Monthly Recap.   

The April Lunch-Bunch gathering at Callaway Gardens (Pine Mountain) was well attended. We overflowed our reservation with 11 aircraft and 23 people attending. We also had several new guests who were at their first Lunch-Bunch outing.

Trip News.  Our trip to Cedar Key the weekend of April 28-29 was a huge success. We had 22 people and two children attend.  They arrived in seven aircraft and a motor home (and one rental car, but that is another story). We had a great time with equally great weather. There was nary a cloud in the sky for the trip down Saturday morning, and only a few scattered clouds for the return trip Sunday. It was so clear we could see the Waycross fire smoke rising to the layer level over 50 miles away. We also had a very informative boat ride to the Cedar Key islands and an educational discussion by Captain Doug on the local birds, fish and water clarity. We even stopped for awhile to watch a few dolphins play.

Our next trip is to the Bahamas over Memorial Day weekend, and we can’t wait. Sandy Thomas and Jim Turner have a great itinerary set up with an overnight in Fort Pierce and then on to Green Turtle Cay on Abaco Island. We also have room on the Nashville trip on July 6-8, Destin October 5-7, and Pigeon Forge November 9-11. If you would like to be a part of any of these trips, check the calendar at http://www.georgiaflyers.org/calendar.htm and contact the trip coordinator listed there. Hurry to sign up so that the coordinators can plan ahead and make the necessary reservations.

Lunch-Bunch News.  The next Lunch-Bunch outing will be at on Saturday, May 19^th at Macon, GA (KMCN) for a trip to the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame.  Sherri and Paul will have more details in their standard monthly Lunch-Bunch email soon. Send your reservation to lunchbunch@platt.org. Please be courteous and tell Paul and Sherri if you are going. It makes reservations much easier when they know you are coming. But, if you have not made a reservation and still want to come, we would love to have you attend. Just call Sherri and let her know, even if it is at the last minute. Also, check the Georgia Flyers calendar for more upcoming Lunch-Bunch gatherings at http://www.georgiaflyers.org/calendar.htm.

Meeting News.  Our next meeting will on Sunday, May 20^th, at the EAA 690 hangar at Gwinnett County airport (KLZU) from 1:30-4 pm.  Paul Platt will brief us all on the latest internet weather services available for flight planning.  It should be a very informative session as Paul has accumulated considerable expertise in this area.  Members are invited to fly in or drive in. Aircraft parking is available on the ramp in front of the EAA hangar or just east of the hangar on the ramp.  Auto parking access has moved to the gate west of the combo gate. The road looks like a dead-end, but leads to the backside of the hangar. This is necessary to eliminate the auto traffic on and near the new taxiway next to the EAA hangar.

Since Carolyn and I will be out of town until the day before the meeting, and the volunteers to host the meeting have not yet broken down our door, we are going to try something a little different – BYOB, or Bring Your Own Bag!  So everyone who would like refreshments at the meeting should pack a plain brown bag or suitable substitute with their favorite snacks and soft drinks to enjoy while Paul updates us on internet weather tools. For your security and piece of mind, there will be snack police stationed to ensure brown bags do not find new owners during the meeting. Sharing snacks, however, is approved and encouraged. For all of this effort, there will be no charge for the meeting and no reservations required.  Just come and have a good time.  Reading this newsletter might for once pay off as there will be questions and lucrative prizes in the form of tickets redeemable later (sound like Dave and Busters)?

Upcoming Events.    Our next big event after the May meeting will be annual picnic at Peachtree City Falcon Field (KFFC) on June 16^th. The meal will be catered and there will be games and activities. There will be no charge for the picnic, so all of you will want to take advantage of free food. We will have raffles, games, food and fun. This will also coincide with the June Lunch-Bunch outing, so this will be a good chance to meet and greet fellow flying enthusiasts and prospective members. So please get this event on your calendars and plan to attend. You will not want to miss it.  And bring the tickets you won at the May meeting I mentioned earlier. 

There are also several other upcoming events that I wanted you to get on your calendars. PDK Good Neighbor Day is scheduled for June 2 from 12 -5 pm. The Georgia Flyers are planning a display if we have enough volunteers to man the booth. If you are interested in helping with the booth, contact Keeley Miller at millerk141@yahoo.com. Also, the Angel Flight Pilot Appreciation banquet is scheduled for Saturday, June 23^rd. If you are an Angel Flight pilot, you should have received information on that by snail-mail and email, and information is available on the Angel Flight – GA website at http://www.angelflight-ga.org/cal_hangar.htm.

Meet a Member.  I thought that this month I would tell you a little about Carolyn and me for the “Meet a Member” article. So bear with me. First a couple of photos so you know who we're talking about; Oh, yeah. Them!

Carolyn and I have been together since before some, but not all, of you were born. We are from the same small town in Ohio, but did not know each other until our college days were nearly over since she went to the swanky city school while I went to a rural school with the other farmers. We were married in 1970 even though neither of us had the money to buy a good meal, but that is what love does to otherwise sane humans. 

