THOMPSON
VALLEY SPORT AIRCRAFT CLUB
(Member of
Recreational Aircraft Association)
Beautiful
Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada
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Next meeting: Saturday, July 11,
2009, at 10am.
Location: Clubhouse, Blair Field, Knutsford.
July
2009 Newsletter
Editor's
Notes
I
would like to thank Barry Meek for contributing
his monthly article. All of them are available at
http://www.ocis.net/tvsac/BMLetters.html
but I am in the process of ravamping the page to
have each article on its own page, in a
standardized format.
Beaver
for Sale
You
must have seen this one in our Buy&Sell
section, and noticed that the price was just
dropped to $15,000.
Don says: The biggest reason
my Beaver is for sale, is the weather
"on" the Lake here is just
too much work for a pilot, and too hard on
the plane landing. I hope one of your friends up
there will take an interest in my
Beaver. She deserves a good home, and
someone who will fly her.
Another
reason is that Don found a new love... Nothing to
do with flying, but you might find it interesting
(as I did...). Here is Don again:
We are not living on the
boat yet. I have not had much
opportunity to work on her the last
years. Just now getting going on
finishing off what I started the first
year. Insulation in the cabin walls before
finishing with tongue & groove old growth fir
that I made from wood I milled from the
boom sticks floating at my place. I am
going to make all the lumber used on Mona
myself. I made the flooring in this
photo.
This is Mona from the
outside. Beginning in August I am replacing
the rear half of the deck. There is a
little too much deterioration in the deck
timbers to leave, and the replacement will also
make it easier to do the expansion on the
wheel house we have planned. We will
extend the cabin back 6 feet to accommodate a
full bath room with corner shower and
composting toilet. A further extension 33
inches above deck will extend back 8 feet.
This is the same height as the old fish
hatch you can see in the photo, and will give
the "stand up" head room in the
new Master's cabin we will build in the
fish hold. Honest, the smell of fish is all
gone! The aluminum cover over the
rear deck will be replaced with wood.
The first log. 38"
inches in diameter and 20 feet long. I cut
up the one full 60 foot log and half of a
second, slightly smaller in diameter.
Here is "most" of
the cut. There is more stacked behind to
the right in photo.
The decking is 1
1/2"x3" x 20 feet long. Some of
the timbers were cut 4"x6" x20
feet. I unloaded and stacked all this by myself
the first time. I got my friend Henry
the Hang Glider pilot to help me strip the
piles. About 3500 board feet in total. I also
milled up a Red Cedar tree that blew down in the
front yard during a storm two years ago. I
got lots of 1"x12" boards to make
all the inserts in the cupboard doors.
I installed some T&G
under the windows today. That
is boom stick wood I milled myself and then
cut into tongue and groove for the
walls. I cut the T&G and installed the
floor as well. Still have to replace
the window trim.
Where
is Wally?
We
have not seen him for a while, but this article
was in the local newspaper.
About
the Spot Tracker, again...
There
was an article about it in the latest Kitplane
magazine. It essentially raises the same question
about reliability I did in last month newsletter.
I
took it on my last trip to Cache Creek, and Bill
Huxley took it from there to Cornwall Mountain
and back to Knutsford. When in tracking mode, it
reported only nine times out of sixteen. Better
than nothing, but is sure does no live up to the
hype of their advertizing.
Flight
across Canada
The
latest issue of COPA finally carries the story of
Dave Jones and Dan Nelson's flight across Canada!
My brother Maurice who lives in Quebec told me he
already read it three times, and says he is
jealous! He asked me to congratulate them on
their achievement, and dreams of someday doing
the same. (He is now building a Zenair 701.)
How's
Flying?
Did
you say you wanted to see some pictures? Good! I
am happy to oblige... I took 1065 in June!...
We
had a very good attendance for the June meeting.
Four members flew
in. Here is Bill Davidson.
Dave
Jones showing the short take-off capabilities of
his DJ-14
Ken
Martin and his Raven
Dan
Nelson and his PA-18
On
June 14, Bill Ross was practising his landings.
They
went to Quilchena without me! Gerald Larry and
Bill Ross. Photo Bill Huxley
June
15, Greg Peterson came for a visit in his Yarrow
Arrow.
The
clouds were building up as he left, but he later
said the ride home was fine.
Six
of us flew to Quichena on June 18. Clockwise,
Bill Ross Renagade, Gerald's Renegade, Bill
Davidson's Cessna 185, Larry's Kitfox and Bill
Huxley's Challenger. Taken from by Beaver SS, the
slowest of them all...
Here we are: Me,
Davidson, Huxley, Ross and Larry. Gerald was
taking the shot.
We went again on
July 2. Kitfox, Beaver and Challenger. Last month
we saw that the windsock was in tatters, and we
happened to have one the same size and slightly
used at Knutsford. I flew in early, and borrowed
a stepladder to replace the windsock. I was
hoping to sneak it in without too many people
noticing and let other wonder what happened...
But Guy Rose caught me red handed...
July 4 saw us at
Cache Creek. Bill and Gerald went on to fly over
Cornwall Mountain, while Bill Ross and I headed
back to Kamloops. I could have done without the
turbulence...
Bill Huxley caught
up with me just over the South Thompson River at
Savona.
The natural gas
compressor station in Savona. I worked there for
20 years...
That same day, Dick
Suttie reset his prop and went for a flight.
Bill Huxley took
this of Greald's Kitfox on July 4.
