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5-14-03
We discussed the 100 years of flight for quite a while. The Tidewater council is sponsoring an event in Manteo to celebrate the Wright Bros. powered flight. As the Aviation Explorers, we could either go as part of the "staff" and show everyone things like our engine, or we could just hang around as visitors. The event is October 10-12, so we might want to stay for the entire weekend. More info at a later meeting.
The most important piece of information for everyone to know is to be at Piedmont Hawthorne at 7:00 for a MANDATORY meeting. We will talk about our trips to the control tower and the baggage behind-the-scenes tour in the terminal. I will have info about the control tower at the next meeting (28th) and Sean's dad will take us through the baggage claim tour on whatever day we decide to do it.
3-12-03
This was our planning meeting for the rest of the year. The most important thing that we talked about was the themes for each two-month period in the coming year. Here are the ideas we came up with:
Airport Functions (Tower tour, behind the scenes at the terminal)
Learning to Fly (Pilots have offered to donate their time/aircrafts to us)
Hands-on Maintinence (Watch repairs by actual mechanics)
R/C Aviation or Model Rocetry (Build a big rocket or an RC glider)
Military Aviation (Aircraft carrier tours, Oceana again?)
Helicopters (How do they work?)
Wright Bros./History of Aviation (100 Years of Flight celebration in NC, revisit collection of WWII planes)
We would like everyone to vote for the activities they'd like to do. There is a poll on our website now (see link on homepage) that lets you cast a vote for several proposed yearly plans. Everyone must take the time to vote, or I'll just choose to do whatever I want to do. By the way, someone will send out a reminder e-mail before each meeting to make sure no one forgets to come.
1-8-03
The meeting started by talking about the new website address. After a short while, we walked into the hanger because we wanted to find the glider. Well, it wasn't there, but we did find Jeff who invited us to Piedmont on the 25th (a Saturday) to help haul the parts from the floor level to the balcony. We'll meet in the rear lobby at 10:00.
The last half of the meeting was spent on the internet looking at this website and researching an electric RC glider. For a future activity, we could continue to build and cover the RC glider and install the electric components to bring it up to working order. The pictures of us in the office can be seen on the current photos page. Just to let you know, the old website will still work, but you are now looking at the new site which will have all of the up-to-date info. I'll put a link on the old site in case you accidentally go there.
12-11-02
The meeting started at 7:00 by discussing the events for January's meeting. We could have tried to plan a field trip, but we decided that our time would be best spent cleaning the engine. We still need to see if we can contact the manufacturer and ask about reconstruction help/part donations; not to mention we need to make a part inventory to find out what needs to be replaced. We'll finish taking the engine apart and start sandblasting it as soon as we find out about the obsticles listed above. Another interesting note: Jeff will have his glider on the balcony by the next meeting, so we will get a chance to see it. Part of this meeting was dedicated to clearing out a spot for the glider and getting sawhorses and a wing holder out.
We decided that some extra shelf space would be needed for our projects, so we looked in a back storage room for some shelfs that we could assemble at the next meeting. While we were back there, a long wooden box from several years back was found. We carried it out to the balcony and used a screwdriver to pry open the lid. Inside was a propeller which we may be able to hang on the back wall of the hanger. This will help personalize our space. We can also put up a sign (or something like that) that has our name on it. Since a propeller is incorperated into the logo design for our post, the idea was discussed to paint the logo on the wall and use the real propeller as part of the logo's design. The only problem here is figuring out a way to mount the prop on the wall.
12-4-02
This was our recruitment meeting, but most likely due to the wintry weather, there were not many people to recruit. The meeting started with a brief description of what our post does (and plans to do). We recieved a quick lesson about the duty of the fire and rescue officers, and then went outside to tour their vehicles. Parked in front of the hanger was a firetruck, fire-fighting pickup, the mobile command station, and an airport security vehicle. The cabinets on the exterior of the fire truck were opened, and their contents were explained. Same for the pickup. The new command station was great to go into. Although it reminded me of a RV camper (with retractable awning), it still seemed official and high-tech inside. There were desks, radios, a conference room, and dry-erase marker cabinet doors. (Not to mention the heater.) We stepped out again to look at the police SUV and see its lights.
After the emergency vehicle tours, the group walked into a hanger to have a look at some airplanes. Among the highlights were a wooden prop strike, a funny little round-looking plane, and the fact that even a King Air 90 has no smoking lights. Next came the engine. Random people apperently come in and reassemble it while we're not around, but other then that, it's still in the rusty, busted-up condition we left it in.
OORAH!
When we walked back to the meeting room, we were lavished with snacks which included, but were not limited to: Chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal cookies, Oreos, and Cokes in the trash can. Well, enough about the snacks. Oh, did I mention there were two industrial-sized bags of Delta snack mix? After claiming our treasure, we promptly delivered the remanders to the hungry and eager ladies behind the desk.
Points to consider:
The black polo shirts are the new uniform to be worn at the meetings.
The next meeting is on the 11th of Dec.
