Okay then!
Sorry to be away from this campaign for the past few weeks but I was OBE there for a bit. That’s Overtaken By Events for you who…well…never heard of that obscure acronym.
Here's the essence of things as they stand. Clearly we have an obvious, expressed desire among our brethren to attend Arlington. This is good. Plus there are some committed Bellanca aficionados based there - one who uses a Cruisair as his commercial ticket trainer. Arlington is in. Given, however, that this fly-in is held in a location as Northwest as you can get without crossing into Canada, we can't expect too many folks in the central states, much less the east coast, to attend. Thus we need a point man for Arlington.
What is this point guy and what does he do? Well, thank goodness these events are spread out in time. We will need some manner of booth, display graphics, and I have to talk with our Commander in Chief about matters such as pins, caps, and such that the Club has in stock. What might be very nifty is to dig into the stock of old ads for the various models, enlarge them if necessary, paste them to foam core, and have them pose in front of tour attendee's aircraft as appropriate. In short, we need to establish a fly-in kit of portable booth, supporting graphics, sales goods, and such. The point guy gets this stuff, makes arrangements with the fly-in folks to try and get the attendees parked together, sets the supporting stuff up, and dispenses guilt...er....asks for volunteers to staff the booth so that the point person doesn't end up feeling like someone drove a drill bit into his head by the time the event ends. Afterward, said point guy packs up the gear, and sends it to the point person for the next event, and so forth.
We also need to encourage attendee's to create "Lookie, lookie at MY airplane!" display signs. If you have it on your word processing software, the best period font that mimics the Bellanca logo for headers is Brush Script MT. If you don't have it, perhaps your local Kinkos does and you can specify it when you make your sign. Or just pick a font that looks right to YOU. Then you can do the sort of, "My Airplane is a Mighty Mighty Airplane," table on your sign that I'm sure you've seen on most fly-in sandwich signs....you know...."Top Speed: Warp 9...Useful Load: 10 Metric Tons...Armament: Phasers and Photon Torpedoes," that sort of thing.
Regarding tour specific memorabilia, we need to deal with the reality that this ain't the Cessna Pilots Association - not that we'd want it to be <shudders at the thought>, but the point is that if we could fill the sky with Triple Tails we wouldn't need the Tour to begin with. In short, we're probably going to need a collection - in advance - to buy such stuff if we want to have it. This is a Club event and the Club doesn't have any Swiss Bank Accounts.
Okay...next event. Oshkosh received as many votes as Arlington.....uh....I'm going to pester Robert about this one, as he goes regularly to this, and has promoted our glorious cause in the past. Same suggestions apply. If you want a bragging plaque (that sign thing discussed above) there, perhaps it should be the size of the screen at a drive-in movie theater...KIDDING!
The biggest vote getter was, no surprise, Lee Bottom. First we need a point guy. This event presents challenges the others thus far discussed do not, namely places to stay if you're not camping, and the need for a couple of folks to rent a car or minivan. Thus WE NEED EVERYONE GOING TO THIS EVENT (and probably the folks going to the other ones) TO COMMUNICATE BEFOREHAND. The easiest way is for people to simply send me email (use the envelope icon, as I dare not post my email address here, as I'm getting really tired of email asserting that my "love muscle" or whatever they're calling it this week is in need of help. Just let me know which event you're going to and give me permission to add you to my list and write to you all as a group to open group communications. Nothing technical. Just a bunch of email addresses to include on pertinent planning emails. I could do a group alias or something, but then people would not be able to communicate to individuals within the group, and talk – backchannel – about the people on the list they hate.
Sadly, we did not get a whole bunch of interest in Blakesburg. This means you all suck and I hate you. What it actually means is that this is not a tour event, which is just as well because Blakesburg has a huge and interesting theme this year that would preempt anything else: lots of mail planes to mark the 90th anniversary of airmail...at least I think it's the 90th. With a probable turnout of all sorts of rare surviving airmail aircraft, all of which make loads of noise, I doubt this would be the best year to try and make a "Hey, look at us!" statement there.
Okay, and lastly, we have the final event of this tour and probably the fly-in season: Reklaw in Texas. Great fly-in, wonderful final event, good pig...good, slow roasted barbequed pig...the kinda pig that makes me oh so glad I pay no attention whatsoever to Jewish dietary laws...pig of such thoroughgoing excellence that it makes me pity the entire Islamic world. I know, enough already with the pig. If for no other reason, we must show up to console poor Joe Sills about the sad fact that there is no parts manual for the 14-19 he's restoring...which I hope will be there...oh, Joe? We also need a Reklaw point person.
That's more than enough for now. My Bellanca's ready (thank the benevolent forces of the universe for Russell Williams), get your Bellanca ready, pray for Lynn and his crate, feel sorry for Dangerous Dave, and spread the word to your Bellanca buddies who still HATE the internet.
10-4 Eleanor...
Jonathan
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