Monthly Archives: January 2023

Happy New Year to all Club members, I hope you all had a great Holiday Season and I hope you also got that new airplane you’ve been wanting.  My Christmas was great and peaceful. As we all know, this past January we had some good rain which we needed. Not sure if we needed all that rain at the field, however it has helped the field and it looks rather good. Thanks to Dennis LaBerge for maintaining the field during our raining season. I will have more on Dennis in just a bit!

Since this is the new year, I just want to go over some rules at the field, this is just a friendly reminder to all members. We have received more chairs that Jim got for us from an auction, and we have also identified these belonging to SEFSD. These are better chairs to sit in. Now that we got these, let us make sure we take care of them and not abuse them. Remember to call out your intentions when getting ready to “Take-off,” “Low Fly-by,” “Landings,” using your manly voice so if you’re in the middle, both ends hear and if you’re at one of the ends you’re really need to project your voice so everyone can hear you, NO whispers.  Remember to check the windsock to see the direction of the wind and then flying in that corresponding direction. And remember there are other pilots flying so do not go the opposite direction and cause a mid-air. 

Everyone must lock the bathroom when you are done using it. Please do not leave it unlocked and just hanging because the field may be filled with flyers and you think this is a clever idea, well it is not and we have the chance of losing our lock and having a homeless person invade our Clean Bathroom, we need to still LOCK the Bathroom. Driving in the parking lot is five miles an hour, not 10 or 15, it is 5 miles.  We need to keep safety in mind when driving, too many people hang around our field so let us watch out for them as well. And my last note is when you’re the last, or close to being last, and you see people by their cars who are visitors, Please go to them and inform them that since your last or the last person is getting his last flight in, Please tell those visitors that they could get locked in since the last person who is flying must lock the gate, but don’t leave some visitor locked in.  In the meantime, have fun flying and being with other members!

The Banquet, now that was a fun time being with everyone who came. It was a genuinely delightful atmosphere at the Air and Space Museum. I do have to apologize for the members who were kept out of the Museum. The guard did not get the message that all members who showed their badge were allowed in the museum. The area not available was the banquet, which was to start at 6pm which it did. I am sorry for the mix-up, even though it was small stuff.

Thank You Lisa and your staff for putting on a great catering festive. The food was outstanding, and your helpers were all so friendly with all our members and guests, Thank You Lisa and staff!  I hope you all enjoyed the food, and yes Brad made the appetizers, yummy, those were good, Thank You Sir!   The night was filled with a lot of laughter and joy. Jim Bonnardel and Brad Bender both spoke, and Jim was telling us about the events he has planned for this year. We have our monthly meeting, (This month it is Spill the Beans $175.00 in cash prizes).  Brad was giving thanks to everyone on how he got support when he had heart surgery, and we are all glad to see that Brad is doing very well and having a wonderful time flying! After a while everyone got food and were feeling great, all enjoyed the hospitality. I want to thank Frank and Alex for taking pictures of those who wanted a picture by the Spirit of St. Louis and Thanks for making the memory’s video which was running in the background during our event. Then it was my turn, I talked a bit my last job and job I currently have now, in building nacelles for Falcon 6X, G400 and Boeing’s 787. Yep, I love it!

I want to Thank all the members who participated in my video that I created. It looks to me that everyone enjoyed the short flick. For those of you who missed seeing it, click below: 

This year we had an award go to one of our members. This award is known as the “Founders Award.” Who are the Founders of the SEFSD, that would be Steve Manganelli, Steve Neu, and Steven Belknap. Steve Manganelli present, first ever award and that award went to Dennis LaBerge. Dennis has spent countless hours cleaning up around the field, making sure the field stays in great shape. When it is time to roll the field, Dennis is the one who commands the Roller and rolls the field for us.  Dennis is giving us a great field to fly off. Thank You Dennis and congratulations!

Now it was time to have some fun and give away our raffle. I want to thank Michelle Manganelli in getting the women’s gifts (our better half’s) and I hear they were surprisingly good gifts too. For us guys boy did we have a bunch of batteries to give away and I know how much fun we had with the batteries, those all came from Steve Neu, Thanks Steve. I was happy to see that Alan Isaacs showed up and he won a T-28, Congratulations Alan! Oh, I guess I cannot forget about Larry Kosta, I should! Well, he helped me with all the planes in getting them out of my car, cannot forget about the other guys who helped too.  But the problem with Larry was he said I am going to win this Glider, we had two of them and one person won, and I forgot who that was. Towards the end I had the glider left, I think a T-28 and our grand prize. Of all the people who came, Larry Kosta won the glider, I was like are you kidding me, and I had two of those instances, Frank Sutton won the King Twin, but wait who really got the King Twin, you should have seen Alex carry out the King Twin.  He had the biggest smile I have ever seen!