It's better to break ground and fly into the wind, than break wind and fly into the ground.
11-13-02
The meeting started at 6:30 with a small discussion about the recruitment meeting on the 4th of December. We're going to begin the open house in the conference room and let all the new members sign up. Then, we let them loose in the hanger to look at the displays set up by the police and fire departments, as well as whatever commercial planes are present, and our engine. After everyone has seen everything, they will be gathered up and provided with refreshments. We will talk about past events, what our group does, and our vision for the future of the 757 Explorers. Hopefully this will keep everyone interested and eager to join us.
OK, that's our plan for the open house. Anyway, back to the meeting minutes. We continued with the opening of the envelope containing the letter and addresses of our future members. Copies will be mailed soon to give everyone a decent warning of our meeting and let them clear their schedules.
Now the fun part. We drove over to the commercial side of the airport and boarded the 757-200 that was waiting for us. After receiving cockpit tours, playing with no-smoking signs (and eating Delta snack mix and bottled water!) we were guided to the new terminal for a look at the baggage claim area. After all that activity, it was getting late so we drove back to Piedmont and went home. Good meeting.
10-9-02
We now have two new members: Patrick and Scott. Hopefully we will be able to hold a recruitment meeting soon and pick up a few more people.
Anyway, after a discussion on formation and aerobatic flying, we set the date and time to launch the rockets. On Saturday, October 19, we will meet at Chesapeake City Park at 10:00 AM with everything ready to go. Although nothing was specifically said about bringing the launch pads and rocket engines, if you have any equipment that we could use, just bring it! I will have two launch pads there, which might be enough. The main concern will be having plenty of motors and igniters. Try to bring your own rocket engines! I hope to see you all there.
Our next meeting is on the second Wednesday of November (still sticking to our second-Wednesday-of-every-month rule) and will include a trip across the airport to tour a commercial airliner. We'll still begin the meeting at 7:00 in the meeting room, as always. Let's hope this works out, because it will be really fun. I'll see you all later, and I hope the future events work out.
9-18-02
This meeting was not as organized as our last meetings, because there were no adults. We had to cancel the air show trip because there were not enough people going on it. Best of luck to Sean, who is getting his wisdom teeth pulled that weekend. We still need to plan our rocket launching trip and the recruitment meeting. All of that will be done at our meeting on the second Wednesday of October.
9-11-02
The turnout for this meeting was better than the last, with four boys and three adults attending. One of the first topics discussed was our symbol, which will be emailed to me and put on our homepage soon. The old symbol can be seen at the bottom of this page, in case you have not seen it before. Anyone have any ideas for a different design not mentioned yet?
Recruitment was the big topic of the night, and ways to expand our group were discussed. First of all, if you have any friends potentially interested in aviation, bring them to the next meeting, or better yet: the air show! We need to make some type of flyer or letter to distribute to people or groups that may be interested in our activities. We will also hold another meeting like the very first one we had (the very first one) to grab the attention of the new people thinking about joining. We'll get the airport fire and rescue, police, a bunch of planes - it will be great! The details will be covered in our next meeting when we have all the info about recruitment.
Our rockets have been sitting around gathering dust for long enough! It's time to start planning the launch date. We will figure out where to do it, and talk about how to get permission at the next meeting. If you'd like to learn about how rockets work, I will be doing a small presentation during the October meeting to get us ready. We will need to consider schools, RC plane sites, or parks with big, open fields to blast off from.
The meeting continued with a discussion on the upcoming air show at Oceana. We will attend on Saturday, the 21st, but we do not know the time or where to meet. That is what the meeting on the 18th is for. Other activities discussed for the future could include the Aviation World's Fair and the Wright Brother's "100 Years of Aviation" anniversary in 2003. Well, I hope you will all be there for the next meeting to plan the air show trip.
The one before that:
Well, where were you all at the last meeting? Did any of you get the e-mail? The only two people that attended were me (Ryan), our fearless leader: President Sean, Mr. Walck, and Jeff. Still, it was a productive meeting, which will be summed up for you all right now.
The meeting was started after an enlightening discussion on plane crashes (see the last photo in the "Photo" page) and wisdom teeth. We then talked about the past field trips and the amazing collection of World War II planes and vehicles we saw a while ago.
We mentioned possible events to hold in the future, which can be seen in the future events page. For organization of our explorer post in the future, we will no longer decide dates of meetings one by one as we have done until now. Meetings will be held on the second Wednesday of every month, starting in September. One field trip will also be held every month. We can make any changes to our new plan at the next meeting, so it is very important that everyone is there.
Our logo was also discussed. If you have no idea what our logo is, that's because we didn't have one until now. It you think you've got an idea for our logo, bring a quick sketch of it to the next meeting. The only thing we have as a logo for now can be seen at the bottom of this page.
The meeting was closed by revealing this great new website to the people that attended the meeting. I think it will improve communication between us and serve as a good way for people to keep up with events if they can't attend.
I will see you all on the eleventh of September at 7:00 and hope we can recover from our summer hibernation.
-Ryan
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