We had a great turnout for the Chapter Holiday party and once again there was plenty of food and great conversation. Barry and Ann Toole came a few hours early to cook the turkey on the grill and Danny and Didi brought a ham. The side dishes and desserts were amazing. This annual event also gives us the opportunity to award the George Lutz Award to a deserving Chapter 186 member.
George W. Lutz’s love of aviation inspired him to dedicate his time and efforts to improving safety, education, and the enjoyment of general aviation through his work with the FAA, Experimental Aircraft Association, and the Quantico Marine Corps Flying Club.
Before all this, during his 25-year career in the Air Force he received a master’s degree in engineering administration at George Washington University, served as a B-47 test pilot, held several staff assignments at the Pentagon and Andrews AFB, and was base commander at Nakon Phanom Airbase in Thailand,in 1970/1971. He retired from the Air Force with the rank of Colonel in 1972.
This year’s George Lutz Award recipient is Chris Berg. Chris is a Lifetime member of the EAA and was Secretary of Chapter 186 for several years. He earned his Private Pilot Certificate 35 years ago, joined the EAA the same year and began giving YE rides when the program began 32 years ago. He has flown 412 YEs and was recognized last year for being one of Virginia’s Top Eagles by the Virginia Department of Aviation. He was an engineer in the Air Force and retired after 24 years in 2014 and is still working full time. His Father introduced him to airplanes when he was young, and he attended Oshkosh with his father and has missed only a few years since. He has owned his Cessna Cardinal for 20 years and has flown across the country twice while relocating with the military. He flies into AirVenture every year with Cessnas to Oshkosh.
Chris is building a Van’s RV-10 in his basement workshop. Chris’ experience in the role of Board Member and Secretary is still valuable and his advice and ideas are always welcome. Congratulations Chris, we appreciate your dedication to aviation, EAA and Chapter 186.
In addition to the George Lutz Award and the EAA provided certificates for the Officer and Board positions, we awarded the following members in appreciation of their volunteerism:
Young Eagles Pilot of the Year – Brian Roy
Brian is a regular volunteer pilot at our Young Eagles Rallies and also often presents subject matter content for our monthly IMC Club pilot safety meetings. He shows professionalism in flight planning and decision-making and best of all helps us improve our flying skills in his presentations on his flying experiences.
Young Eagles Crewmember of the Year – John Storey
Our ground and admin volunteers keep our events running smoothly; John has helped at numerous rallies, always lending a hand, always willing to do more; the best part is his son beat him by a year getting a plaque last year! (Son Cliff was last year’s Junior Volunteer of the year).
Ch 186 Volunteer of the Year – Sam Bingham
Sam is seen helping in numerous areas as photographer, Young Eagles ground crew or admin and IT wizard. He keeps our computers, tablets, simulators, software, LiveATC and wi-fi working. He also helps plan and set up our movie nights. He has been known to stop by the CH on the way to/from work to fix errant electrons.
In Appreciation – Cathy Carey
In addition to being our Sunshine Coordinator, Cathy helped coordinate merchandise orders, helped with every event and made the prizes for the Chili Cook-off. She managed our biggest Chapter 186 fund-raiser of the year, the Culpeper AirFest in October.
Junior Volunteer of the Year – Rori Ross
Ch 186 is involved with many things…Building, flying, fixing planes, giving safety seminars, cook trailer events, flying YEs; it is all rewarding but one of the best rewards is seeing the young adults getting more involved. Sometimes you can tell they just want more of this aviation thing…Rori is eager to learn, volunteers at YE rallies and continues to show her enthusiasm for aviation.
Membership: The 2026 membership renewal process has begun! You should have received a membership form for your 2026 dues in the mail. Please use that form or fill in the enclosed membership form and either mail it with a check or if you prefer, pay with Zelle or PayPal using the payee as indicated on the renewal form and mail or bring the form to the next meeting. Membership dues are the primary means of funding our
existence.
Airport Operations Follow-Up: Airport Operations Manager, Richard Allabaugh, has provided the following answers to questions at his
Nov 22 presentation:
-Can the new gates open/close faster? We will adjust the closure time once people become acclimated, it is currently at 10 sec. The actual speed at which the gate opens and closes is not adjustable.
-Regarding badging in and out: The scenario asked, “If I were to enter the airport, then take a flight somewhere in my airplane, but had to drive back to the airport or rent a car, would the system prevent me from entering the airport because it didn’t detect my swipe out?” Swipe is a swipe, doesn’t matter which side, but passing a card through the fence so someone else can enter is prohibited. If the individual fails to swipe out, they will not be prevented from re-entering.
-Gates EV-03 | EV-04 don’t detect motorcycles. Is this going to be fixed? EV-3 will be taken out of service in December.
–“When the west vehicle gate fails again…it’s not a matter of if, but when, do we still continue to use Gate D and drive on the interior service road, or is there a plan for an alternate gate to enter/exit?” “I was told in my training to never use the interior service road, so you would have to understand my hesitance to use that gate and road.” I would expect an impact from an inattentive driver rather than an outright failure of the gate. IF the gate goes out of service, we will be reusing Gate D. There is no plan, at the moment, on a second vehicular entrance/exit, but security is planning on a northern pedestrian gate. The development on the northwest side of the airport might yield additional gate opportunities, but this is uncertain until we see the plans.
-My card just got renewed but shows it expiring in 3 months. Am I going to have to pay for another card after just renewing it? Yes, all cards applied for after December 1st will have the $25 fee associated with them. Cards will expire annually on the cardholder’s birthday.
EAA Survey: EAA is conducting a survey of its membership about local chapters. We encourage you to participate in this survey. EAA will share the results of Chapter 186 members’ responses with us to help us better understand our areas of strength and areas that need improvement. Results will be de-identified. We will not see individual member information or responses. If enough Chapter 186 members respond, we will get credit toward the ten criteria for maintaining our Gold Chapter status. If the link does not work, please copy and paste to your browser. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZW9WXBL
Blue Skies,
Bob