President’s Corner

By Darren Coomler

Welcome Chapter 1541 Members and Friends,

Our first Saturday breakfast meeting was a great gathering, with new attendees, yummy food, YE rides and perfect weather just made the day a memorable one. We meet the first and third Saturdays to share some camaraderie and food, come on out and be a part of our chapter gatherings.

As many of you know our chapter was awarded another Ray Scholarship by EAA national, to award for the 2021 year. As noted in the Ray Scholar section of this newsletter, the selection process has been completed and Kaden Kusick is the recipient of this year’s scholarship. Congratulation Kaden! This year’s selection process was a difficult one, and all the candidates were worthy of this award. The Board of Directors recognizes the quality of the runners-up Maci Riffle and Hayden Meads and has decided to award them with a $500 scholarship from our chapter’s own scholarship funds, to be used for anything needed to support their flight training.

I’d like to acknowledge Scott and Shirl Whelan for all their work coordinating the Ray Scholarship application process. The Whelan’s also feed us at our Saturday meetings, so please give them a thank you next time you see them.
Update of hanger purchase fund: the goal is to raise $80,000, and the fund is off to a great start with a current balance of over $20,000. Again, I need to give a special shout-out to Bruce Estes for helping facilitate all of these donations. Bruce does this by finding aviation-related items as donations to the chapter, getting them cleaned up and tested, and then placing ads for them in aviation publications and databases. If you have anything (aviation related or not) that you are willing to donate to the chapter, please contact Bruce at Brucee7837@aol.com or any of the chapter board members and we will be happy to work with you to get it sold and closer to our hangar fund goal.
We are delighted to welcome Christina Duran as a new chapter Board member. Christina is known to many as “Anthony’s mom” and she brings to the Board a special interest and talent for expanding our current Youth programs and making our chapter more “customer-friendly.”

On a personal note, I’d like to share some results of an annual inspection on my Piper Warrior.

Last month during a preflight inspection I tapped on the propeller spinner and noticed a rattling sound, after removing the spinner I noticed the front spinner support was cracked. I ordered the replacement part and planed on replacing it during the annual. Once the cracked spinner support was removed, we noticed that the broken part had chafed the face of the propeller hub, removing the paint a starting to erode the aluminum (see picture).
My A&P was concerned about the depth of the damage and if the prop needed to be inspected and/ or repaired by a prop shop. After calling multiple prop shops and them reviewing the damage they all determined that my prop was not repairable and needed to be replaced. Here is what I have learned and would like to pass along. Apparently, this type of prop chafing is common on fixed pitch props. They say that dirt can get worked in between the prop and its mating surfaces and can cause this damage. If the chafing is deeper that the stamped numbering on the prop, it is not repairable and needs to be replaced. In the future I will be inspecting around the prop connection point on a regular basis.

Hope to see all of you during our chapter gatherings, be well, thank you.