2022 Annual Dinner Opening Remarks
And Awards
Thank you to Frontier Steakhouse for allowing us to use their overflow room.
I’m Bud Yerly President of Chapter 175 and it has been an interesting year.
Our Chapter Secretary left without a trace; our President Lynn VanVleck needed to take his wife back to Korea for a couple of months which now has been extended to a year. I filled in for Lynn but with his extension I’m now appointed President, and Bill Cutler has been appointed as our Secretary, until next year’s elections.
We are moving on as they say at great speed.
Just in this year we have been busy. Finding direction, getting projects moving and adapting to events.
We were donated a Europa Mono aircraft and since I had been the Europa Dealer and had a shop, we completely reconditioned the aircraft and sold it and its trailer for a nice healthy profit. Last year Steve Reiser and Tom Beiser headed a team to begin a new project of an electric powered Part 103 Ultralight called the Aerolight 103. The kit was delivered finally, and a team of folks assembled the project in short order however the electric powerplant and batteries were never produced. We put the project up for sale without engine and made another tidy profit.
At the same time Mike Newman began fixing and updating our Chapter House electronics and our detached garage electrical. We’ve started sealing the garage up and are preparing to close up some issues found from the last hurricane. This will be an excellent enclosed workshop for our members building and will only be a small fee to cover the power bill as everyone is familiar with the rate hikes.
The five F’s of Fun, Food, Family, Flying, and Fellowship are alive and well. We volunteered to assist the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Organization or AOPA, setup and host the AOPA Hangout event at Tampa Executive Airport. It was fun and easy for the most part. I particularly enjoyed the vendor turnout and presentations. The next week our chapter had a cookout and open house. Although not highly attended we drew many folks from the local area and have one visitor starting to fly at 65 years old and another starting a building project.
Our priorities now are focusing on Flying and Technology for our members over the next couple months. Ryan McKeon presents a Flying Safety Meeting as part of the IMC/VMC club which is part of the FAA Safety Team (FAAST) which also receives credit for the FAA Wings program. This program is part of the FAA, AOPAs and EAAs involvement in pilot proficiency, education and safety awareness. Every other month Ryan McKeon conducts a FAAST meeting for our members. On the odd numbered months, the chapter program is dedicated to building topics, aircraft systems and technological topics from various speakers. Right now, we are getting ready for our Sun ‘n Fun Volunteer Kitchen duties and we have Rich Denton who just finished at the top of his class at the National Aviation Academy where he has his certifications in Avionics, Airframe and Powerplant and is highly sought after by the industry. Thankfully he is staying local with two teenage boys still in school. Rich is here tonight to give us an update.
There are many programs we wish to make happen:
Young Eagles is still an emphasis program.
Buddy Flight program to augment the IMC/VMC presentations and keep folks proficient.
Chapter 60th Anniversary is this summer in July.
I’d like to thank some special hard working guys:
Rich Denton: Sun ‘n Fun Chairman and Aircraft Tech Counselor.
Tom Beiser: Board Member, Membership Secretary, and full time airline pilot.
Mike Newman: Web Editor, Technology Counsellor, Treasurer and just about everything else.
Bill Cutler: Secretary, Aerolight 103 builder, and board member
Ryan McKeon: IMC/VMC Chairman and superb meeting organizer.
In the background are our unsung hero’s without a title that just make things run:
Roy Schultz: Extensive work with me on the Europa and the Aerolight 103.
Ken Trout: Extensive work with me on the Europa
Ron LeBlanc: Devotes his Saturday mornings to assisting in our kitchen breakfast.
Without these guys we don’t have a program. We don’t grow as students of aviation, successful builders, and contributors to aviation safety.
Enjoy your dinner and I’ll do a short presentation on some technology we are pursuing.
Here is power point presentation that was given by Bud " Learning Today’s New Technology" .
Here are some pictures of this event.
Click on this line for more pictures that are in our cloud of this event.
