COPA Flight 23: Newsletter

FLT 23 NEWSLETTER 2012

January Announcements:

We had an unusual event this month, members trying to give their 2012 dues to someone, anyone, who would take the money. Unfortunately our membership chairman, Kori Ibey has had to stand down from that job as he is busy keeping the runways clear of snow so the 06:00 flight can depart! Fortunately, Kori is still on the Board of Directors doing the difficult job of organizing speakers for the Monday meetings.

Our new membership chairman, just joining the Board of Directors, is Bill Carswell. Many of you will know Bill, he has a Cessna 170A tucked away in one of the hangers on Apron III, and works for Air Canada. He will be ready and waiting to take your dues next month!

The Flight will be putting on three COPA for Kids events this summer. This is a very important program for us and I encourage everyone to participate. As well as pilots and their planes, we need people to help on the ground, to talk to the kids and their parents, and to help generate some enthusiasm about flying.The three dates we have identified are:

May 12, 2012 at the Trout Lake Base
July 28, 2012 at Mattawa in conjunction with Voyageur Days
August 11, 2012 at South River in conjunction with the Sunflower Festival.

If you would like to know more about the COPA for Kids program, try these two sites:http://www.copaforkids.org/

http://www.copanational.org/copaforkids.cfm

As part of our program to encourage kids to fly, our Flight sponsors a young person to attend an aviation camp. High Flight Aviation Camp at Smith Falls, ON is back in business after renovations last year, and so we are looking for people aged 11 – 14 who would be interested in attending the camp in the summer of 2012.

If you know of someone who would be interested, please contact either Diane Ibey d_ibey@hotmail.com 495-1561 ; or Pete Argue plargue@vianet.ca 497-8967 by mid- March 2012.

January Speakers:

Unfortunately Greg Lathangue was not able to talk to us, so at short notice two people stepped forward to fill the gap. Shawn Kettner gave a great presentation on batteries, mainly on the different type of lead/acid battery and how to keep them working for many years. He talked about battery minders, that keep the battery fully-charged, but not over-charged. He fielded many questions from the audience on topics ranging from freezing (only badly discharged batteries), to maintenance and storage.

If you would like to know more about Shawn and his business, http://www.batterybattery.ca/

Ian Drummond talked about some aviation-related museums and items he had encountered in his travels. He described the Short-Mayo composite seaplane (see pictures) that operated as a sucessful commercial service just prior to the second world-war. The two planes took-off together, with the upper plane loaded beyond its ability to take-off unassisted. The two components then seperated in the air and the upper plane was able to fly long distances (up to 6,000 miles) with significant payloads.

He also showed a graveyard of MIGs on Khodynka field in Moscow, Russia, and a tour of a military museum with an extensive aviation component, including wreckage reported to be of Garry Power’s U-2 .

January Photographs

The Short-Mayo composite Seaplane taking off. The Maia, the lower component, was a modified Empire flying-boat, and the Mercury, the upper craft, was a specially designed float-plane. In 1938 the Mercury flew from Dundee, Scotland, to Alexander Bay in South-west Africa non-stop, a distance of 6041 miles.