Since moving to Drayton Valley I’ve been making a plan of getting the Volksplane up here and getting my new-to-me engine installed and flying. The plane is still at our place in Standard which we rented out. Now that I’m not living there I have a lot more time on my hands to do what I love.

My engine is here, and I have a template for the engine mount that I need to get that welded. I will take the wings off and trailer the fuselage here so I can work on it. I also need to build a new cowl and have not decided on whether to use metal or fibreglass but I’m leaning towards metal. If anyone has a good book on shaping metal I’d like to know about it.

Wanting to find a home for the VP, I’ve met a few of guys with hangars and may have a place for it. One guy called me the other day and, in the conversation, said he was flying to Whitecourt that evening to attend their club meeting as they are starting a COPA chapter. He then asked if I wanted to tag along… Well do bears scrap in the woods? Of course I wanted to go. Unfortunately, with the Chinook winds gusting 35 to 55 knots we wisely elected to keep his Cessna 337 on the ground… damn!

The group here in Drayton Valley used to have a club but was only formed at the time to address the issue with the faulty runway lighting and once it was done, they ran out of steam. There is interest in getting something going again and in talking with some guys they agreed that we need to stay on top of things especially due to the annual “Thunder In the Valley” which occurs Labour Day weekend. This entails using the runway for drag racing and this causes all sorts of infrastructure issues on the field. But more on this at another time.

The hangar situation here is quite interesting. You build a hangar and pay the town their lease payment which is only the property tax. Most guys are only paying $400 – $600 per year, that’s right, PER YEAR… and they even supply the power at NO cost. I wonder how long this will last. I wish I had the money to build a hangar but you can’t just throw up a tin shack and call it a hangar.

I hope some of you will make the trip here some weekend. The airport is only five minutes from town and there’s lots of places for breakfast. Between myself and Jamie we have room for seven people in our cars. You can reach me at (780) 542-1225