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June 2007
Next meeting: June 3, 2007
At the Clubhouse, Knutsford strip
Time: 10am.
This
site hosted by OCIS, On Call Internet Services.
376-3858
President's Letter
Hello everyone:
Well
there is lots of flying going on at the Knutsford
strip and area now! I guess that spring has
sprung. I am hoping to have my plane out by the
project tour this weekend.
The
project tour is on Sunday (June 3rd), hope
everyone can attend! Breakfast at the Kamloops
Flying Club and then one or two stops on the way
to Knutsford. Bring your treasures for the swap
and shop! Lunch will be served around 1:00 pm at
the clubhouse. If the weather is nice there
should be some planes flying in.
The
$100 lunch trips have begun to Quilchena again.
If you would like to get your name on a phone
list please forward it to me. Sometimes the
notice is quite short, but for some of the
Okanagan folks it is a quick trip.
Don't
forget that our Club meetings are going to be
held on the first Saturday of the month for the
summer at 10:00 am. We are anticipating that
this may bring in some flyers!!
Well
that is about it for now, safe flights,
Dick
Suttie.
From
Dan Berwin
There
must have been some 40 aircrafts at the Cache
Creek Mother's Day Fly-in on May 13. Here are a
few pictures:
Dan
also came to Knutsford on May 16. "Just got back
awhile ago from Knutsford. Had a good
flight but it was defiantly blowing in Knutsford
good. We just came straight back."
Here's Dan's Challenger:
Dave
Soul's Zenair 701:
Editor's
Soapbox
I had the opportunity to fly
on a Search&Rescue exercise on May 12, in a
Cessna 172. We went to Savona, Tunkwa Lake, Logan
Lake, Lac LeJeune and back to Kamloops. Here is
the rest of the crew disembarking in Kamloops.
The next day was in a
Buffalo, to keep my certification as a military
spotter.
We practiced by 6-Mile
Ranch, then west of Savona, and finally by Cache
Creek. The day was hot, the turbulence quite
strong, and I'm sure the pilot was also eager to
put us through the wringer... When you said
"Left!", he turned on a dime, and it
must have been very impressive to watch from the
ground. One of my companions lost his lunch into
that little white bag, and I must say I myself
would not have been able to take that punishment
for too many hours.
It has been quite windy
lately, and I have not done as much flying in the
Proton as I would have liked, but I still flew
four times this month, for a total of over two
hours. On May 24, I took the doors off the Proton
and went up to see if it would still handle as
well: no problem! I manager to take a few
pictures; one is of Sugarloaf Hill, a familiar
waypoint when flying VFR.
The pond on the south-west
side of the strip had been dry for a few years,
but I noticed that it has started to fill again:
Maybe that's why there were
zillions of mosquitoes at the hangar; they were
so ferocious too that I had to cut short my work
on the Proton and head back home. I will have to
try again when the wind is blowing in the middle
of the day.
Tony Bellos, Larry L'Heureux
and Bill Huxley have been going to Quilchena for
that $20. cup of coffee. and I plan on joining
them as soon as I have finished some
modifications on the Proton.
New Kids on the
Block
By Barry Meek
(John
Richardson's TURBO PELICAN parked under the wing
of a 747.)
Light
Sport Aircraft, the newest category of machines
for the recreational flyer, have seemingly given
aviation a huge boost. There was a time
when there were dozens upon dozens of airplanes
to browse as we walked the ramp at local
airports. Over time, most disappeared.
Or did they? The Canadian Civil Aircraft
register shows a steady increase in the number of
planes in Canada since 1959. The
early to mid 1990’s saw a levelling off in
that number, but since 1999, there’s been an
increase every year. This is in contrast to
the numbers when we talk about pilots. The
number of private pilots peaked in 2003, but
that’s been in a freefall ever since. It
would be even lower if not for the recreational
pilot category.
Since
2004 when the new rules for LSA (in the U.S.)
took effect, it seems there’s news of new
models being introduced on a monthly basis.
There’s a new frontier to explore and at
this point, the total number of pioneers is
up around forty. That’s right, forty
different, new planes, from different
manufacturers available now to choose from.
