JANUARY 2009
OFFICERS: PRESIDENT- BRIAN “BRAIN” KISSINGER
VICE PRESIDENT- DIANE EARHART
SECRETARY- BILL AANSTAD
TREASURER- RON PEEK
WEBMASTER-BOB MCDANIEL
PROGRAM DIRECTORS- RICK REHG & TODD DRENKHAHN

“Happy New Year from Chapter 64”
As previously voted on by the chapter, in lieu of our official January meeting we had a post-Christmas Hanukkah/Kwanza/Holiday party at Fischer’s restaurant in Belleville, IL with over 60 participants. A fun time was had by all. A special thanks goes to Walt Hubert for organizing the event – THANKS WALLY! Curt Lindaher won the top door prize (a $50 gift certificate to the restaurant). Walt Hubert took home a Brain’s Flight hat and Keith Smith won a Brain’s Flight shirt. Shake Dave provided the musical entertainment and Todd Drenkhahn displayed the slide-show/movie he put together showing lots of our members projects and flying adventures throughout 2008. If you would like a copy of Todd’s creation please contact him at the next meeting. 12 fearless aviators and their significant others participated in the “Dirty Santa” gift exchange with the safety wire pliers seeming to be the top gift. In a legal but late gift exchange, Rick Rehg stole the safety wire pliers from our incoming chapter president. So during 2009 if you need anything safety-wired please make sure to contact Rick.

Correspondence: n/a

Old Business: n/a

New Business: n/a

Meeting Schedule: Next meeting will be at our standard location: Our clubhouse located in Historic Hangar Two’s (rear ground floor) at St Louis downtown airport in Cahokia, IL (airport identifier CPS). We have a program planned after the official meeting adjourns and food before (6pm) as always

Committee Reports n/a
Librarian-
Technical Advisors-
Program Director-
Young Eagles-
Projects-

50/50 Drawing- n/a
Fly Market Items-n/a

Welcome to New members/Guests:
Tom Yohe and his lovely wife Susan attended our party and plans to join our chapter. He recently earned his private pilot’s license and has experience working on a few airplane projects over the past couple years. He started flying as a kid with an EAA member more than 30 years ago! Please welcome Tom to the chapter.

“Brain’s Bites”, aka monthly message from our chapter president

Happy New Year fellow EAAers! What a great start we’ve already had to 2009. We first had a chance to gather socially at Fischer’s Restaurant to recall some wonderful times in 2008 and look back on our members’ and chapter’s accomplishments. Later in January Todd Drenkhahn and I braved the artic temperatures and headed north to OSH for the Chapter’s Leaders Academy. All I can say is WOW. It made me even more proud to be a member of this wonderful organization. We saw firsthand EAA’s willingness to improve and also saw how the EAA staff is there for us. Over the coming months I will share with you many ideas that came from our conference.

I am thankful to a long time chapter member who brought to my attention that we used to present a plaque to all of our intrepid aviators who finished building or restoring an aircraft. We will re-start that tradition immediately. If you’ve completed & flown a project but did not receive a plaque commemorating your wonderful accomplishment please let me know. Simply send me an email at eaachp64@yahoo.com, or tell me at our next meeting, the date of your first flight and the make/model of your aircraft and I will make sure you will be presented a plaque as soon as possible.

As you may have heard me say before, in life we need to know 3 things; where we are from, where we are, and where we are going. In the coming months we plan to learn together those 3 things about our organization. More to follow….

Useful stuff:
In an attempt to provide the latest information at your fingertips via the web, EAA has created the electronic version of Experimenter. To subscribe simply go to http://www.eaa.org/experimenter/ and click on the “subscribe” link. While there you can also download a free copy of “Customer Aircraft Building Tips.”

Another useful on-line (AND FREE) tool is the “Homebuilder Hints” videos. http://www.eaa.org/video/homebuilders.html is the website for the videos. There are videos showing how to do sheet metal, wood, tube & fabric, and composites. THESE ARE REALLY GOOD VIDEOS!

Another wonderful on-line resource for EAA members is the ability to see all the back issues of our magazine dating back to 1953. It is completely searchable. Go to: http://members.eaa.org/home/saarchive/Default.aspx

EAA Sport Aviation Online

Here you will find the complete archive of EAA Sport Aviation magazines starting from 1953. The content is searchable by year, month, authors and article titles.
to browse issues for articles to search for articles to find the answers to your questions

Example Excerpt from an Article in EAA Sport Aviation magazine May 1982
“An astounding turn-out of ultralights was the big story of Sun ‘N Fun 82….along with a full week of glorious summer-like weather…..as you can see in the accompanying photographs, the new ones are moving closer and closer to being little airplanes….but then we’ve been telling you that would happen……”
Want to read the entire article? Go to the May 1982 edition and pull up the article named “Sun 'N Fun EAA Preview”

Misc: “Spring hangar cleaning in the winter” fundraiser. Over the next couple months please clean out your hangar or house of unwanted aircraft parts, tools, etc and donate them to chapter. We will use or sell them (proceeds go to the chapter). You will receive a tax write-off for your donations.