Young Eagles from Bob Prange
We flew 34 kids at the June 13 rally. Thank you to our pilots and ground volunteers. It was a pleasant day with the temp in the mid-80s and a breeze. Please note: Our July 11 rally is planned for Warrenton-Fauquier Airport at 0900. This is a change from earlier plans. Pilots: In an effort to push the total of Young Eagles flown to 2.5 million kids, EAA has announced Mission 2.5 where Young Eagle Pilots have an incentive to fly 25 kids between 10/1/2025 to 7/31/2026. Any volunteer pilot that rises to the challenge and flies 25 Young Eagles or more from October 1, 2025, through July 31, 2026, will be issued a limited-edition commemorative hat courtesy of Sporty’s.
New NASA HQ Display from Mary Dominiak
Planning to visit the DC Mall this summer for any of the sesquicentennial activities? Take a few minutes to get your space fix at the new display in the West Lobby of NASA Headquarters, just off 4th and E Streets, SW (Hidden Figures Way). It’s open from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Monday through Friday. NASA is celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States by featuring some of our aerospace accomplishments in a new public display. It wasn’t quite finished when I visited on Friday, 5 June 2026, but it should be fully open now. The star of the display is a full-scale model of the Perseverance Mars rover, which landed (together with the Ingenuity helicopter!) on 18 February
Membership Gathering this Saturday 6/27!!!
June 27 Member Gathering – 10:00 AM (Coffee and doughnuts at 9:20 AM) This Saturday our speaker is our own Darrel Watson. Darrel is an FAA Designated Airworthiness Representative (DAR) and has vast knowledge on the intricacies of FAA regs concerning certification of aircraft and pilots. This month however he will be speaking to us about weather – where weather originates, how we take the collected data needed for forecasts, how we compile the data to be understood by layman and basically where does weather forecasting originate. Weather information disseminated on our EFBs and .gov resources is changing rapidly.
IMC & VMC Clubs
Experimental Aircraft AssociationChapter 186National Capital Chapter10629 Aviator Ave.Manassas, VA 20110 TONIGHT!!! Tuesday June 23IMC Club Meeting at 7:00 PMVMC Club Meeting at 8:00 PM You may not have received the FAASTeam notice yet but YES, we are conducting IMC Club and VMC Club meetings tonight. Join us Tuesday night for one or both of our monthly safety meetings. IMC Club and VMC Club meetings are usually on the fourth Tuesday of the month.Attendees receive one FAA WINGS credit for each session.Optional 5:30 PM dinner (Dutch treat) at Panera Bread on Bristow Center Drive. Near the fountains visible from Route 28. IMC Club meeting topic:The IMC Club’s purpose is to promote instrument flying, proficiency, and safety. The intent is to create
From the President, Bob Prange
The annual Women Can Fly event at Warrenton will be Saturday June 6. They usually fly over 150 people plus provide other educational activities. It is like a Young Eagles rally on steroids but for all ages. The name implies for women but that is not a hard and fast rule. Guys have been known to get a ride too. One of the educational activities is the Women Can Build station where participants learn the basics of measuring, filing, drilling, deburring and riveting, and end up building a cell phone charger/stand. Chapter 186 members are encouraged to help with this workstation. There will be a small assembly line that needs volunteers to keep the process moving. No aircraft building experience
Membership
ONLINE APPLICATIONShttps://eaa186.org/events/eaa-chapter-186-membership-online-application-2025/ CHAPTER MEMBERSHIP FEES$30 Jan–Dec Single Member Dues$35 Jan-Dec Family Member Dues$15 for Name Tag and postage$12 – hard copy of Directory (printing & mailing)$2 surcharge if paying by PayPal DID YOU CHANGE YOUR E-MAIL?Please advise Meredith Martin-Richards at [email protected] if any of yourmembership directory information changes.Thanks.
IMC & VMC Meetings
We meet on the 4th Tuesday each month. IMC Club at 7 PM. VMC Club at 8 PM. Come for one or both sessions; we usually meet beforehand at 5:30 PM for informal dinner at the Panera Bread at Bristow Center. The IMC Club’s purpose is to promote instrument flying proficiency, safety and education through a community of pilots sharing information and fostering communications. You don’t have to be instrument rated to come to the IMC Club. The VMC Club, for pilots wishing to improve their VFR flying proficiency, is modeled after the popular IMC Club providing organized “hangar flying” with a focus on VFR procedures, regulations and publications. TR Proven and Chuck Kyle are our facilitators for these meetings
New Galleries at the NASM on the Mall from Mary Dominiak
I got a behind-the-scenes hard hat tour of three of the five new galleries that will open on July 1, 2026, at the Smithsonian National Air and Space altitude and be slowed from much greater speed. And SpaceX has made those launches and returns a routine thing, with some boosters having flown over 30 times. (NASM has a multiple-flight Merlin engine and a grid fin from a Falcon 9 in the Futures in Space gallery.) Living in the Space Age also includes the Structural Dynamic Test vehicle of the Hubble Space Telescope, which was there before, and the WWII Nazi German V-2 rocket that both the US and the USSR studied as the basis for launching their space programs. There’s