EAA 288 recognized for 30 years of YOUNG EAGLE support

As you know, EAA 288 Chapter meeting are held at 7 PM at Keith's hangar, 222 Cessna Blvd, in the Spruce Creek Fly-in, except for the immediate future where we will meet at Doris Kennedy's Hangar, across from Keith's. (Thank you Doris!) 

Our NEXT meeting will be a SPECIAL TAXI-IN meeting at 6:30PM Thursday, April 20th, 2023 on the eastern side of Cessna Blvd.  More information will follow soon.  You won't want to miss this special event!   

Our March program:

As shown on the Home Page, Spruce Creek's HERO, Tom Romkey (TR), a WWII and Korean war veteran was presented a Quilt of Valor from the Florida Chapter of Quilts of Valor.  Some time ago Tom's incredible war time history was shared in an interview done by Spruce Creeks Bob Gandt (BG) for his series 'The Spruce Creek Living History Project' that he wrote by interviewing war time heroes.  Thanks to Bob for sharing this with EAA288.  Excerpts from this interview are below:

BG: Tom’s long military career took him from flak-filled skies over Germany to the forbidding landscape of North Korea to far flung outposts of the Cold War.  We also learned that Tom is an experienced pilot, owner of multiple airplanes, and a connoisseur of rare automobiles.  

TR:  I flew my first combat mission in August, 1944.  Altogether I flew about 20 missions—you had to have 25 to come home.  Flak was our biggest problem.  My B-17 took several hits, and on one of those occasions I was in the tail gunner’s station.  The gunner’s perch was like a bicycle seat, and we had electrically-heated boots and suits to keep us warm.  A flak burst came up through the tail, through the heel of my boot, up the inside of my fur-lined jacket, leaving a red mark up my back, went out the top.  (Grins and shakes his head).  The worst part was that the flak took out the electric heat in my boot.  I got frostbite on my foot before we got back to our base.

TR:  I survived two crash landings—and managed to walk away from both.  The first one was after our #4 engine was hit by flak over Germany and was on fire.  A P-51 escorted us to a mat-covered runway in France.  The pilot made a beautiful landing, but the steel mat was wet and slippery.  We slid off the end of the mat and went into the woods.  That B-17 was mostly destroyed.  The next time was returning from a mission in bad weather and a low ceiling.  The pilot came in too low on final approach and we hit a hedgerow.  Trashed that airplane too, but everybody walked away. (Grins again).  I only had good crashes.

TR:  In 1951 I heard they were looking for flight engineers on B-29s.  I volunteered, so they sent me first to Randolph Field in Texas for training, then to Escape and Evasion school in Nevada.  After that I went to Travis AFB in California, where we picked up a revamped B-29, which we were supposed to fly to the Far East in company with three B-26s.  We got to Hawaii, then on to Johnson Island, where we had to do an engine change.  And then another.  And when we got to the Philippines, we did a third engine change.  Finally got to Okinawa, and after four missions changed yet another engine.  

BG:  What was the worst experience you had there?

TR:  We had just dropped our bombs one night when we lost #4 engine.  We decided to go back to Kadena instead of making the shorter trip to Japan.  But just after we passed the equal time point, I had to shut down #1 engine.  We were on two engines, still 30 minutes out of Kadena, when #2 engine failed.  On the way down I restarted #1 engine—and it caught on fire.  So we landed—not a good landing—and veered off into a swale.  (Grimaces, remembering).  That B-29 never flew again.

BG:  Tom, you’ve had an exemplary life both in an out of uniform.  Thank you for sharing some of the stories from that life.  And thank you, sir, for your service.

Chuck Aaron - Red Bull Aerobatic Helicopter Pilot and now a Spruce Creek resident, presented an outstanding program about his career as the world's first Helicopter Aerobatic Pilot.  He showed us a number of videos of his absolutely incredible, outstanding, and breath-taking flights from inside and outside of his helicopters.  We hope to have links to these videos soon.

Our NEXT Young Eagle event will be Saturday, MARCH 18th, 2023. 

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Dues for 2023 are due and they remain at $25.  Please pay them soon!  Our scholarship program funds are dependent on official, dues paying memberships.

You may pay by credit card by clicking the link here:

https://eaa-chapter-288.square.site   

                                 OR

You may pay by cash at the meeting, just talk with Andi at the meeting.

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THANKS AS ALWAYS TO DORIS KENNEDY FOR ALLOWING US TO USE HER HANGAR.

YOUR VOLUNTEER HELP IS STILL NEEDED!!

We need qualified pilots to lead the VMC Program (excellent program material is provided by EAA Headquarters).  

We also have a need for a new Chairperson of Youth Programs.

For our February 16, 2023 meeting:  We proudly had Terry Burtchell of Quilts of Valor (Florida Chapter) present a quilt to member Ed Dunn for his outstanding service to our Country.  Ed is a hero from our greatest generation and a WWII B-29 Pilot 

Our guest speaker was Duncan Koerbel, Manager of the Extra aircraft facility which has moved to DeLand Airport.  Duncan provided a most interesting overview of Extra's new operation in Deland and invited any member to come over for a tour.  More info will be forthcoming.  His presentation may be seen 3 sections below.