I have loved flying and all things aviation ever since I was a small boy trying to emulate Superman (how hard can this flying stuff be?), but my parents finally laid down the law when I figured all I needed was a little additional starting altitude, like the roof of our house. So when I finally became old enough and had a few bucks in my pocket from pumping gas, I started flying lessons. The first thing I did with my new license and new girlfriend (Carolyn) was to take her on a long cross-country flight (25 miles) to Wheeling, West Virginia. Now if any of you have been to Wheeling, you know what a party place that is, with two runways and a restaurant that was closed when we arrived. It didn’t really matter anyway as I just wanted to impress her by demonstrating my prowess in stick and rudder skills. The other reason the restaurant being closed didn’t much matter was that I had discovered Carolyn’s affinity for air sickness (as well as car sickness, sea sickness, you name it sickness). So after about an hour of cleanup in the airport restroom, we were on our way, happily winging back home, another successful flying adventure completed. In those days, a successful flight was characterized by a lack of crashing and finding one’s way back to the original departure point. Fortunately for me, that flight did not end our relationship or Carolyn’s devout love of flying, as long as she is wearing her trusty electronic Relief Band that works wonders, and I allow her sniff from the portable oxygen bottle. 

After college, we moved to Toledo, Ohio where I worked in a fossil fueled power plant next to Lake Erie and Carolyn worked for Owens Illinois. One day I came home with what I thought was a great idea, but Carolyn just thought I had finally lost it. She had been suspecting that would come at any time. The great idea was to go into the Nuclear Navy and submarines to learn all about nuclear power, after which we could leave the Navy, work in one of the many nuclear power plants being built, and live happily ever after. Not only did Carolyn think I was crazy, but so did my co-workers, her co-workers, our parents, and nearly everyone else we spoke with. Remember that the Vietnam War was still going on and the draft was still in place. Carolyn almost committed me when she learned that my Selective Service number was 269 and I would not be drafted. Most of our friends and family offered their condolences because, surely, we would never have anything. However, in Carolyn’s typical fashion, she backed my scheme, to the dismay of her Mom and Dad. The plan did not exactly work out because instead of staying in the Navy five years, as planned, I decided to stay longer, eventually accumulating 27 years of exhilarating fun. So Carolyn has a tendency to look askance at any of my carefully crafted plans.

While in the Navy, Carolyn gave us two healthy, happy sons, and she raised them while I was having fun frolicking in the big ocean running casualty drills and enjoying meals of tube steaks, SOS, three-bean salad, and desserts of fruit cocktail. To this day you will never be a witness to my eating fruit cocktail. During those years Carolyn became quite self-reliant and developed such skills as filling a washing machine from an outside faucet through the laundry room window (the machine timer was broken), whacking the recalcitrant carburetor of a VW Beetle with a wooden spoon to get it running (she claims that’s what the troubleshooting manual said to do), and learning to drive the stick-shift Beetle on her own when her Chevy Impala broke down. Maybe it was best that I was gone so much. Most of these skills she learned during our many moves and several houses up and down the east coast from New London, CT, to Orlando, FL, with Norfolk, VA, Charleston, SC, and Kings Bay, GA, thrown in for good measure.

One of the downsides to submarines is they go away for long periods and you don’t see them, and the crew doesn’t see sunlight. So that put the flying dream in the distant background for a few years until a friend and fellow aviator rekindled my interest. I immediately started pursuing a commercial license and flight instructor rating and was able to fly sufficiently throughout my remaining years with the Navy to stay somewhat abreast of the latest developments. We even plunged into the world of aircraft ownership once while on shore duty in Orlando (a Mooney, of course), happily flying around the east coast until a fierce hailstorm did in the Mooney (it was, fortunately, on the ground at the time). Since we really couldn’t afford it anyway, we gladly gave it to AVEMCO and went off to our next adventure, back in Charleston, and returned to dependency on the rental world.

Near the end of my Navy career, I became more interested in golf than flying until another friend got me to fly with him and help with his maintenance at a little airport in South Georgia. I was hooked again, and the golf clubs went back into the attic. Carolyn and I again jumped at the chance to buy another Mooney (well, at least I jumped at the chance) and we flew it a few months until I saw our current Mooney and couldn’t resist the temptation to trade. Carolyn is thankful I am not as fickle with wives as I am with airplanes. Anyway, she took note that I had a craving for this red and white beauty (with some hints from my Dad), so she went out and bought a Lincoln Navigator (without my knowledge, of course). So when I called and asked if it was OK if I trade in our Mooney for this new lovely, she said, “Sure, go for it!” Then she broke the news to me about the Navigator. What could I say? Checkmate, she wins, or, I guess we both won, which is the way marriage issues should always work out.

After leaving the Navy, we lived in Illinois while I worked at a nuclear power plant near Joliet, then in Atlanta when the current job came available. Carolyn was again not too happy about leaving Illinois as we had a new house built in a former cornfield and she was fed up with moving around. But once again she supported my scheme (I’m not sure how many more she will support), but fortunately this time did not buy a new, even more expensive, car. I travel enough in this job to “stay out from under foot,” as they say. If I am around more than a few weeks, Carolyn asks if I should be visiting one of the power plants for a week or so, and she will cheerfully help me pack.

Our boys are living in Ohio and Washington State.  One works with computer networks and I can’t understand much of what he is talking about. His younger brother is a Navy nuclear trained Chief Petty Officer assigned to a submarine in Bremerton, Washington. So I understand most of what he is saying. Carolyn, however, contends I do not understand anything that she is saying, or is it that I’m not listening? It is one or a combination of those, anyway.  Our boys have given us two energetic grandsons and a wonderful granddaughter. The Mooney and Delta help us maintain a modicum of contact with the grandchildren, and they frequently even know who we are.

So that is us in a nutshell! Happy flying. Keep the shiny side up. See you all at the next meeting or event you can make. 

Ron and Carolyn