Unlike Pat, October was a great month of flying for me. One Friday, I made it up to Tipitina’s accompanied by Barry and Janice Woods, Brian Vasseur, and Brian and Garrett Byl (the new guy with the cool Cessna 195 and his son!). Another great day was the COPA for Kids day. I also had a nice trip up to Ponoka where I was joined by Troy Branch and his family in their RV-10.

Most of these trips were impromptu events usually organized by a quick e-mail the night before or the morning of the trip. Unfortunately, not everyone gets the e-mail. I have my list of contacts that I send to and other members have their own lists. Unfortunately, these lists are not complete, and invariably, people who would join us don’t get the message.

To help eliminate this issue, I have set up a mailing list utilizing the Yahoo!Group service. This service allows members to subscribe to the list and get e-mail from the group. To become a member of the list, the moderator (i.e., me) has to approve your access. This allows us to prevent spammers since only club members will be allowed to join.

Unfortunately, both CRUFC and CUFC were taken as list names, so I created one using CalRUFC as the label.

So, what does this all mean? Well, when you want to invite club members to join you on a flight, you simply send an e-mail to CalRUFC@yahoogroups.com. Those who have subscribed will get the e-mail and you’re off to the races. More than that, if you have any aviation-related question, problem, or issue, simply send it in an e-mail using the same address and you’ll have the resources of the club at your fingertips!

The list has a number of other features such as a calendar that can be configured to e-mail reminders to the list of upcoming meetings, club events, or other flying events in the area. There is also an area to store pictures and files, where I plan to store back issues of the Skywriter. These areas can be accessed using the http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CalRUFC website.

The site will also keep an archive of all e-mails posted to it. This means that if you don’t want to get every post as an e-mail, you can surf to the site and read the e-mail there.

This site would not replace the current CRUFC website but would augment it. However, for this to work, we will need the cooperation of club members to join the list and to keep the discussion there aviation-related. Things like spreading jokes, selling vitamins, sending videos of your kids’ latest band recital, and so on would not be appropriate topics for the list. If discussions stray too far off-topic, members will leave, defeating the purpose of the list. Inviting members out flying, posting aviation-related “for sale” ads, posting a “mystery plane” quiz, and so on would be appropriate.

To help you join the list, Stu Simpson has written an article explaining the steps involved in subscribing to the list. You will need to set up an account, but it’s fairly easy and intuitive. If you have any issues, feel free to give me a call and I’ll walk you through it.

At this point, I have to apologize for the lateness of this issue. November has been a very busy month for me. On top of the normal excuses of flying, airplane building, and life in general, I started a SAIT course in TIG welding. After taking in a morning TIG session at Oshkosh in ’08, I bought a TIG welder that fall. Although I was quite impressed with the technique at Oshkosh, I became a little frustrated trying to duplicate those results at home.

SAIT offers a 30-hour basic TIG evening course at their main campus for about $600. They cover the essentials of welding mild steel, stainless steel, and aluminum. They tailor the course to meet the needs of the students. If you’re interested in learning how to weld a 4130 steel tube structure or an aluminum fuel tank, they can help you with that. They can also help you decide what equipment will work best for your requirements. You will need to provide your own welding helmet and gloves for the course.

If you’re thinking of building a plane from scratch (say a Christavia or Buttercup), this would be a great way to start. Even if you’re not planning such a project, it is a neat skill to learn.

As always, I send out a plea for more articles. This newsletter really needs the input from you members to stay interesting. Feel free to write articles on any aviation topic and send them in. I’ll be happy to edit and publish your work.

See you all on Thursday night.