EAA Chapter 494

Today we paid a visit to Conrad Nordquist’s hangar at Flabob Airport in Riverside. Got to inspect his RV6 project, tour a DC3, a North American T6, and see the Wathen collection of replica air racers mostly built by the late Bill Turner. All impressive machines. More info on the Wathen collection here https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/kitspages/twathen.php

Not an EAA member but thinking about it? Check out the offer from Van’s below.

Corona Airport is open again. The fire fighting helicopters have cleared the runway and moved their operations to the grass area in the SW corner of the airport.

Earlier this week a fire broke out in brush and trees adjacent to the airport. It continued to spread with the Santa Ana winds but nothing on the airport was damaged. The airport is still closed to flying as of today and fire dept aircraft are still deployed here performing mop up operations from this fire and another one in Santiago Canyon.

Some much needed rain didn’t stop work on the Pietenpol. Tom worked on some gas tank mounts and Rich worked on attachments for the cylinder baffles. Tim delivered a fuel system schematic and donated a new gascolator. Things are coming together. Mark installed new LED landing lights in his RV-6, brighter with less current draw when compared to the original halogen lamps.

We have started doing hybrid meetings (combo in person and online) using the Zoom video meeting program. If you are comfortable with meeting in person, maintaining appropriate distancing and/or wearing a mask join us at the EAA Hangar in Corona. If you would rather not meet in person then join us via the Zoom Meeting. We will have a rep at the hangar on Zoom and you can see what is going on there, ask questions and make comments from the comfort of home. The Zoom portion of the meeting will last 1hr, max. The next meeting is Sat, Oct 17, 8 am. If you want to attend via Zoom use Messenger to request the link.

Installing an RV6 wing in less than a minute #EAACorona #Vansaircraft #teamwork

In person Chapter activities have been on hold due to the pandemic but today a few of us got together for a couple of hours (with distancing and some masking) to install the wings in Mark’s RV6. It went well with some lessons learned.

Flabob Chapter 1 hosted a local 6 airport poker run today. At Corona Ch494 Treasurer Conrad and Secretary Mark manned the check in table for the participants. Here’s some of the various aircraft that flew in.

Chapter Secretary Mark moved his RV6 fuselage to the hangar today. A milestone in the build adventure. Next step is attaching the wings for the first time. Hope everything lines up

Get ready SoCal, warbirds will be overhead on Memorial Day. https://abc7.com/warbirds-flyover-fly-over-los-angeles-s//

We’re maintaining our social distancing but our members are still getting stuff done for the Piet. Rich S received the new engine eyebrows and Tom painted the wing struts. Next we’ll be fitting the header fuel tank mount to the forward fuselage.

It’s official, AirVenture 2020 is cancelled

Our chapter's very own Conrad Nordquist recently donated his 3/4-scale Fokker D.VI to the March Field Air Museum, currently undergoing preparation for display.

Haven’t posted much lately but we’re still here. In spite of having to cancel March meetings and April’s Young Eagles event due to the Covid19 situation our members are busy getting work done on the Pietenpol and their own projects. Shawn Hart got his Gyrocopter inspected and flying, Walt Snyder has been flying his Zenith750, Mark Beattie has been getting work done on his RV6, and Conrad Nordquist is making great progress on his RV6A. Tim Cook and his son went to Arizona to build his Superior IO-360 and got it installed on his RV7A. Busy busy busy. Tim is also working on the Pietenpol fuel system. Tom Barnett painted his Dakota Hawk and is working on a mount for the Pietenpol fuselage tank.

Here’s our last newsletter of the year. Have a Merry Christmas and see you in the New Year.

October Young Eagles Day in the books. 9 pilots and 11 ground volunteers made it possible for 65 kids to get a free airplane ride. Great weather helped produce a lot of smiles.

Our Volunteers come in all shapes and sizes. Thanks to them we are ready for all the pre-registered Young Eagles arriving on Saturday 10/19/19 for their free flight.

We are 2 weeks away from our next Young Eagles day. The Young Eagles are registered and will show up at the Corona Chapter 494 hangar on Oct 19. We can still use more pilots, so if you are an EAA member and have completed the EAA Youth Protection Program please sign up and join us. Register here https://youngeaglesday.org/?yesignup There’s still time to complete the Youth Protection course if you need to, info is on the EAA.org website. Also if you are volunteering as part of the ground crew you can use the link below to sign up for that.