EAA Chapter 186

Our next movie night takes us to the Moon via an Australian sheep station! Well, sort of ….

In July 1969, the 64-meter (210 foot) Murriyang radio telescope dish at isolated Parkes Observatory in Australia was the primary receiver in the southern hemisphere for live television signals from Apollo 11. The Australian comedy-drama film The Dish,
released in 2000, tells the story of the role the observatory, its staff, and the nearby town of Parkes played in enabling the worldwide broadcast of the first Moon landing mission.

The quirky characters in the movie are fictional and some historic details were tweaked or manufactured for dramatic or humorous effect, but most of the story is true, the control room set was absolutely authentic, and much of the movie was shot on location at the dish, although the quaint architecture of the small town of Forbes stood in for Parkes.
Sam Neill stars, with Patrick Warburton, Tom Long, and Kevin Harrington. The film has a “96% Fresh” approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s rated PG-13 and has a run time of 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Come to our Chapter House Theater for the 7:00 PM show on Friday, August 1, 2025. See if you can figure out which story details were real and which were created in the script!

Judy has (mostly) retired from several decades of being our Membership Chair. Jerry Stueve is
stepping up to the plate for this very important duty and we thank him for doing so. Jerry joined EAA in 1979 at AirVenture and camped in Paul’s Woods at Camp Scholler for the week. He returned a few times to gather buttons pressed from tags and then in later years getting the wrist bands (not as collectible). He soloed in 1985 at Manassas with Squadron Aviation. During that time he also got in a couple of high speed, short runway landings at Dulles with his instructor. After that, life got in the way, he met his wife and the flying was history. The first trip she took to Oshkosh she was pregnant with their first child. Later times at AirVenture his second son accompanied him, first when he was about six. He’s a Software Engineer in his day job and has been doing that for a few companies over the years. Thanks to Jerry.

CHAPTER MEMBERSHIP FEES
$30 Jan–Dec Single Member Dues
$35 Jan-Dec Family Member Dues
$12 for Name Tag and postage
$12 – hard copy of Directory (printing & mailing)
$2 surcharge if paying by PayPal

Chapter 186 helped with partial tuition costs for three kids to attend EAA Air Academy this June and July. Xavier and Frank went to Discover Camp in mid-June and Dag will go to Explore Camp just before AirVenture. Find additional information on course content, lodge accommodations and registration at https://www.eaa.org/eaa/youth/eaa-aviation-and-flight-summer-camps Updated information (course content, ages, costs) and on- line registration for the June and July 2026 camps will be available on September 3, 2025. Parents: Registration will fill up very quickly in early September.

Scholarships

Below is a list of scholarships from other organizations in Virginia plus the bigger EAA and AOPA lists. Many of these are for application during the high school senior year. The AOPA and EAA lists have quite a few that do not apply to everyone (geographical or age/gender restrictions) but are worth searching through to find the applicable ones. Some are for all ages! These are not Chapter 186 scholarships but are presented here as a resource. Instructions are found in the linked information.

Virginia Aviation Business Association:
Charles J. Colgan Scholarship – https://www.thevaba.org/colgan-application
Virginia Department of Aviation: https://doav.virginia.gov/virginia-aviation-scholarships/
Willard G. Plentl Sr. Aviation Scholarship
John R. Lillard Foundation Aviation Scholarship
Kenneth R. Scott Aviation Scholarship
Chad Weaver Aviation Scholarship

Virginia Aeronautical Historical Society:

Captain Earle Worley Scholarship: https://www.vahsonline.com/programs/aviation-
scholarships/

AOPA:
Numerous aviation scholarships https://www.aopa.org/training-and-safety/students/aopa-
flight-training-scholarships

EAA:
Numerous aviation scholarships https://www.eaa.org/eaa/learn-to-fly/scholarships/eaa-flight
-training-scholarships

Ray Scholarship
Our 2024 Ray Scholar Kobe Kerns is finishing his cross country requirements and awaiting his checkride with a DPE. He is doing his Private Pilot training with the CAP Winchester Composite Squadron. Kobe was recently interviewed in the following podcast: https://soundcloud.com/wreathsacrossamericaradio/meet-the-civil-air-patrol-
podcast-guest-kobe-kerns-6-26-2025?utm_source=mobi&utm_campaign=social_sharing.
Our 2025 Ray Scholar Cliff Storey will begin his training in August.

