Well, we’re firmly moving into the fall, and we have the weather to go with it. Our COPA for Kids event has been called off this weekend due to high winds, rain, and snow in the forecast. So much for our nice fall weather continuing into October. I managed to get a couple of nice flights in over the month of September, enjoying our fairly long stretch of warm temperatures. One was up to Rocky Mountain House on September 12th. It was a beautiful clear morning, but we had 20 – 25 mph winds at about 6000′ for the flight up (tailwinds, so that was OK). At approximately 10 miles out of Rocky, the winds calmed down, and on the ground, there was no wind at all. We enjoyed a great breakfast while taking in the spectacular views of the mountains and observing all the comings and goings of the wide array of planes and helicopters. That was the first time I had flown into Rocky, but I’m sure it won’t be the last.

There’s not a lot of club info to report this month other than a reminder that elections are coming up in December. If you would like to run for one of the positions, please see Dave Procychen or Ed D’Antoni.

The positions up are:

• President
• Treasurer
• Director

I also attended a wind-up event for all of the volunteers from the COPA convention held at the Calgary Flying Club on September 25th. In attendance was COPA President Kevin Psutka, who reiterated just how important it is for volunteers to make the convention a success. The convention was the most successful convention ever, and it would not have happened without the dedicated service of over 140 volunteers!

Some of the numbers (although not official yet) were:

• Over 180 planes were flown in.
• 750 tickets sold for the Friday night Hoe Down.
• 450 tickets sold for the Saturday night banquet.
• 23000 litres of fuel purchased on the field.
• An economic impact of $900,000.
• Over 140 volunteers.

I would like to again thank those who were able to help make the convention the success that it was.

Our guest speakers for the next meeting on October 8th will be Mike and Judith Dupuis. Mike has owned and operated flight schools, is a certified flight instructor, as well as a flight test examiner. Judith is also a flight instructor.

Their next adventure is going to be doing missionary work in Africa where, among other things, they will be doing some very adventurous flying into some extremely remote airstrips, so plan on attending to hear what it’s all about as well as some interesting trends seen from an examiner’s perspective!

See you soon!