February 2025

This is the semimonthly email newsletter from the Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 54 of Lake Elmo, Minn.  If you have difficulty reading this information, view it on the chapter website. Unless otherwise noted, all events occur at the Chapter House, at the south entrance of Lake Elmo Airport off Manning Avenue. Find fly-in and drive-in information here.

Meet the chapter's newest pilot

Chapter 54 sends its warmest congratulations to Anna Chase, who completed her journey to the ranks of aviators Sunday January 26.  Anna is the chapter's Ray Scholarship recipient. She was awarded the flight training scholarship in May 2024,  soloed in June, and passed her written examination in October. That's hard work, right there. Congratulations also goes out too Bruce Olson, the chapter's Ray Scholarship coordinator.  Anna is the second chapter Ray Scholar in two years to become a pilot. We hope to make it three in 2025 thanks to your support for Chapter 54. Photo: Donaven Chase

From the Flight Deck

Last quarter, my column took a look back on our accomplishments in 2024.  Half way into my 2 year term as president, I have some perspective now on what we do and I'll take a forward look at 2025, some things I've learned and what we hope to do, opportunities for members to get more involved and to have more impact as a chapter, and thoughts about succession planning as the board elections come around in November.

Next meeting: An evening with Al

Years and years ago, then chapter president Bill Schanks invited Al Kupferschmidt into the chapter and the rest is history, which is our topic of February's monthly members' meeting on Monday February 10. "An Evening with Al" will feature trips down memory lane from the chapter's most distinguished and loquacious member. "I moved to Lake Elmo in 1972 to a new house that was only a half mile from the airport," he recalled in the April 2023 Beacon. "I had two friends that were into flying; one was building a Pitts and the other had a Luscombe and they got me started. So, I went up to Elmo Aero at Lake Elmo airport in February 1974 and started my first lesson." Al has flown over 600 Young Eagles and still flies his Citabria as a member of the Octogenarians Flying Club.  Bob Collins will interview about his flying life as well as his fascinating personal stories, including his involvement with United Flight 232, the DC-10, piloted by Al Haynes, which crashed in Sioux City in what might well be the finest job of aviating in history.

The meeting starts with the social hour at 7. The program with Al starts at 7:30.  The Cinema 54 presentation is "The Flying Ace." Showtime is 5:45 p.m. Bring your dinner! 

February video Magazine

January monthly meeting recap: An introduction to ForeFlight

It was a relatively thin crowd at EAA Chapter 54's monthly meeting on January 13, owing to the Minnesota Vikings playoff game. A lot of members made a poor choice, as the capabilities of ForeFlight for iOS were on display when members Scott Hanson and Bill Schanks Jr. took it out for a run in front of an impressed audience, including one guest who drove to the Chapter House from Marshall, Minn., to learn a little more about the program’s capability.

So called “electronic flight bags” can be used in all phases of flight, Hanson said. “It doesn't replace any of the systems. So just because you have an artificial horizon on your iPad. That doesn't replace the artificial horizon that's in your panel,” he said. “So, you still have to have whatever is required for flying – the T-O-M-A-T-O-Flames. You need all of those. This EFB doesn't replace any of that. It has to be functionally equivalent to the paper copy.  All of your data that's on your iPad, has to be current, valid, and you have to make sure that it doesn't interfere with any of the systems in your plane.” Read more >>

Young Eagle registration system nearly complete

David Leiting in Oshosh reports, "The transition from Young Eagles Day to the new EAA Chapter Events online registration system is nearly completed, and there are a few critical updates that I wanted to pass along to you. The official shut down of Young Eagles Day will occur on Monday, February 10. Here is what that means for you:
· Beginning February 10th YEDay.org and YoungEaglesDay.org will redirect to EAAChapters.org. There will no longer be access to the current YEDay.org site.
· Also on February 10th, your login credentials for the EAA Digital Signature App will change and sync up with the new EAA Chapter Events tool. The username/password used for EAAChapters.org will then be used to log into the iPad app.
· Additional event types are not yet fully developed in the new tool. Later this year, chapters will have the ability to manage Young Eagles Build and Fly, Young Eagles Workshops, and more via EAAChapters.org.
I’d also like to use this message as an opportunity to update you on the enhancements being made to the new tool, thanks to the feedback from volunteers.
EAA’s own team has already made dozens of improvements. These include the system’s load performance, fixing the waitlist functionality, optimizing the system for Firefox/Safari, updating the digital signature app, and more.
The outside developer is currently working on incorporating the following: Restoring the cancelled youth list, updating the system generated emails, updating the 'Inactive' volunteer feature, restoring some features to the check-in tab, and more. These changes will start to go-live within the next month and should be completed by the spring.
Thanks again to all the volunteers that have contributed to the development of this new tool. Most importantly, I’d like to once again thank Don White for all his efforts over the past 7 years in his development and support of Young Eagles Day!"