We had a successful Young Eagles rally May 10 at Warrenton Airport. We flew 40 kids with 6
aircraft.

July 12 – 0900 at Manassas – CANCELLED
August 9 – 0900 at Manassas

Ground and Pilot Volunteers: If you would like to be a Young Eagles volunteer (pilot or ground) go to events.eaachapters.org and click on “Volunteer Registration.” Submitting your information puts you in the volunteer database. About two/three weeks prior to a Young Eagles Rally, we prompt the events.eaachapters.org system to send an email to everyone in our Young Eagles volunteer database inviting you to click on “confirm” or “will not attend.” Expect an automatic reminder email again on Wednesday three days prior to the Young Eagles Rally asking you to confirm again that you are still planning to volunteer. This assures you will get the Thursday two-days-to-go email to volunteers other notices if anything changes.

Young Eagles flights are available to kids between ages 8 and 17. We normally hold our rallies on the second Saturday each month. We use two time slots 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM in the warmer months. Parents can register at events.eaachapters.org beginning at 8:00 AM on the 1st of each month.

Chapter 186 Young Eagles Coordinators
David Richards
Bob Prange

This month I have a few different items to share and a couple calendar events to point out. With EAA AirVenture toward the end of this month [currently in progress], we will not have our monthly member gathering at the Chapter House but if you will be at AirVenture, please plan to attend the Tuesday morning Ch 186 breakfast, details in this issue. Also, there will not be IMC Club and VMC Club meetings this month.

On Saturday, August 2 the Commemorative Air Force at Culpeper is having a 70th Anniversary celebration for their TBM Avenger. They have invited Chapter 186 members to attend free of charge! The date is significant. August 2 is exactly 80 years, to the day, when their TBM Avenger rolled off the assembly line on August 2, 1945. The following day this warbird was accepted by the US Marine Corps. The CAF Capital Wing is planning a huge celebration. Their plans include a US Marine Corps color guard, a live 1940s jazz band, remarks by the last remaining person of the restoration team, remarks by the artist who painted the Doris Mae nose art and by various CAF Capital Wing members who have been instrumental in keeping the TBM flying, free lunch courtesy of food truck, Law Dawgs, and Warbird rides in the afternoon.

We’re still fleshing out our September membership gathering but the gist of it will be a discussion on aging and flying and how and when we should decide to hang up the airplane keys. Part of that discussion will undoubtedly include difficulties obtaining medical certification. We would like to begin gathering and maintaining a list of local FAA AMEs and doctor offices where you have had success getting an FAA medical certificate or a Basic Med. Please send me the contact info of your AME or Doctor office where you have had a relatively simple process of getting your medical and any pertinent comments.

Our eaa186.org website has taken on a new temporary look while we work to improve and overhaul the functionality. Member, Gladys Rodriguez, has been spending a lot of volunteer time developing a new site, which may go live in the coming weeks.

See you at Oshkosh!

Blue Skies,
Bob

Last month, we cued you in to new galleries opening this summer at the National Air and Space Museum on the Mall: now we have actual dates! The Milestones of Flight gallery – with its brand new, gorgeous winged portico entrance on the Mall – will open July 28, 2025, along with Pioneers of Flight, World War I: The Birth of Military Aviation, Futures in Space, and Innovations: Aerospace and Our Changing Environment galleries, and the updated Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater.

Free timed entry tickets are available right now on the museum’s website (https://www.etix.com/ticket/e/1029945/timed-entry-washington-the-smithsonian -national-air-and-space-museum-general-public): make sure you get yours for the date you want to visit! With more of the museum open to absorb the crowds, about twice as many tickets will be available each hour as have been offered up to now. Here are some pro tips on ticketing:

