New Years Day 2016

Another New Years Day in the books. This one was cold, damp, windy and gray. The day started at 24 degrees and around 1:00 pm when the party was breaking up, it was 27 degrees with 20 mph winds. We had had worse conditions to celebrate the new year, but where were those 50's and 60's we have had most of December? Despite the heavy coat and gloves weather, we had 50 + people enjoy the cold weather, some flying and all the great food. Thanks to everyone who brought a food item to share, lots of good chili and Joe's famous bean soup.

We did have several people renew membership and two new members, welcome John Scolaro and Jesse Servies. We also held a short meeting, not much to discuss. We did reiterate not to register with the FAA yet, AMA is working on getting the FAA to allow AMA membership to count as registration or to at least allow AMA numbers to be used as the FAA registration numbers. Also, Tom sent out a message with suggested wording to cut and paste and send the FAA comments site. Please take a few minutes to do this; our voices need to be heard. We have been asked by AMA to help organize and put on a Wounded Warrior Trainer Day at Muncie. We will get together with AMA later, but this is a great honor to have them ask us to help out on this project. The event would be actual Wounded Warriors meeting in Muncie to try flying on a simulator and then get to try flying a trainer.

Here are some photos of the day, or a larger view of the images below, just click on the thumb nail:

Here are some firsts of the New Year that I documented:

First flight in 2016 at Corsair Field - Curtis Prater, H9 Meridian EL

First father son flights - Rege Hall and Parker Hall, HK Skipper

First warbird flight - Don Schmedake, HK Horton Flying wing

First mishap of 2016 - Don Schmedake, HK Horton Flying Wing (unfortunately, combination of light wing loading and stiff winds, it did not want to land. However, the old truism, gravity sucks, they all come down eventually)

First F-22 foamie flight - Tom E Hatfield, F-22 of course.

First flat Yak foamie flight - Bryan Baumer, old flat Yak.

First delta wing flight - John Louden, Stryker (also, first plane to fly backwards in 2016).

First F-22 wih broken nose flight - Ralph McBee, broken nose F-22.

First Nitro plane flight - Faron Trosper and new member John Scolaro, Goldberg Eagle.

First sea plane flight - Rege Hall, HK Skipper.

First sea plane touch and go flight - Parker Hall, HK Skipper.

First gas powered plane flight - Kyle Bushman, Great Planes Extra 300 sp.

First Kaos flight - Bill Clontz, Tower Kaos 60.

First 250 Quad racer flight - Dillon McBee, Speedix 250.

First Addiction flight - Matt Shelton, PA Addiction blue.

First Q500 flight - Weir Thurman, Watt Cat.

First new quad flight - Ray Courtney, Sky Hero Anankin.

First blue f-22 flight - Tom Carlyle, a blue F-22!

I am sure I missed a few, if you had a first flight, drop me a note of what you flew.