The 2003 Annual GlaStar Rough River Fly-in

Eight flying Glastars attended the fly-in this year. Max and Mae Dell Calkin and Lester Hildebrand and wife arrived on Thursday. Dan Dudley, Carlos Emmons, Rhett Westerman, Jack and Carol Avery arrived on Friday. Glen Culver and Dick Wass arrived on Saturday. Current builders that attended were Mark and Lisa Neubaur, Jesse and Linda McMurtry, Dick and Marilyn King, Ted and Jill Cry.

Late Saturday afternoon Rhett, Carlos, Glen, Dan, and Jack did some formation flying for a photo shoot. Builders and wives were invited to go along for a ride. I accompanied Mark Neubaur in the chase plane (Mark’s Cessna 172) and took about 40 pictures from all angles, see selected pictures below.

Another highlight was flying with Carlos Emmons. Late Sunday morning, Carlos offered me a ride, and as we were climbing out he gave the stick to me and said I could do whatever I wanted. After flying and sight seeing for a bit, Carlos guided me through a simulated ILS approach. It’s amazing what Carlos has done with his onboard computer system; you have to see it to believe it.

How fortunate we are to have a GlaStar Instructor who attends our fly-ins. Saturday, I received my first GlaStar lesson from Dan Dudley in an effort to build the 10-hour minimum required by the insurance companies. Just as we were finishing our lesson, Rhett Westerman arrived flying his GlaStar on floats. It must be in their blood because as soon as he saw the water he had to make a splash and go, on the lake. Dan and I just followed him in and watched a picture perfect landing (not sure if you call it a landing or a watering). Rhett later landed on the hard surface and parked beside the other GlaStars.

Several of us spent some time looking over Max Calkin’s GlaStar. Carlos and Dan were very impressed with Max’s cowl flaps and cooling tunnels. Max has a spring activated cowl flap that is opened and closed with a manual pull line that rides over a pulley wheel. The system is very simple and it works flawlessly. He also has two cooling tunnels, one on each side of his engine (top) that provides airflow to his cylinders. Max explained that with this combination he has never had a cooling problem. Another interesting item was Max’s aileron gap seals. He used Home Depot weather stripping and explained that they work very well. The seals are 1/2 or 3/4 inch thick foam insulation that is simply stuck to the top edge of the bottom of the trailing of the wing. Simple is good. Max explained that they work well and improve aileron responsiveness.

We had a weenie/brat roast on Saturday evening followed by GlaStar talk and an auction of donated vendor items. Our auction paid all expenses and generated a $77.00 surplus for next year, so we will be able to return to Door Prizes in 2004.

The weather was perfect, both Friday and Saturday were sunny with a high of about 85 degrees. Sunday morning was overcast with rain threatening but by noon it was clearing with the sun breaking through. All but one GlaStar was in the air and on their way home by 1:00 p.m., I’m not sure when Lester Hildebrand was planning to leaving. I started the long drive home in the camper at about 3:45 and arrived home in Cincinnati at about 8:15.

We will make some nice improvements for the next Fly-in. We learned: That we need the cabin for at least two nights. It is too difficult to try to coordinate things unless we have the cabin more than one night.

We need a written agenda for all activities so that our events will not be in conflict with other events of interest to our group. We plan to arrange our activities to include a Friday evening pizza party at the cabin, Saturday evening banquet at the Lodge, and a Sunday morning buffet at the Lodge. Also, this will be nice for those who come early and are interested in a longer stay at the resort. Activities will then cover Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning thus leaving Sunday afternoon for travel home. We will schedule group rides, picture taking, building discussions, etc. around the pizza party and the banquet.

2003 Fly-in Pictures

Click on each Picture to Enlarge