• Don’t come early and stand in line! If you plan to arrive at the museum about 15 minutes after the time on your ticket, you will likely be able to walk right up to and through the entry door. The line to get tickets scanned on your way in moves fast once the doors open each hour, but it’s no fun standing in sweltering heat (or maybe pouring rain) while you wait for your turn through the door. Even a line running around the corner of the building is mostly inside within 15 or 20 minutes.
• You can go out and come back in once on your timed ticket. If you need to move your car (but why drive into town when the Metro is so convenient?) or get lunch outside the museum (yeah, the Mars Cafe inside is very small, pretty limited in menu, and museum-pricey; the food trucks on the street are a better deal), don’t worry; you can go out once and come back in using your ticket. When you come back, come straight to the entry doors; don’t join the line waiting for the next hourly admission. They’ll scan your ticket again and welcome you back in. But make certain you’ve finished eating and drinking before you return: only water is allowed inside the museum! There are water bottle fillers near the restrooms on each floor.
• There’s only one way in: you MUST use the Mall doors! Beginning on July 28, you WON’T be able to enter the museum through the Independence Avenue doors; all entry will be through the new portico doors on the Mall side, on Jefferson Drive, SW. When you reserve entry tickets from the new opening onward, you’ll see that notice. There hasn’t been any announcement explaining the single- entrance decision, but it makes sense especially from a cost perspective: duplicating screening machinery and ticket-scanning staff adds up fast, and budget cuts are having effects. Historically, more people always entered from the Mall than from Independence, and accommodating security screening is precisely why the new portico was added to the building design. I’m guessing that the line for entry will probably run from the doors toward 7th Street, since more foot traffic comes from the western side than from the Capitol Hill one. You’ll be able to exit using the Independence Avenue doors, which will provide convenient access to food trucks for lunch and to the L’Enfant Plaza Metro station for your tired ride home.
• Once you’re in, you can stay until the museum closes. It doesn’t matter if your ticket is for 10:00 AM or 2:00 PM: once you’re inside, the only limit on your stay is closing time for the museum. But be aware that the gift shops close when the museum does, so make sure you get your shopping done within time!
• Daytime IMAX and Planetarium tickets are ONLY available onsite! This makes sense if you think about it: since timed tickets are required for entry to the Mall museum, you can’t buy tickets to the shows until you’re inside the museum. I’m betting that you will be able to buy tickets online for the big Hollywood blockbusters that will run in IMAX after museum hours, the same way as you can for the Airbus IMAX theater at Udvar-Hazy, but I haven’t seen any show schedules for the downtown theater yet. The Northrop Grumman Planetarium box office is on the second floor, above the west side of the Milestones gallery; the Lockheed Martin IMAX box office is on the first floor, east of the round Welcome Center.
• Maps and docent tour information will be available at the Welcome Center in Milestones. Do stop at the round Welcome Center (near the nuclear missiles!) in the Milestones of Flight gallery to pick up maps. The Welcome Center is still being assembled, so I can’t provide details, but I believe there will be monitor displays with theater information and signs for any available highlight (walking around) or spotlight (docent in a gallery) tours. Tours in the brand new galleries will probably be a bit limited for a while, because docent training for all the new displays hasn’t been completed yet; we’re working on it, but there are lots of new stories we’ll be able to tell. Heck – Futures in Space includes things happening right now, like the development of commercial space travel and tourism, that never appeared in the museum before! Fun times

Once you’re inside and touring around, take three more pro tips to make your visit more immersive and enjoyable:

• Always, always, always remember to LOOK UP! Our artifacts fly, so if you’re not looking up – something we humans are notoriously bad at doing! – you will literally miss half the museum. If I had a dime for all the times I’ve casually asked visitors in Destination Moon near Neil Armstrong’s spacesuit if they’ve looked above them, only to see them doing a flabbergasted double-take when they realize they’ve been standing under 18,000 pounds of rocket engine (an actual F1 engine from a Saturn V rocket!), I could afford dinner at an upscale DC restaurant. Poe Dameron’s X-Wing fighter from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is hanging right above the west side escalators to the second floor; I’ve seen people who rode that escalator up totally
  miss it until they’re walking back to the escalator to head back downstairs!

• Don’t miss looking at the floor, either! The new museum design makes the floors in the common areas and the galleries integral parts of the display. The commons hallways include inspiring, sometimes funny quotations from aerospace luminaries. The floor in the Milestones of Flight gallery, extending into the South Lobby, displays an updated version of the pulsar map carried into interstellar space by the Voyager probes, designating Earth as the origin point of those probes; look at the cover of the Voyager Golden Record in the Exploring the Planets gallery to see the original. The floor in the One World Connected gallery provides a graphical depiction of orbital distances for satellites. Just outside the new Pioneers of Flight gallery, the museum’s new compass rose (replacing the one that used to be outside the Time and Navigation gallery), celebrates the 99’s, the very first organization of women pilots. Every floor tells part of the overall story, and I find them magical.

