Monthly Meeting Minutes – August 2026

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Breakfast

Even through the heat of August, our EAA members and guests flocked to our monthly pancake breakfast. The Breakfast Crew was hard at work early in the morning so that they could crank out the quality flapjacks we are all accustomed to. We sold an impressive 68 pancake breakfasts!

Call to Order 

Dick Keyt opened the meeting by having the breakfast crew stand, recognizing them for their hard work. A huge thank you goes out to Sid Tucker, Bob Moreau, John Theis, Mike Parrish, Sandy Stoltz, Sue Cole, Barb Wilson, Pat Hockett, Carter and Paula Houston! Thank you for cooking over the hot griddles and dishing out piping hot pancakes. 

Welcome Guests!

We love meeting new aviation enthusiasts. Here are the newcomers who bravely stood up and introduced themselves:

  • Levi is a young man from Stephenville who is looking to get his PPL. He is currently learning how to build and soar with the Glider Group.
  • Tim and Audri Roork are visiting with their kids who are now members. All three kids are looking to get their PPL eventually. 
  • Mark and Chrissie Ware have been renovating their new home and have decided to join our EAA Chapter. Mark is a retired Air Force and Alaskan Airlines pilot. They have a Stinson 108.
  • Alan and Gail are new Landings Lot owners on Cirrus Loop. I apologize for not getting their last name!
  • Rick McCrary is a retired Air Force pilot who has flown many airframes including T-38, F-111, and SR-71. 

Project Reports

  • Jason Heller is about to begin an RV-8 project…details coming soon!
  • Dick Keyt introduced Pierre who is a retired American Airlines & Lockheed A & P mechanic. Pierre is one of the points of contact for the Glider Group which is currently restoring a glider. Currently, the fuselage is bare and they have found some corrosion on the frame that will need some TLC. 
  • EAA 983 now has a project: Ben Wilson has donated a U.S. Space Force flag to hang on our Military Wall. Thank you for the donation! We will hang this soon. 

Fly-In Information

  • Bob Pastusek has been working diligently with other Chapter members to plan our annual event. The Fly-In will not have a weather backup date, but we’re hoping for clear skies. We’re getting to the home stretch and need some help!
  • Volunteers needed for the following:
    • Food Preparation Team Leader – Please contact Sue Cole or Bob Pastusek 
    • Aircraft Parking Volunteers – Contact Doug Crumrine or Keith Brown
    • Miscellaneous Volunteers – please contact Bob Pastusek if you’d like to help
  • Silent Auction – Contact Bill Eslick if you have items in your hangar that you would like to donate. 
  • Cookie Drive – Sue Cole will be emailing for volunteers to bake cookies for the Fly-In meals. Please keep an eye out for that. 
  • Young Eagle flights will again be staged at Mike Kerzie’s hangar. Walk-in slots are available and the link for early sign up is on our website.   https://eaa983.org/community/young-eagles/
  • GPS Approach – contact Bob Pastusek if you would like to be added to the approved GPS Approach list.
  • Frequency Change – This has gone somewhat smoothly, though the sectional charts are still displaying the old CTAF. For the Fly-In, Doug Crumrine will be on the ground monitoring the old frequency to advise incoming pilots. 

First Flight

After a few years of hard work, Keith Thomas finally soared in his newly built Zenith. He and his wife, Sharon, were presented with a “First Flight” jacket to celebrate their accomplishment. Great job Keith!

 

Program: PlaneWx, “The Confidence to Go, or The Courage to Stay”

Mark and Sarah Wolfgang are new Landings neighbors with a cool side gig: Plane Wx, a pilot’s “decision support system” that synthesizes weather data into a quantitative score. 

Mark is a U.S. Navy Veteran, and now works as an IT Risk Management/ Penetration Tester. Basically, he hacks to find holes in a company’s web presence to help them shore it up against future hackers. 

He recently got his Private Pilot’s License a couple years ago and then racked up a ton of hours doing what he loves…flying. The first year, he and his wife decided to fly to Tulsa for Thanksgiving but ran into the age-old question and answer: “Are we going to be able to fly ourselves there with the weather?” – “I’ll know more after the TAF comes out tonight, Honey.”  They ran into issues with weather, and ultimately were forced to travel a different way. 

The next Thanksgiving was much like the first, with weather creating a wishy-washy problem for travel. This was the origin of PlaneWx. He knew there had to be a better way to help pilots make the ultimate Go-NoGo decision. So, he used his IT skills and AI to create a system that combs through multiple weather information sources, then combines that with both yours and your aircraft’s limitations to provide a score to help you make the decision to fly or not. 

If you have questions about PlaneWx, please chat with them at our next meeting, give them a call, or take a look at their website: https://www.planewx.ai/ 

Thank you Mark and Sarah for your presentation!

 

VMC/IMC Club

Our VMC/IMC club met right after the main EAA meeting. 

Thanks to all who stayed to store the tables and chairs and help put the airplanes back in the hangar. 

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