ISSUE #91   USUA CLUB #66, Richard E. Miller Chapter  NEWSLETTER

January-02

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     This month's meeting will be held at the Sidney Municipal airport.  Ray Osterhaut's old hangar is

being converted to other uses and is no longer available.  The new hangar would work but the club has

a shortage of mukluks and snow shovels.  It would be cold and has a VERY long driveway! 

     Meeting will be held in the main hangar.  Grills are available but we need to provide our own propane

 

     Last month's meeting was attended by 22 members and 4 wives.  The bring a dish to pass party was

a success as usual and there was plenty of good food to eat. There was everything from venison jerky

to Chili, several salads and plenty of coffee and soft drink.  The comaraderie was good and new friends

were made by the wives who seemed to get along real well.  It seemed good to have them involved.

Thank you for coming , thank you for your support.

 

     Dave Schwartz, our treasurer, gave a report.  Our present club balance is in the neighborhood

of $960.00.  There were no major outstanding member vouchers.

It should be noted that the 2002 dues are coming up and should raise our balance considerably.

 

     There will be a couple months in the dead of winter where we will have to find meeting places.  Ray

hasn't withdrawn his offer of using Camelback, but it's innaccesible and too cold to use in the bad

weather.  This year's problem is solved by our ability to use the Sidney airport.  Several members have

offered to host meetings and those arrangements will be made as neccesary.  The club members

should understand and appreciate the value of the material contribution Ray and other potential hosts

make to this club.  The Masonic Lodge in Windsor wants $100.00 to rent their hall for a single meeting.

 

     The situation in Kirkwood is still pretty much in limbo.  The new owners perfer to see you eyeball to

eyeball and make arrangements before you land or operate there.  A VHF radio is an absolute

requirement.  They are making a big effort to make that airport safe and they seem to be making efforts

standardize their procedures.  I'm sure individual and club negotiations will continue.

 

     We should be thankful in our area, Norm Dibble reported that an airfield he frequents in Florida is

within a 30 mile circle of Cape Canaveral.  They are still grounded!  This new modified class B airspace

is defined on sectional maps and extends from the ground up!  The nearest such area to us is New York

Metro area.

 

     That discussion brought up the fact that there are members who haven't a clue about how to find

out where such areas lie and what the rules are regarding their use.  President Paul Nulton raised the

point that we are a friendly, generous bunch and we have fun, but we should concentrate, especially in

these winter months, on training each other in the basics of general aviation rules and procedures.

 

     Dave Schwartz volunteered to give a talk on sectional maps at the next meeting.. Gary Pressler

will provide New York State demonstration sectionals for the purpose.  These look identical to FAA

sectional maps and provide all the same details and information but  ARE NOT LEGAL for licensed

pilots in certificated airplanes.  These are good for us and are free.  As usual, the FAA "certified" maps

cost $7.50-$8.00. 

 

     There are several other areas of general training such as navigation, wind correction, basic

weather, preflight procedures, theory of flight, etc that can and will be presented by various members

of the club in coming months.  If we share this information with each other, we will build and fly our

planes a lot more safely.  In doing so, we help to insure that the sport we enjoy so much and the

latitudes we are given to modify and build our ships will continue to be approved by the FAA and NTSB.

 

     For those hardy souls who might fly into the Sidney meetings we are including a map of the

traffic pattern for the Sidney Airport.  PLEASE, do not fly over populated areas of Sidney at our

normal low altitudes.  The traffic pattern altitude for untralights is 1600MSL (600AGL).  The normal

active runway is 25 and it's a right pattern.  All turns in the pattern must be to the right.  The right

downwind leg is just to the right of the river.  Turn right base just after crossing over route 8.  This

is the four lane road running north/south.  Turn final when you're lined up with the runway.

We are SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED not to fly between route 8 and the airport on our base leg.

N 42:18.151    W 75:24.960

 

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