I want to thank all who came to the banquet, you all made it an exciting time! Next year our plan is to go back to the Air and Space Museum. This year we are going to try to reduce the cost of ticket for the Banquet, yes, this past banquet was up in price. Brad Bender has a great idea to lower our cost on a ticket.  Brad is playing a game called 50/50. This game will be played every T-28, Electro Glide and Club meetings. Each ticket cost $10.00, at the end of the event, we will draw one ticket and that winner will half the money and the other half will go to the next year banquet. This will work out to about $2250.00 to $2500.00, that is a substantial chunk of change for next year. I know I am going to play!!!   This will be a fun year for the club, we have other ideas as well on how much fun will be for all, so look out for more exciting news as the year goes on!

All right members, this coming Saturday is our club meeting and our engagement for Don’t Spill the Beans, so I hope to see many of you out at the field!

Thank You all again and Happy Flying!

Jovi

Chairman of the Board

Hey Fliers!

Welcome to the new year, I hope Santa brought you a new Plane, Helicopter, or Quadcopter! I have seen quite a few new toys over the last month and a lot of Smiling faces.

I saw a lot of you at the club banquet on the 13^th. I wish more were able to attend. It was a great time at an amazing venue, and a chance to see the spouses that put up with our craziness. I hope to see more at next years event.

One answer I heard quite a bit when I asked members why there were not attending was the cost of the banquet this year. All I can say is that it should be a surprise to no one that EVERYTHING is way more expensive this year. Costs are out of control. The club still covered over half of the total costs for the venue, dinner, and raffle prizes for the pilots and guests – that goes to show what the overall cost was.

To remove some of that burden from next years event I have initiated some fundraising efforts. At each organized club event this year I will hold a 50/50 raffle. For those that have never played 50/50, I will sell tickets for $10 each. When the event ends, generally before noon, we will draw one ticket and the ticket holder will win 50% of the funds collected, with the other 50% going into the fund for the next banquet. There will always be a winner, and always money towards the banquet to reduce individual cost. Winners so far are Fritz Logan, and Scott Vance.  Additionally, Jovi is procuring a tidy sum of money from the BOD which he will use to get some higher end prizes for at least two fundraising raffles this year. For these events, you know the reasoning and You will benefit at the end, so please participate as able and let’s have a grand event next year!

  One thing I mentioned personally at the Banquet was to say “ THANK YOU!!” to everyone. Some of you know that I had open heart surgery just before Christmas in 2021. A few of you have shared similar experiences. I will say that the friendship and camaraderie of club members was crucial in getting me out of the recovery bed and back in action. Randy brought me to the field a week after surgery, and I had a radio in my hands less than 2 weeks out. Each day since has presented different challenges, but I always look forward to weekend flying with the greatest group I have ever been a part of.

As we move into 2023 we have seen a large amount of rainfall and the field is in amazing shape right now. Moving forward we can expect the rainfall to taper off drastically. We may have one or two more showers before we hit the dry season. Our runway is made of clay and footprints/gullies will stay for months if we don’t stay off of the wet runway. I have been AMAZED at the amount of pushback we received this month when asking members to let the field dry for a few days before use.  Sadly, Alligator tears kept the surface damp longer than required… Please, as I mentioned in a note late December – Exercise common sense. If there is standing water in the parking lot or on the runway – save your flight for a day or two. If there are noticeable dark spots on the runway, avoid them as if they are quicksand, and finally- if you know your landing skill is not at a capability level to avoid the dark spots, please save your flights for a day or two.  I don’t have enough fingers to count the number of times a member has stated “ My tiny plane won’t leave marks!”, only to see him get his “tiny plane” stuck in the mud and walk his not so tiny 200 pounds out to retrieve the plane.  Again, Common Sense Please!

  I want to promote knowing each other better as a club. In that effort I am going to ask 3 or 4 of you each month to participate in a volunteer only member in the spotlight. I will ask each to prepare a paragraph or two with a quick background on yourself, how long you have been in the hobby, what aspects you enjoy the most, and anything else you would like to share. I will tag a few members at this months meeting and see what we get.

Talking about this months meeting at the field:

It will be on the 28^th, and the fun fly event is one of the clubs favorites, and the only one where you can win cash money as a prize. DON’T SPILL THE BEANS!  Don’t miss it! The fun fly will kick off around 10:00 AM and will be followed by the first club meeting of the year, then lunch.

I hope everyone has a GREAT year!!

Brad