Former chapter president Paul Hove dies

Hove, a former Director of Naval Systems at Unisys, was president of Chapter 54 from 2004 to 2007. After flying a Warrior for a number of years, he began building an RV-7A at Lake Elmo Airport in a hangar on Mooney Lane he shared with Doug Weiler, who started the Twin Cities RV Builders Group. He was a fixture at the group's meetings as well as the Saturday-morning crowd at the Anderson hangar not far away. The private pilot ground school once hosted by Chapter 54 began under the Hove administration. He also opened up the Chapter House on occasional Saturday mornings for safety seminars, a practice that was resurrected by the chapter in 2024. Hove also led a number of spring work parties to Oshkosh, to help the organization prepare the grounds for AirVenture each July. When his illness forced his retirement from chapter leadership a few months ago, he had accumulated a total of 24 consecutive years as a Chapter 54 officer. Read more >>

Last call for the wall

In the next few weeks, we'll be removing pictures from the Wall of Fame of aircraft that are no longer in the fleet and those of people who are no longer members of Chapter 54. That will leave some blank spots and perhaps it's a good time to re-evaluate the space. Member contributions to the space never matched the stated desire to feature aircraft built, owned, and/or operated by chapter members. We're going to try to gin up interest one last time. In the last year, the process was pretty simple: get a digital image of your aircraft processed and get a frame and we'll take it from there. We're going to make it even easier. I will pay for the processing and frames; all you have to do is send me the digital image.  I will post the physical image on the wall and also post the digital version on the Member Aircraft section of the website.  One request: please do not post the picture to the wall on your own; we don't want to drive nails into the drywall. We use the 3M strips. There are some gorgeous airplanes in the Chapter 54 fleet. Let's give them the love they deserve.

Phase I Airport Limitation Reversed

The FAA has released a policy memo that reverses a troubling change in Phase I operating limitations that was originally set to be included with the latest update of Order 8130.2, which became effective in December. The change would have limited aircraft in Phase I to operating out of a single airport, or two with “valid justification of a specific flight test or safety requirement.” Learn more ›

You're upset? You need U-P-R-T!
Do you think you can't stall an airplane with its nose below the horizon? You probably need to pay attention to what Brian Lloyd has to say. Lloyd was the speaker at the Saturday Coffee and Wings Open House on January 11th at the EAA 54 Chapter House. Although attendance was slight, the presentation was the kind that can keep you alive and deserves more attention. Read more >>

Upcoming Open House sessions:

February 1 - Common homebuilt and maintenance mistakes. Presenter is DAR Vic Syracuse. This is part of the EAA Homebuilders Week presentations. (Very Tentative)

February 8 - Ross Gammell, Controller, Minneapolis TRACON talks to us about flying in that airspace.  He'll introduce us to the physical airspace, runway configurations, and controller positions.  We will also talk about ATC duty priorities, and answer questions about going "over the top".  Finally, best radio practices and practice approaches will be covered. Even if you don't fly in the Minneapolis TRACON you are sure to pick up a few tips and tricks for your own forays into a TRACON!

Landing on a frozen Minnesota lake? These Forest Service pilots are cool with it

Snow and ice aren’t ideal conditions to take off or land an airplane, but they’re business as usual for the pilots who fly through the winter out of the U.S. Forest Service seaplane base in Ely — the only Forest Service seaplane base in the country.  Each season when Shagawa Lake reaches around 6 to 8 inches of ice, Ely crews build a runway on the frozen lake, allowing Forest Service pilots to launch cold weather search and rescue missions, wildlife surveys and other operations without having to use the city airport. Making a runway on the ice takes some ingenuity. Forest Service pilots Justin Etheridge, 36, and Jeremy Harmon, 33, spent an afternoon in late December building a landing strip 1,600 feet long and 60 feet wide with balsam fir tree tops marking every 200 feet on either side.  Read more >

About Miss Mitchell
I'd have finished both airplanes I've built much sooner at South St. Paul's Fleming Field if I didn't drop what I was doing on Wednesdays and Saturdays when the B-25 "Miss Mitchell" takes to the skies.  Likewise, I'd go to the hangar and finish the RV-12iS project except the EAA's Green Dot podcast is on with Amy and Jim Lauria of the Commemorative Air Force Minnesota Wing discussing Miss Mitchell. Listen here >

February Anniversaries

Marlon Gunderson (25 years)
Roger Westerberg (16 years)
Paul Rutz (15 years)
Linda Amble (14 years)
Gordon Duke (12 years)
Jay Schrankler (10 years)
Rodney Ough (9 years)
Craig Mueller (8 years)
Dan Theis (8 years)
Mike Demulling (1 year)
Dan Wharton (1 year)
John Gozum (1 year)
Alex Repucci (1 year)

Please remember that your anniversary is also your Chapter 54 membership renewal date. You can renew online.

Tools! Tools! Tools!

We learn by way of Doug Weiler of the Twin Cities RV Builders Group that Carl Ziegler (who will be our April program speaker) is retiring and making tools availabl for loan. "This treasure of goodies is located at Lake Elmo airport.  Carl has nearly 50 years of experience as an A&P mechanic and is available for tech counseling and building assistance,  He also has a high quality borescope for engine inspections," Doug writes. If you are looking for bucking bars, squeezers, or specialized tool, check out the group's website.

John Ostrem's "Blue Skies"

Bet you didn’t know famous movie actor Steve McQueen was an accomplished aviator who owned eleven flying machines!   Besides movies, McQueen is known as a motorcycle and sports car racer and his flight instructor said his coordination and quick decision-making skills transferred to aviation and he was quite accomplished. His favorite airplane was a Stearman bi-plane and he changed the N number to the same identification number he had in reform school as a youngster!  He flew from the Santa Paula Airport in California and actually lived in his hangar with his Hollywood model girlfriend. It was filled with airplanes, race cars, motorcycles, and a big brass bed!   

The E-Beacon is a semimonthly newsletter highlighting news items from Chapter 54. If you no longer wish to receive the email, you can unsubscribe by sending an mail to facilities@eaa54.org.