else was lost on the directions.  We will try to do better next time.  We also hope everyone got back safely because that was one heck of a storm.  It left a lot of water in a real short time.

        Your Secretary,

         Mel Wightman