Membership General Meeting - 26May2016

The Majors Flying Club held a General Membership meeting on May 26, 2016 in Bay 1 of the flying club hangar. Chef Joe Rector was once again called on to grill up some burgers and brats to feed the masses. The grill was going strong by 4:30 p.m. and the masses were not disappointed. Thanks Joe for another round of tasty groceries.

President Dennis Mathis called the meeting to order shortly after 5 p.m. and made some opening remarks. Tom Hubert was recognized for his Solo flight in the Cherokee 140 on May 4, 2016. Tom is getting course correction data from Don Reeder as they work toward Tom's Private Pilot Certificate. Mr. Mathis spoke for a few minutes on the subject of the FAA Wings program and pointed out the benefits and potential savings especially when preparing for a biannual flight review.

Vice President Denis Rottler was introduced and spoke for several minutes on the status of the ADS-B Out project for the Archer. The existing configuration and two proposed solutions were presented. The goal is for a Fall 2016 installation of an ADS-B Out system for the Archer.

Treasurer B.J. Finney was introduced and presented the state of the finances for the club. The club's finances are in pretty fair shape. The funds are available for the ADS-B Out system for the Archer, we have about 73% of the money saved for the Archer engine, and about 76% of the cost for the 2016 Annual insurance saved.

With the business side of the meeting concluded the guest speaker, Harry Andonian was introduced. As most of you know Harry has quite a storied and famous aviation history both in the military and in civilian life. He always has something interesting to talk about and the information on his slides always amazes folks: he has flown 200+ airplanes and has over 27,000 hours in his logbook! Wow. As you can see from the pictures Harry started his aviation career as an Aviation Cadet in 1943 and served in a wide variety of military locations and assignments until 1971. Harry followed up his military career as an Engineering Test pilot for E-Systems from 1971 to 1988. Harry still flies his Debonair almost daily.

Harry provided some background on his military career before talking about his X-15 exploits. Harry flew the B-52's that carried and launched the X-15's from its wing. Specifically he flew the B-52 called Ball 8 (0008) as part of the X-15 program. It just so happened that Don Reeder was at Edwards Air Force base a few weeks before Harry was going to speak and saw the static display of the Ball 8 airplane. One thing lead to another, and Don came up with the idea to present Harry with a framed set of pictures which included the Ball 8. You can see the presentation and a close up of the picture below. The only thing left was to get Harry to talk about the X-15 program and the B-52's which Dennis Mathis pulled off without a hitch.

If was another very entertaining presentation by Harry and enjoyed by the 20+ folks in attendance. Thank you Harry!