So This is February, and What Have you Done?

February 2019 - So, the meter might not match John Lennon’s song — how about Febry? As you’ll see elsewhere, I replaced my brake pads and O-rings on the RV recently, and also installed a Koger sun shade. Do you find that there is an unlimited amount of time that you could spend on your aircraft, if you had an unlimited amount of time available? I do. (For the competitive among you, can you come up with a shorter sentence than “I do”?)

One thing I find really enjoyable is working with other chapter members on projects, either on my aircraft or one of theirs. Sharing tools, knowledge, components, and time together not only produces a better result, but it’s fun. One key to this is access to a shared hangar, either owned by the chapter or hosted by a benevolent member. I came across such a hangar recently that one member owned, but another member kept his tools and supplies there, for use by others. How many of us use tools once in a blue moon, but we’ve bought them anyway. If your chapter doesn’t do this already, how about combining a list of who has what tools that they’re willing to share. My local woodshop club has tools for loan with a sign-out sheet, so that whoever is looking for a tool can check the sheet to see if someone has it.

We’re optimistic that EAA Canada Inc. will soon be able to offer charitable receipts for donations to your local chapter. What better time to start planning a chapter hangar. Donating all those tools could become quite a tax write-off while guaranteeing access for local youth organizations and others looking to learn the art of aircraft construction and maintenance. You might even have members willing to donate funds toward the building of a chapter hangar.

We mentioned last month the relocation of the Canadian Air and Space Museum collection to the now-renamed Canadian Air and Space Conservancy to be based at Edenvale Airport (CNV8) in Ontario. The owner of the airport is doing all that he can to promote aviation and his latest venture is to host a rock concert. Getting the local community behind the airport is a great strategy for having politicians support it also. The three-day event will feature acts such as Blondie, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Billy Idol, Nickelback, Peter Frampton, Alice Cooper, Cheap Trick, and many others. This is a huge deal for a small town airport.

Tickets start at $259 for the three-day event, and both the general admission and VIP early-bird tickets are already sold out, as are the early-bird tent and RV camping tickets. It’s not clear that you’d want to fly-in and park your aircraft while the concert is in progress, but if you both fly and drive an RV, you might consider leaving the one with wings at home!

For a little light relief listen to this song about aviation acronyms. It’s true that we have our fair share of TLAs (three letter acronyms).

Our monthly newsletter goes from strength to strength, and on your behalf, I’d like to express our appreciation to the contributors this month, Jack Dueck, J. Davis, and Mike Davenport. Submitting an article can be as simple as sending an email via the Contact Us button at the top of this newsletter, with a few photos as attachments and a few paragraphs of text. Why not add “write an article for Bits and Pieces” to your to-do list?