Owosso Airport Association

we will be voting on

Some interest was voiced in the past about a grill to use for fly-ins, and for social events with OAA. One was found at Sam's Club, with eight individually controlled burners. It is large enough for two people to operate at one time. The cost was $400.00. After some discussion about it with the members present, I contacted the other officers, and they gave approval for the purchase of it. We were able to buy one of the last four left.

Airport Day will be June 2. We are looking for hangar owners to allow us to use their hangars for this day. Please let me know if yours is available.

Next month is our regularly scheduled election of officers. Please consider offering to serve for a year!

With the new in starting, and new calendars on the wall, I wanted to give you some important dates to remember:

On March 9, the Michigan Chapter of the 99's will be having their Amelia Earhart luncheon in Owosso at the Comstock Inn. Anyone is welcome to attend. It would be a nice show of support from RNP. There are only 80 99's members in Michigan, and 7 of them fly out of RNP! The tickets are $25.00, and can be purchased through me. Our own Dan Comrie is slated to be the speaker.

On June 2, will be our annual airport day for Owosso Schools. We are also hosting two classrooms from New Lothrop that day. I will need one additional teacher for that day. We will also be needing hangars to host the day in, so if you have one we could use, it would be great. What a wonderful opportunity this is for these students, and they are always so excited to come.

Pinch Hitters course- for those who would like to learn how to land an airplane in an emergency. You can contact me about this.

After all that snow, the airport looks great for flying. A special thank you goes out to Doug and his helpers for clearing off the snow. I know Rick Musson, Richard Sack, and Jim MacKay spent many hours out there helping Doug. We owe a lot to them for taking the time and effort to make things safe for the rest of us. We all benefit from teamwork!

Owosso Airport Association meeting

Sunday, November 11, 1:00pm at the terminal

We will have our regularly scheduled monthly meeting this Sunday, October 14th at 1:00pm in the terminal. We will be reviewing the recommendations made by the post fly-in group, as well as the agenda items. Anyone wishing to add anything to the agenda can email them to me.

The plans have been finalized for the compass rose, and the '99's people will be at RNP at noon on Friday to tape the pattern for the painting on Saturday. If anyone is available, they may need a couple of extra hands for help. The painting will begin at 9:00am on Saturday morning. The one at Gaylord took only about two to three hours to complete, so it should take about that long for ours. Let's pray for good weather!

What a great success it was yesterday! Thank you to all who gave of your time and talent to make such a wonderful event for the community!

Nothing is official, but some of the numbers that I have heard floating around are about $1400 profit. I know we gave around 64 Young Eagle flights. Those of us registering the kids for their flights were tied up with that until well after 2:30pm. I heard we had well over 50 airplanes come in.

Selling the raffle tickets for the runway light netted us $180. This was to help cover the expense of the compass rose. Thank you to Rick Musson for the vision and the time and expense to do this.

One mother who brought her son by to get an airplane ride came all the way from Perryton. She said she heard about the fly-in on 92.5.

One of the crafters showed up at 6:10 to get the best parking spot!

A very lucky 14 year old boy had his Young Eagle flight in the Stearman!

A couple of my coworkers brought their kids for airplane rides, and were shocked there was no cost to it.

I believe the number of kids fingerprinted was around 30. There was a steady flow of people to the fire display.

We would like to have a time to get together sometime this week to review the whole event: discuss what went well, and suggest areas we could improve in. It shouldn't take long Let me know what works best for you by tomorrow evening (Tuesday). Would Thursday or Friday evening. be the better time?

Also, what are your thoughts about a museum at the airport?

Some have expressed a concern about approaching the Curwood Festival to tie in our fly-in to their event. I am only finding out some facts about it. I will discuss this with them on October 3. I will find out the particulars, and we can discuss them at the next regular meeting. If we don't like what they propose, we can decline the offer. I feel they have as much to benefit from us as we have to benefit from them. If it is not acceptable, we don't have to go with them.

Many thanks to Rita, Brent and Steve for closing their cafe for the day. We certainly appreciate the sacrifice.

Just an update for the September 15 and 16 fly-in!

Brent Wesley has talked to the fire dept and police. They are tentatively bringing out the firehouse, and will do some fingerprinting.

Lance has been working on the television stations and newspapers.

Pam Musson made up some great flyers- pick some up at the terminal and distribute!

Tim Harwood is getting pilots to fly for Young Eagles.

I have contacted 92.5 to get some airtime. Any volunteers to go with me to be live on the air?

Smitty and Doug have tentatively agreed to play music on the 15th.

In talking with Rita, she has suggested she will move the cafe for that morning to the hangar. She said she will tell her customers the cafe is not closed that day, just moved. She has been doing a great job communicating to her customers about the fly-in.

I am looking to the FBOs and Flight Schools for displays for that day to bring in interest.

Also, if you own a plane, please consider tying it down outside for the day.

Any suggestions would be gladly accepted.

We are looking for donations for the paint for the compass rose. We need about 20-30 gallons of handicap blue, and about 15-20 of white. It need to be outdoor paint.

OAA put the final plans in place for the September 15 and 16 fly-in.

We have planned a potluck dinner on the 15, beginning at 6:00pm. One, possibly two of our resident musicians have agreed to play music for us that night. Anyone else musically talented or otherwise are welcome to bring an instrument and accompany them. Also, start practicing your scales to sing along!

We will offer camping and a campfire that night. If anyone has an ice cream maker, please bring it. It would be fun to make some, and if the weather is still hot, it will taste good.

Sunday morning, we will be serving breakfast. The group decided to serve eggs, pancakes, sausage, biscuits and gravy and cheesy potatoes. We will be offering Young Eagles Flights, and will have a swap meet-aviation related, and anything and almost everything. There is no fee for the tables for the swap meet. We will also have crafts to sell.

Lance Little has already written out press releases to the Argus Press and the Independant. He will be contacting a few television stations. He also has it listed on MDOT's website.

Pam Musson has already made out flyers and put them in the terminal. If you are flying somewhere, take some of them to post at different airports, please!

Brent Wesley is going to look into the police and fire departments putting up displays at the fly-in.

Jason Morford has offered to contact Joc to get a helicopter to have to display.

We thought if the local airplane owners would pull their planes out and tie them down for the day, it would be nice for the community to be able to see them

We also thought if our FBO's and flight schools wanted to put up a display, it would be nice.

Tim Harwood is lining up some pilots to offer the Young Eagle flights.

I will be contacting radio stations to see what kind of promotion we can get from them. Once school is in session, I will do some promoting through the schools.

Many thanks to those who have stepped forward already to get things rolling for it!

Spread the word about the swap meet and craft show. Our focus is to draw in the surrounding communities. It should be a fun time!

Several members of the OAA met last night to plan the August 26 fly-in. After some discussion, it was decided to move it to September16 in order to adequately plan for it. We will be having a pot-luck the night before and a campfire and campover.(Home made ice cream too!) We can cover the rest of the details at our regular meeting on Sunday, at 1:00pm at the terminal. I hope this gives members enough time to adjust their schedules. With everyone being extremely bust this summer, we felt we needed to move the date.

One of the items we did discuss was if aircraft owners would be willing to display their planes outside for that day. (homemade and otherwise).We are really targeting the general public, and felt this would be a draw. Tim Harwood is heading up free airplane rides through the Young Eagles program. Rick Musson is heading up the Swap-Meet. Almost anything aviation related and other items will be allowed. Brent Wesley is contacting the fire dept, police and first responders to see if they would like to display some things also. I am going to check in with the '99's to see if they would want to do an educational presentation. Any other ideas would be welcome. Let's discuss it at our meeting on Sunday!