Engage with interactives! Every gallery now has built-in interactive elements letting you drill down further into individual stories of people both famous and not; participate in opinion research; explore how various technologies work; see different depictions of satellite and other data to better understand their implications; and test your knowledge and comprehension. Play with our toys kids, definitely make a beeline for any large cart you see with someone standing behind it: they’re our Discovery carts staffed by student Explainers (plus some adult volunteers) who exist to share interactive learning with visitors on everything from gravity and black holes to spacesuit construction to meteorites to principles of flight and more. They set up in different areas of the museum, most often near the entrance to galleries or in open common areas, and welcome all comers. and touch our screens! And if you’re visiting with kids, definitely make a beeline for any large cart you see with someone standing behind it: they’re our Discovery carts staffed by student Explainers (plus some adult volunteers) who exist to share interactive learning with visitors on everything from gravity and black holes to spacesuit construction to meteorites to principles of flight and more. They set up in different areas of the museum, most often near the entrance to galleries or in open common areas, and welcome all comers.

The floor in the One World Connected gallery illustrates the relative distances of satellites in orbit around Earth. The globe at the center is an interactive, letting you explore global population, transportation, communication, and wildlife tracking as revealed by satellite information.

Director Chris Browne announced that the rest of the museum is scheduled to open on July 1, 2026; the 50th anniversary of the opening of the original museum on the Mall. Galleries opening then will include World War II in the Air; Modern Military Aviation; the super interactive, two-level How Things Fly; Living in the Space Age; At Home in Space; the new astronomy display, Discovering Our Universe; and our art gallery.

Stay tuned to the NASM website for more information, and for photos of the new galleries and exhibits!

The Young Eagles Rally for 7/12 is cancelled.

The Air Traffic Control Tower at Manassas is closed until Monday due to a building safety issue. Due to air safety concerns, we are cancelling the Young Eagles Rally scheduled for 7/12/25.

The next EAA Chapter 186 Young Eagles Rally is planned for August 9. Online registration at events.eaachapters.org begins at 8:00 AM on August 1.

Join us at 10:00 AM for the meeting;  9:20 AM for coffee and doughnuts.

Park in the lot near the FAA Control Tower but do not park in the spaces marked “FAA.”  Walk through the pedestrian gate toward the “EAA 186” sign.

Our speaker this Saturday will be Richard Genaille with the Virginia Aeronautical Historical Society (VAHS).  Dick will present “Firsts in Flight Along the Potomac” on the early aviation history of Virginia. His presentation addresses The Civil War Balloon Corps, Samuel Langley and development of the first heavier than air mechanically driven aircraft, testing and acquisition of the first military dirigible and the first military piloted and controllable heavier than air aircraft at Fort Myer, the history of Washington-Hoover Airport where the Pentagon is now, the origins and construction of Washington National Airport, the first modern airport in the U.S. and the early history of Bolling Field and Anacostia Naval Station, the first U.S. military “joint base.”  Dick has spent hundreds of hours collecting and analyzing information about early aviation in Virginia.  This is a high level summary of several of his other other presentations.  This one concentrates on events along the Potomac River from Washington to Quantico.  I will bet you learn some new aviation firsts!

We will see you tomorrow!

*July meeting reminder:   Our July member gathering will be at AirVenture on Tuesday June 22 at 8:00 AM at the Tailwinds Café; near the Forums area on the south side of the Homebuilders Hangar.  Map coordinates are K-9.

IMC Club Meeting at 7 PM
VMC Club Meeting at 8 PM

EAA Chapter 186
10629 Observation Road
Manassas, VA  22010

Come for one or both sessions; we will 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 but the attendees are encouraged to participate with their knowledge and experience.

Each one-hour meeting earns you one credit toward the FAA Wings Pilot Proficiency Program.

I wish to start with aviation safety. In April I wrote about knowing your limitations, always having an “out” and knowing who is in charge. Now I want to rant about getting rushed and allowing an issue to become a larger problem. I know our new information age bombards us with accidents that make it seem like there are more accidents than in the old days but a couple of weeks ago we learned of three in-flight door occurrences that did not end well. There are exceptions, but most of the GA aircraft we fly will not crash just because a door has opened. The worst issue is that the noise may be distracting. No one will fall out. The aircraft will still fly. When my dad taught me to fly, we took off a couple times with the door open on purpose and later as an unannounced teaching moment. I learned to land safely with the door open, and I learned to climb to a safe altitude and close the door in flight. One recent instance had the tower controller repeatedly calling the pilot, the pilot could not communicate well due to the noise and was distracted enough to not fly the aircraft first and keep climbing. In other incidents we see the pilot trying to close the door in the traffic pattern. If you are able to close your door in flight, that should only be attempted at a safe altitude higher than traffic pattern altitude. Usually with a small window open and flying at a slow cruise speed (not minimum controllable airspeed) the door can be pulled shut. If necessary, declare an emergency and tell ATC you need a climb and a heading and will not be talking to them for a couple minutes.

