Airfield Letter February 2024

Hello Fellow Flyers and Fixers! (No groundhogs here) …

Our little Airfield is getting ready for the flying season one step at a time. Our policy of Airplanes Only in the hangars has opened space for a few new Airfield residents and we’re glad to have you. There’s more to come, but all in good time. Airplanes Only does not exclude reasonable accommodations for lunch guests, entertainment, workbenches, etc as long as the aviation use theme is preserved.

Our current hangar resident list includes pending reservations for March as our initial realignment continues .. the wait list for upgrades and hangars seems to be holding steady.

Welcome to Waylon Woodall and Brook Sheffield who have volunteered to help with shaping up the tractor/maintenance shed for use as a hangar for their ultralights. Waylon is a former Army Airborne guy who enjoyed jumping out of airplanes as part of his job and just for fun … he’s working on his Commercial Pilot certificate now at Western Flyers (AVL).

We’ve yet to meet Brook to let him test our sanity but that’ll come soon.

A welcome also to Carl Goutell who is moving his Mooney in with Joe Harber’s Excalibur. Carl has the 4-hangar building located on private property at the north end of the airfield. A welcome back to Mike Gaffney whose RV-6A will be moving into one of the spaces vacated by Scott Osteen after Scott moved his non-aviation gear out to comply with the Henderson County tax exemption for the Museum. Sid Tolchin is taking his upgrade option to join Scott and Mike.

And, finally, welcome to Ed Saunier and Mark Huneycutt, paramotor enthusiasts who will set up with Steve Lyons in Hangar #9. Ed retired from Delta Air Lines and Mark was an Army Blackhawk pilot. Both enjoy the freedom of power flight – under canopy – and are keen to join and be accepted by our community of fun flyers.

WORKING PARTY – Saturday, February 3 !

We’ll meet up after lunch to help Jerry Moore load up the machine tool equipment from the tractor/maintenance shed and the south end of the Museum hangar. Jerry found a buyer for that equipment (money to go to the airfield maintenance fund) and it’ll be on its way to them. We’ll also make a start on cleanup of the shed to help Waylon and Brook as they make their new hangar home habitable.

LOOKING FOR a (preferably steel) door and frame to install in Hangar #2. We’ll be framing an entry to allow hangar members use of the restroom there and secure the Oreck/Phillips hangar. Contact Alex, Mark or Jerry.

We’re experimenting with automatic bank-to-bank transfers for our monthly hangar rent. We know it works. The old way of paper checks is still good … we’d appreciate timely receipt of yours so we can keep our mortgage current. It’s going to be a challenge until we raise some serious money to knock down the debt service.

NOTE: the address for the airfield hangars and the address for the Museum hangars are not the same: Tenants in the WNC Air Museum hangar send checks to PO Box 2343; tenants in the WNC Air Museum - Johnson Field hangars send their checks to PO Box 1269. Zip 28793

Fly Safe!