Joel Sami, ERAU provided an overview of a study he's working on involving risk management for pilots and asked for pilot volunteers (over age 19 - no problem in our membership)  to complete a questionnaire for him, in support of his work.  Many members took advantage of this at the end of the meeting.

Thanks to an anonymous donor, our 50/50 raffle included 2 sets of 2 tickets to the Daytona 500 - WOW!

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Our January 18, 2023 speaker was Jessica Cox, the world’s only armless pilot.  She is connecting with the aviation community and made a provided a very informative presentation at our meeting talking about pilots with physical disabilities and she also  talked about flying with  “The Impossible Airplane”.  This is about the building of an RV-10 that will be modified so that a person with physical disabilities will be able to fly it.  Jessica had some of her initial flight training here at Spruce Creek…at least 15 years ago.  We welcome her back 'home'.

Quilts of Valor Florida state coordinator,Terry Burtchell (also a Spruce Creek resident) presented a beautiful handmade quilt to our own Keith Phillips for his many years of military service to our Country.  The Quilts of Valor Foundation began in 2003 with a dream, literally a dream. Founder Catherine Roberts’ son Nat was deployed in Iraq. According to Catherine: The dream was as vivid as real life. I saw a young man sitting on the side of his bed in the middle of the night, hunched over. The permeating feeling was one of utter despair. I could see his war demons clustered around, dragging him down into an emotional gutter. Then, as if viewing a movie, I saw him in the next scene wrapped in a quilt. His whole demeanor changed from one of despair to one of hope and well-being. The quilt had made this dramatic change.  The message of my dream was: Quilts = Healing.

Some 2022 meeting recaps.

The December meeting took place a Doris Kennedy's hangar. The meeting was our Holiday Celebration. Food was plentiful and all had an evening of fun.  The Turner's Egg Nog  was the best ever!   If you didn't try it, you missed an awesome drink.

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Our November meeting was highlighted by special guest, Garry Copeland who  reported on his flight experience in a Zeppelin - not a blimp. This was a unique experience and proved to be very interesting.   Garry is a part-time resident of the Creek.  He has a background in airline engineering with British Airways and AirTransfer.  He's a GA pilot who owns a Diamond D-40.  You can view his PowerPoint briefing way below.
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The October meeting include three special guest speakers: the first was Gene Conrad. Gene is the new President and CEO of Sun and Fun and second, Dennis Dunbar the new VP of Airshows and Attractions.  Together they discussed Sun n Fun and the 2023 event (their presentation will be available soon.)  We also had ERAU's Vanessa Miksa, a grad student from the Department of Human Factors and Behavioral Neurobiology's "Applied Cognition and Training Science Lab who described the school's Preflight Weather Self-Briefing Study Project.  You may view her PowerPoint presentation a section or two below.

Also, volunteers are needed so please consider contacting her via this link:  

https://erauhf.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9uHZNh7wxq1Rh9Y?Q_CHL=qr 

The simulators are now up and running. We have about 18 EAA288 members, CFI/CFII, who have been trained to run the simulators. Jay described the scheduling tool (the same one we used for the old simulator). Many thanks to Jack Morey for the effort he has put into making the simulators happen. 

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Our September Meeting:  Our September 288 Chapter Meetings was dedicated to tours of the new simulators.  Although mostly assembled, they will not be operational until the end of the month and the contractor has finished software activation, including FAA approval.  NOTE:  The simulator room is in the back left of the large hangar across the ramp from Keith's hangar.  
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Our August Meeting:  We had several interesting briefings:  One on Naval Aviation on board a modern aircraft carrier from Jim Stone, Airport Manager and former naval aviator.    Keith provided various updates; such as Tony Crawford's and Daryl Lowrances' aircraft that are now on display in the new addition to the EAA museum in Oshkosh and he also offered the opportunity to purchase new Chapter items (shirts, caps, etc.)  We were also briefed about volunteering at AirVenture 2022 from Dick Koehler.  You may view the  presentations below.  

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FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE - EAA has monthly Chapter videos that are very interesting.  The March Chapter Video is now available.  In this month’s Chapter Video Magazine, Charlie Becker gets you up to date on:

In this month’s Chapter Video Magazine, Charlie Becker gets you up to date on EAA happenings:

• FAA Summit 

• New Repairman Certificate Form 8610-3 

• AirVenture Features & Attractions 

• Chapters at AirVenture 

• Sun N Fun Chapter Leaders Corn Roast

In addition, there is a feature video collection and Hints for Homebuilders section on the video site, which includes a variety of interest areas. There you can pick which video in each category you want to show that month, and you'll have the ability to download those videos.   See this, other and previous Chapter videos by clicking on the button to the right> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>