Peter Denny, EAA Chapter 25 member and technical counselor, recently received some nice coverage in the Star Tribune. Read the article:
For this class, the sky isn’t the limit; it’s the goal
Congrats Peter! Keep up the good work.
from On Final February 2006
I remember my mother telling me two things to remember for good health. She told me not to ride motorcycles, and to take good care of my teeth. At our meeting last month, Dr. Phil Sidell told us if you want to be healthy enough to fly, don’t smoke and don’t get overweight. (He also told me I talked too much).It’s nice to only have to remember two things to be successful. The other day I was flying over to St. Paul Downtown, and I was a little edgy because I hadn’t done it in a while and hadn’t talked to anyone in a tower for a while. But I just had to remember to report “abeam 3Mâ€? and that I was number two for landing. Now the controller assumed I knew where the heck 3M was, but I’m sure they are willing to tell tourists who don’t know to “report three milesâ€?. As in, “Excuse me sir, but what does 3M look like?”
One nice thing about recreational flying is that (Read on …)
You know Bert Sisler as one of our active chapter members. You may not know that Bert was our first chapter president. Jon Cumpton interviewed Bert this month to learn more about his extensive experience in aviation.
How did you first get interested in flying?
That would have been as a kid in the early 1930’s in Grand Rapids. They didn’t have an airport then, but every year or so these barnstormers would fly in and as they flew over we would run out and catch the adver- tising bills they dropped. A group of us started building airplane models in grade school. We had no guidance, so they were pretty crude, and we never had much luck flying them – it was more like we would go out and practice breaking them! My dad said I had an obsession with airplanes, and I suppose he was right. But we were pretty much on our own, and there was really no competition and not much to focus our interest on. Later they built an airport (grass field in those days) in Grand Rapids, and that was a great help.
Do you remember your first airplane ride?
My first ride was probably in a Travel Air, in one of the barnstorming events. We would spend a couple days wiping oil off the belly of the Travel Air in return for a ride. While they were giving rides, I remember they would hold a contest. A couple of guys flying biplanes would load up a couple passengers, fly a circuit and land, take off their pants, and fly another circuit in their shorts. Whichever pilot finished first would win the prize. (Read on …)
from On Final February 2006
Acknowledgement: My thanks to Chris Cooper whose counsel enabled me to receive my Third Class Medical Certificate.
For a number of years, I had noticed increasing discomfort when breathing cold air. Simply… my lungs hurt. I bought a couple of devices to warm the air including a simple dust mask. More recently, I experienced symptoms similar to being out of breath when hauling brush up a steep hill. I wrote it off to old age until the symptoms got more severe. Another clue of health problems was that my iceboating buddies seemed to think pain from cold air is unusual. Note: the only place you can find warnings about sensitivity to cold air is on the web.
After reporting these symptoms to my doctor, I was immediately put on four medications and sent to the Minnesota Heart Clinic. Diagnosis: Angina. Shortly after that, I was given a stress test accompanied by a heart echogram. Soon I was on the operating table where the surgeon was installing two stents in arteries that were 95% blocked. It is a painless procedure. You go home within 24 hours. (Read on …)