Most are from European countries. No longer
are we limited to Cessna, Piper, Taylorcraft,
Mooney, Citabria, and the tiny handful of others
we’ve grown up with. Practically
every aviation publication you pick up has
articles about how they fly, how they perform,
the fuel consumption and so on. There’s
no question that these tiny, two seat planes
offer many remarkable and revolutionary design
ideas. This is the time in aviation
history, with the change in some rules, when
designers and builders are introducing some new
and exciting products. Today it’s
almost impossible to find a new aircraft
constructed of tube and fabric. Even the
gold standard “all aluminium” is passe.
New tougher, stronger and lighter Kevlar and
glass products have replaced them.
It’s a feeding
frenzy among the magazines as they scramble to
fill their pages with the great news of this
revolution. If you were to believe all the
hype, you’d expect to look out the window
and see the sky literally full of spiffy new
sport airplanes.
But sadly, I don’t think so. These new
airplanes might very well be the vehicle that
pilots have dreamed about owning, however the big
question is ..... who can afford to buy them?
All referral to price in the advertising, the
articles and websites, is a casual mention.
But the fact remains, you’ll not soon be
flying in one for less than about $100,000 bucks!
In all my travels last summer, I was fortunate to
see just one of the new planes in the LSA
category. It was a model from the Czech
republic and was being used as a working aircraft
rather than for simple recreation. If the
Katana qualifies as an LSA, you’ll notice
there aren’t too many around apart from
those owned by flying schools. But clearly,
private ownership isn’t impossible. There
are surely some pilots out there who are able and
willing to lay down that kind of cash for a
weekend airplane. I would suggest another
idea could be a shared-ownership arrangement.
Forty different
manufacturers are now competing in a market that
will not be able to support them all. History
is on the verge of yet another repeat
performance. Just like the automobile.
That highway is littered with the remains of
carmakers who for one reason or another, failed.
Duesenberg, Packard, Blackhawk, Studebaker,
Crosley, Elgin, DeSoto, Avanti, Auburn, Cord,
the list goes on .... and on. Most people
have never heard of, or have long forgotten the
stories and promises. The same process of
elimination occurs with almost any product or
service through a period of time. The
process of elimination, consumer acceptance and
rejection is a normal part of the cycles. The
“dot com” period is now the “dot
gone” era. And it didn’t take
long.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m an
enthusiastic pilot, and one who thinks this time
for revolution and change in our industry is long
overdue. But I believe it will be over,
long before we’re tired of it. The
products out there today are undoubtedly superb,
the technology far superior to what we could buy
in the early airplanes from the major
manufacturers. But is it that much better?
Are there enough pilots who can afford to spend
$100,000 for a recreational vehicle? There
may be enough to support a small number of
companies building these airplanes. The
strongest will survive, there will be mergers,
the rest will dry up and fly away.
Meantime, I look forward to opportunities to fly
a few of the new breed of sport airplanes. They’re
classy, clean and fast. Most appear to be
at cruising speed even when they’re on the
ramp standing still. The sports cars of the
air. I think it’s still early in this
revolution. Manufacturers claim big sales
figures over the past several years in their home
countries. I searched for several hours
attempting to find some North American numbers,
but was unable to come up with anything to
report. However, it may just be too early
in this whole affair. Time will tell.
It’s a good time for optimism. We
haven’t seen anything like this in decades
Barry
Meek bcflyer@propilots.net
New in the Buy&Sell
Parts
for Beaver ultralight. Camille at 374-4181
Newsletter
published by Camille
We
welcome your feedback. And we could also use some
help with the newsletter. Photo would be great!
And articles of any length will be gladly
accepted! If you would like to contribute with
photos, flying stories, or project updates,
contact:
President:
Dick Suttie, 1-250-374-6136 richard_suttie@telus.net
Vice-President: Dennis Seib 1-250-573-3714 dseib@mail.ocis.net
Newsletter Editor: Camille Villeneuve
1-250-374-4181 villeneuve@shaw.ca
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