Builders Meeting notes ...

[Bob Patterson]

Hi All !

Guess it's time to give a quick rundown on the last Builders
Meeting ! :-)

We started with a smaller crowd than usual, but all the seats
filled in with time - maybe the Daylight Savings Time change
caught some off guard .... We did miss several of
'the usual suspects', though. :-) Ken and Drew flew in, so
we had a couple of Rebels to look over during the break.

Gary Wolf, President of RAA National, gave us a quick rundown
on the Beaver 60th Anniversary fly-in at Downsview on May 26th -
- all invited, and the free Museum visit RAA have organized for
March 24th, but the real news was the ECATS program that
Transport Canada & Nav Scam want to introduce. This program
would require ALL aircraft to submit a COMPLETE summary of
their flights - even MORE than presently in the log books - things
like "Was this a revenue generating flight?" and "What did you spend
money on where you landed ? How much ?" !!!!! It looks like they
want this quarterly ! We submit the AAIR forms annually now, with total
hours, etc. annually - apparently they have not had the manpower to
even analyze these since 1995 --- and now they want MUCH MORE !!!
We should all be letting them know how we feel about this outrage
by emailing to Gary, who will de-identify emails and forward to
the appropriate places - the address is: ecats@raa.ca
They can't afford the manpower to provide more safety seminars,
but they can build an empire to collect this data - make us do all
the extra work to submit it, and, no doubt, use it to CHARGE US
all USER FEES !!! :-(
You can get all the details about this plan at: HTTP://WWW.RAA.CA
Please email your comments ASAP - the final report will be DONE
before March 31st - not much time to influence it !

Needless to say, Gary had our attention !! We had several
guests - Walter Klatt was in from B.C., Joe Ronco from Colorado,
and Ron Noblett and Gary Vanderheyden were local visitors,
interested in a Rebel or Moose. Brent & Tracey Anderson,
and 6 year-old Spencer, arrived a bit later - haven't seen them for quite
a while. Brent has finished & flown his 1800 amphibs on his Rebel,
and is now building a huge 50 x 150 ft hangar ! It was great
to meet up with everybody & socialize a bit. We always wish
we had more time for that, but meeting organizing keeps us
hopping !

There will be a Zenith builders fly-in at Brampton for the
May long weekend - 19th-21st, with camping & BBQ's. We are
all invited - this could be a good warm-up and tent test for
the Rebel Ramblers ! Several of the Zenith builders will be
joining us on the Ramble again - and may outnumber the Rebels !!

There is a lot of progress being made on the many kits - the
leaders for the last couple of meetings are setting quite a pace.
The battle for the Copper Cleco trophy has bounced between Bob
Johnson, Mike Basic, & Jim Cole for a while - Jim won it this time,
and is well on the way to getting the Silver Cleco trophy for Finishing
& Flying at the next meeting. Jim says he is definitely going to
fly his Rebel on the Ramble this summer ! We're looking forward
to it !! There are a couple of others who COULD make it too -
if you KEEP RIVETTING !!! ;-)

There was not as much technical discussion as usual, but there
were several construction photos passed around, and a lot of
experience shared. Drew kindly brought in one of his homemade
wheel penetration skis for Show 'n Tell. As usual, Ken had a few helpful
answers in the Rebel Forum. It was a slower paced meeting,
with more socializing - very enjoyable ! Anna & I had several
of our Energy Drinks & Protein Bars for people to sample, as well
as the usual coffee, tea, coke, donuts, and diet chips - nobody left
hungry ! :-)

I guess everyone was having a good time - we went a lot later
than usual, winding up about 6 pm - we cleaned up the clubhouse,
with help from Brent & Tracey, and headed out for pizza & beer
by about 6:45, and had a good evening !

The NEXT Murphy Builders Meeting is Sunday, May 27th, at the
RAA Hangar, at the north end of Brampton Airport, at 1 pm.
EVERYBODY is welcome - please come for this one, as the next one
will be September 9th ... after a Rambling summer !

You can get info on the Rebel Ramble Fly 'n Camp trip
at: http://www.prosumers.ca/Ramble07
Register NOW for the Trip of a Lifetime !
Planning Meeting at Brampton RAA on
Sunday June 3rd, for those who are registered.


--
......bobp & Anna
http://www.prosumers.ca
http://bpatterson.qhealthbeauty.com
http://apatterson2.qhealthzone.com



-----------------------------------------------------------------
List archives located at: https://mail.dcsol.com/login
username "rebel" password "builder"
Unsubscribe: rebel-builders-unsubscribe@dcsol.com
List administrator: mike.davis@dcsol.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------