Newsletter
Issue #102 USUA Club #66
Richard E. Miller Chapter
November/December 2002
The next meeting of USUA Club #66 meeting will be held on Saturday
December 21st at Tom Hettig’s place. Directions to T. Hettig's Home: From Great Bend, Pa.,
take route 11 North, just outside of Great Bend, Pa., turn right onto Randolph
Road, continue straight on Randolph Road to Honeyhollow Road, and Turn
Right. Continue on Honeyhollow Road a
little over two miles, and turn left on Anne Road. T. Hettig's home is the first house on the right, mailbox number
482.
November Meeting Notes
The November meeting was held at Tom Hettig’s.
Paul Nulton called the meeting to order.
There were twenty-four members and three visitors (L. Cramner, R. Garis
and Losterhout) in attendance. For
business reasons Paul Nulton has decided to step down as President. Al/Butch Osterhout has volunteered to serve
as President.
The December meeting is the Food Fest.
Bring a dish and, if possible, a guest.
We need to come up with club objectives and a name for Tom Hettig’s airport.
A motion was made and passed that the club pay forty dollars to the host of
each meeting. This is to cover the
meeting only; not using the facility for working on a project.
Tom Hettig could use help in clearing his runway. Volunteers should get their chain saws in working order and give
Tom a call.
John Torta announced that he cannot continue as cook. We are going to take volunteers for cooking one month at a
time. We need a cook for January.
Guy Roszel
News
Items
Here is our Web Site address again in case you missed it - http://www.geocities.com/rans18801/index.html.
Don’t forget to send your pictures to Tom Decker for our Web site.
I know the club joins me in thanking Paul Nulton for his work as
President. I know it was a difficult
decision for Paul. Now let’s give Al
Ousterhout our thanks and our support for taking over the reins.
Also, thanks to John Torta for being our cook for several years. This is a big task, which he performed very
well.
Al Ousterhout is the proud owner of a Beaver Ultralight.
I took Norm Dibbles suggestion and designed a “print friendly” roster. When you go to the Members Only section,
click on Roster.doc to give it a try.
All members with airfields should bring their waivers of liability paperwork to
the winter meetings so that all pilot users, including RC pilot users can get
their names registered.
Flying and Building
Last month’s question was normally we don’t make straight in approaches to the
runway? Why not? And why should we make all turns 90 degrees?
First, the downwind, base and final legs of the normal approach pattern at the
prescribed altitude is what is expected by other traffic at uncontrolled
airports. These three legs provide good
visual separation. I vividly recall
being on final after performing the downwind and base legs at an uncontrolled
airport in a 172. I just happened to
look up and saw a plane a few feet directly above me. He was doing a straight in approach and wasn’t using his
radio. I did an immediate left to get
out of his way and did a go around. If
I hadn’t looked up, he would have landed on top of me.
Second, it is difficult to judge your distance from the airport runway using a
straight in approach and consequently it’s difficult to judge the proper rate
of descent. Having said that, there is
a way to judge if the rate of descent is OK or not. Pick a spot on the airport runway and line it up with a spot on
the front of your plane. If the spot on
the airport rises above the spot on the plane, your rate of descent is too
steep. If the spot on the airport sinks
below the spot on the plane, your rate of descent is not steep enough.
As for ninety-degree turns, the point is to have your turn steep enough to
flash your wings so others can see you.
Shallow circular turns do not accomplish that.
Tom Lewis