Some people don't
bother with ultralight toys! Helipad on the hills
east of Stump Lake.
I think this is a
retreat for the Buddhist Monks. The mosquitos
must be fierce there!
The old sawmill
site east of the Willow Ranch.
Cardew Hill and the
landscape north of Shumway Lake.
Off
the Face of the Earth
By
Barry Meek
Is it safe to say that everyone at sometime in
their life entertains the fantasy to disappear?
Young children while angry with their
parents say they are going to ‘run away from
home’. A little overnight bag often
gets packed to reinforce the threat. In
high school, a few of us fantasized about leaving
life as we knew it and hiding out in some far
away place in anonymity. Usually that idea
surfaced around exam time.
The concept is deeply intriguing. Many
books have been written and read about it.
Someone, usually a man, feels the desperate need
to uproot himself, his entire life, and change it
all. The books ultimately end with the
return to reality, but in real life, they’re
still searching for some who pulled it off and
got away. In fact, the U.S. Marshals
service has over 3,000 outstanding warrants for
people on the run for white-collar crimes.
Life in today’s society contains too many
checks and records for the average fellow to make
a successful disappearing act. Police,
Marshals and bounty hunters have an arsenal
containing credit card and cash trails, cell
phone records, bank account accessibility, not to
mention the experience to place themselves one
step ahead of the guy on the run. To
fake his own death, then successfully disappear
would involve an incredible amount of planning,
much of which was done recently by a private
pilot named Markus Shrenker. He had a good
idea for the initial disappearing act. It
was partly because he hadn’t thought out the
entire aftermath and what the hiding would
involve that he got caught. Besides that,
there was one fatal error in his plan to fake his
own death.
Markus was an investment advisor/money manager
working in the state of Indiana . When the
economy hit the skids in 2008, his clientele and
the authorities evidently turned on him and he
decided it was time to hit the road. His
plan, and he’s to be admired for this, was
to fly his Piper Meridian toward the ocean in
Florida , inform air traffic control that he was
having a medical emergency, then jump out and
parachute to the ground while allowing the
aircraft to crash into the sea. If
everything went according to his plan, the plane
would never be found, which would conveniently
account for the fact there was no body.
Markus had worked out many of the other details
quite well. Prior to the day of departure,
he parked a motorcycle and a tent in a storage
locker located on his flight-planned route to his
father’s home town in Florida . Once
in the air, he radioed that his windscreen had
blown out, he was badly bleeding and losing
consciousness. He then bailed out near
Birmingham , Alabama . Two U.S. military
jets intercepted the plane which was then on
autopilot. They reported no pilot on
board, no broken windows, but the door was open.
Markus had evidently miscalculated his
fuel quantity. That was his fatal error.
The plane crashed before it got out over
the ocean, into a wooded area close to a small
town. Authorities combed the
wreckage and discovered several clues as to what
was really going on. From a road atlas and
camping guide with pages torn out, they were able
to piece together the plan Markus had to hold up
at a campground while they looked for him further
south. Once they located him, his laptop
computer revealed evidence of searches including
“how to jump from an aircraft”, and
“requirements for a birth certificate”.
Markus was caught red handed.
He really had no choice but to plead
guilty to the charges of faking his own death and
intentionally crashing an aircraft.
It was obvious that Markus had put a lot of
thought into his plan. It was brilliant
actually. Unfortunately, like most other
“fugitives”, he hadn’t thought of
everything. Most are caught because of
their inadequate preparations for life on the
run. A good supply of cash is the most
important resource. Some form of
identification and a purpose for travel and
accommodation is always required.
There’s often no place to hide out, and no
one to help. Faking death is probably the
easiest part of the whole scheme.
Had the Meridian made it far out to sea, things
might have been different for Markus. He
would have at least had a fighting chance to pull
it off.
This story of escaping by air brings back
memories, fond memories for most of us, of D.B.
Cooper. It was back in 1971 when a
passenger with Northwest Airlines parachuted from
a Boeing 727 he had hijacked, taking $200,000 in
cash with him into the dark and stormy night
somewhere over Washington state. Despite
hundreds of leads, no evidence has surfaced as to
his true identity or whereabouts. The FBI
has if figured out that he did not survive the
jump, but this Dan Cooper case remains the only
U.S. hijacking that has not been solved.
Many say he’s living on a beach in Mexico ,
still enjoying the money. Whether he lived
or died, we may never know. But his last
act was a good one! The incident is
high in the ranks of America folklore and he did
it in grand style, risking his life in
what’s been called one of the most daring
crimes in U.S. history.
D.B. Cooper, or
Barry Meek?
The writers of fiction have their work cut out
for them when they start a book about someone who
fakes his death and disappears, never to be heard
from again. I doubt I would have the
imagination to come up with a story wild enough,
yet believable and possible, to have a
best-selling book to my credit. I’ll
have to rely on the stories of real-life, and the
guys like D.B. Cooper and Markus Shrenker to
inspire and entertain me. At the end of the day,
truth really is stranger than fiction.
Barry Meek
bcflyer@propilots.net
New
in the Buy&Sell
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the Buy&Sell for many new aircrafts ads.
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We
welcome your feedback. Do you have any
contributions for the newsletter? Photos would be
great! So would flying stories, project updates
or tall tales... Contact me: Newsletter Editor:
Camille Villeneuve 1-250-374-4181 villeneuve@shaw.ca
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