Well, we’re now at the beginning of May and what looks to be a busy flying summer (whenever it arrives). There are numerous events planned with a variety of distances and locations to suit everyone’s needs. If you get the chance to attend some of these; please do as the effort to host a flying event is time consuming and a lot of work. The hosts do it because they love to and their greatest reward is a high attendance and participation, take the time to hunt down a host and thank them before you leave.

I was watching an episode of Myth Busters not too long ago while they were doing an interesting experiment. They wanted to find out if an airplane would take off while on a conveyer belt going the opposite direction. It went something like this. They got hold of an ultralight and willing pilot; they then made a conveyor belt out of burlap (that was strong enough to hold the ultralight) 2000′ long. The plan was to tow the burlap at the same take off speed as the ultralight (25 mph) in the opposite direction, of course, and see what would happen. Everything worked well, the conveyor belt was towed up to speed and at the same time the throttle was advanced on the ultralight. Can you guess what the results were? Did the ultralight go backwards at 25 mph. Did the ultralight stay stationary not going forward or backwards or did the ultralight advance forward at its normal rate and take off? The answer is on the back page.

I would like to thank Carl Forman and Bob Kooyman for another successful Rust Remover held on April 4th. Tim Morrison of Stauffer Aero will be our guest speaker at the May meeting. They specialize in engine overhauls among other things so if you have any questions about them now’s your chance for some free advice. I’m sure it will be an interesting and entertaining meeting.

See you soon!