It is all about decision-making or getting rushed or both. We should always be on the lookout for red flags, those things that happen along the way (in flight and in pre-flight) that should alert us to slow down or change a plan or turn around or not go at all. When we notice a red flag or threat, we should mitigate it by altering our plan.

My departure from Sun and Fun this spring was a string of red flags. I made a last-minute decision on a lazy Friday morning that I would rather leave now in good weather than wait until Saturday since weather approaching the mid-Atlantic could prevent my getting into Virginia for a couple days. The field would of course close to departures at 12:00 Noon for the airshow. I was still at the hotel, not yet packed or fed. I had a rental car to return which would entail unpredictable delays with drop off, Ubering around the field to the gate. I had an unpredictable time to schlep my bags from gate to aircraft or spend time waiting for a shuttle. I knew there was a threat here with all the rushing required to make this happen. Sometimes just noticing that you are rushing is the first step in keeping things safe. Some of you have heard me say it’s a red flag when you feel like what you are doing is the good start to an article about an accident. At the airlines we often said, “I wouldn’t want to explain this to the Chief Pilot (or FAA),” so we would take the better way out. So, I mitigated the threat and told myself that I would stop pressing forward if it looked like I could not get to my still covered and tied down airplane by 11:15 AM. I made that time, barely. During preflight, the motor scooter marshallers asked if I could taxi away as soon as I had my engine started. I was parked on grass on soft sand and needed to start on the taxiway which normally has aircraft taxiing or hundreds of pedestrians on it. They needed me to minimize the time sitting on their busy taxiway, another red flag. I will be rushed and out of my routine, not good. Often when departing Sun N Fun and AirVenture, once you begin to taxi there will not be a good place to stop until you are next for departure at the runway. I need to enter my flight plan and accomplish other after start and before take-off tasks. Normally, on a long quiet taxiway I could get most of these items done but here the taxiways were lined with non-aviation minded kids and adults; not a good place to be heads down. I told myself that wherever I find to do my engine run-up would be where I get the other tasks done. After start-up, I taxied out after doing a quick after-start flow. I crawled slowly through the pedestrian lined taxiways. Even once past the crowd the marshallers kept me moving, no place to do a run- up. Finally on the taxiway parallel to the departure runway there was a wide enough spot to turn my tail and complete a runup and load my flight plan (No, I do not have Garmin Flight Stream Bluetooth capability, yet). Here comes ATC on their golf cart motioning as if to ask if I can fly or am I broken. I motioned good to go but not yet and completed my runup and checklists at my own pace. I cheated on my flight plan and put in the first few fixes to get me north of Ocala. Airspace climbing out here is not a good place to be heads down. So, the red flags kept coming, lots of good info setting up a chain of events in that accident report. The key is to notice the threats and notice when your routine is interrupted. Alter your plan to mitigate the threats!

The EAA, AOPA and other aviation groups have partnered in the “2025 National Pause for General Aviation Safety” https://gasafe.org/. No, it is not a stand down where we all have to stop flying, just a pause! Click on the link and find several quizzes relevant to your type of flying. Some even give Wings credits. We sometimes kid that the pilots that take the time to study accidents and take quizzes and attend safety meetings aren’t the ones that are getting into trouble. We can’t prove that, but it is worth the shot!

One more quick story. At the Women Can Fly event in early June a previous Young Eagle participant introduced herself and mentioned that after one Young Eagle ride at Ch 186 about 4 years ago, she decided to become a pilot. She has all the ratings through CFI and will finish at Embry Riddle next year after only three years there and is already teaching. Also, among our present and past Young Eagles: some have gone and will soon go to the Aim High Flight Academy, achieved all levels in the CAP, been accepted into military flight training, received various scholarships, joined the Guard and purchased their own aircraft! One just soloed a couple weeks ago with 11 hours. His CFI says this student learned a lot from his Young Eagle flights. We do make a difference. Thank you to all the volunteers on the ground and in the air who help make these experiences happen.

Blue Skies,
Bob