By Andre Venter
Tedderfield Airpark hosted the first EAA monthly meeting of 2024 and judging by the turnout general aviation is getting back to where it was before the world was thrown into turmoil by the pandemic.
I arrived at the airfield just before 8:00 and was pleasantly surprised to see a large number of aircraft had already landed. The visiting aircraft were instructed to park on the Southern side of the runway in front of the privately owned hangars, away from the Sling Aircraft Hangars.
Ian Beaton had made his hangar available for breakfast and he all-important talks later in the morning. EAA admin staff were on hand to accept members' annual subs who preferred doing it the “old way”.
Karl Jensen and the guys had set a slide show for the meeting which didn't work like they wanted due to the brightness in the hanger. The EAA Young Aviators gave a talk on their vision for the future and asked for support from the members for their events.
Ian Beaton gave a talk on fuel vaporisation issues he and fellow builder Theo Arrenbrecht experienced during the proving flights off their newly built RV10, for those that couldn’t make the meeting we have published a condensed version of his presentation in this week's edition. Read it Here
Karl Jensen gave a bit of feedback about the various airfields that he had visited recently and are keen to play host to fly-ins for the EAA, Roodia Airfield, Airspan as well as Tranquillity Lodge were top on his list.
With the event being held on the south side it was awesome to visit different hangers to see what toys were hidden in their hangers. Owners were very obliging in allowing me to photograph their aircraft.
One very interesting Hanger was the one of Tom Burge. What drew me to this hangar was the Fairchild UC-61K Argus parked outside, what an awesome aircraft. Inside was this awesome Man Cave, and don't forget the two protective dogs.
I counted 40 aircraft, 3 helicopters and a few gyrocopters that joined for the day this is great to see, the great weather this time of the year is definitely working in favour of event organisers.
Thank you to the Tedderfield residents who put their aircraft on display for all to appreciate, it is this type of behaviour that makes these fly-in events successful.
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