By Article and Photos byTed Luebbers
Since February 2020 when the Covid-19 Pandemic became the scourge of the world, people began to isolate themselves and limit social as well as business contacts.
Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 534 based at the Leesburg International Airport in Leesburg, Florida was greatly impacted by the necessity to comply with federal, state and local recommendations to operate in a way that would protect the health and safety of its membership.
The chapter had started out the year with great expectations for aircraft building projects, an active Young Eagles program, a new Ray Aviation Scholarship winner, and a very busy aviation youth program.
That all came to a screeching halt while the chapter leadership discussed which programs could be salvaged while limiting any health risk.
Basically, all activities were shut down. The only thing that moved forward was the flying lessons for William McCarthy, our Ray Scholarship winner. The Sunair Aviation flight school continued giving lessons so William could continue to fly, and he recently became one of Florida’s newest private pilots.
As the stay- at- home recommendations loosened, a few of our adult members who were working on several different aircraft building projects in the EAA hangar, began to show up. They wore masks and tried to maintain social distancing as much as possible.
It is not easy to work in the hangar in the summer when the temperature is in the high 90s and the humidity many times in the 90% range. Wearing face masks just added to the torture of the heat. No air conditioning here!
Although the number of people who showed up to work on the airplanes was small, they were a persistent group.
We moved our monthly Visual Meteorological Conditions ( VMC ) meetings and membership meetings to the ZOOM application on the computer. This worked out quite well for the times, but it will never replace face to face meetings. We look forward to the day we can all safely congregate in the hangar and not worry about infecting anybody.
Only now are we beginning to talk about whether or not to restart the traditional meetings as we had in the past. Right now, the consensus still seems to be that it is too soon to go back to business as usual.
We are looking ahead to restarting our Young Eagles First Flight program but as yet have not decided on a date. This could probably be done on a small scale with everybody wearing masks, social distancing and only flying one passenger at a time. Then comes the issue of finding enough volunteer pilots and ground personnel.
Our Aviation Youth program is still currently on hold. A very small number of our older teens who are starting some flying lessons donated by the adult membership are meeting on Saturdays for a couple of hours of ground school with our Scholarship Director, Gretchen Crecelius.
Masks and social distancing are necessary. These teens are Emily Lininger, Carson Paulsen and Ethan Ratta. They have completed the Sporty’s Pilot Course and have been recognized by EAA National by way of a voucher they can apply toward an hour of dual flight instruction.
Chapter 534 has several aircraft building projects going on in the hangar. The planes being worked on are a Cessna 150 which is about to undergo an engine overhaul, a SeaRey amphibian kit being assembled, 1929 plans built Pietenpol Air Camper, and a Murphy Rebel having aluminum skins applied to its wings.
Upstairs in the loft is a Thatcher CX-4 beginning to take shape. Also, in the loft is the aluminum fuselage frame of a BD-6 kit. This was donated to the chapter by the Bede Family Foundation and we are waiting for the next part of the kit to be donated before we can finish the plane.
An exciting donation to the chapter recently is a Zenith Stol CH-701 Light Sport, all aluminum aircraft that will eventually become the nucleus of an EAA flying club. The hope is that this plane will be used as a primary trainer for the youth group. There are a few repairs to be made before it is ready to fly, and some members are hard at work checking it out. The flying club is still in its formative stage and more information about it will be available next year.
There are so many aircraft projects going on at the same time we had to develop a division of labor so that everybody is not working on the same project. This way there may be two or three adults assigned to working on a specific plane and youth members will be assigned to work with them when our program returns to normal, post COVID.
Because of this beehive of building and repair activity, we needed a second hangar. Fortunately, one of our members stepped up and allowed us to put the Cessna 150 in his hangar, so now we have a “remote repair hangar”.
Everybody is looking forward to the day when we can put the worries of this dangerous pandemic behind us and we return to our normal activities. Meanwhile, we keep trying to keep some semblance of EAA Chapter 534 moving ahead safely.
