Airfield Letter - March 2026

March 2, 2026

Greetings, Airfield Human!

OK, we’ve had our snow, we’ve had our cold . . . it’s time to try WET (just kidding – let’s keep the wet to necessary, only)! This winter hasn’t been awful – just the opposite. There were days on end when we thought spring might be right around the corner .. a few days when we were captives of ice and snow .. and more than a few days when the winds kept us from flying. It’s winter, after all, to be expected and enough to keep our airplane builders and restorers largely indoors.

The good news is some really nice flying weather coming up this first week of March along with daydreams of cookouts, airplanes flying and chairs in the funshine! Tom Oreck started it oW with some fantastic burgers last Saturday, the last day of February, a hint of more to come in front of all our hangars this year. What better way to celebrate our being back in the groove!

We had airplanes, paramotors, ultralights and flyers of all kinds on the field over the weekend.

WELCOME to Johnson Field and the WNC Air Museum to Bill and Angela Gary! Bill’s RV-10 is in Hangar 5 with Bill Kemper’s Aerotrek and Scott Osteen’s 172.

Ron Stamey is testing some white, flat panels to mark the runway boundaries, replacing the traffic cones that are there now. If you’re up flying this week, please let us know your opinion of visibility, etc. if we adopt these panels it will mean nothing sticking up to snag low wings, etc, plus they can be mowed over without wasting time to move cones around.

The Museum Board of Directors will be starting a review of our airfield projects for budgetary planning during this month’s Board meeting. If you have hangar issues, please address them to this email address (airfield8nc9@gmail.com) so we can add to the list of things that need attention. The wheels grind slowly as applications for donations, grants, etc will have to be made. As you know, the Museum operates on donations and no one is paid – it’s a purely volunteer organization – so it may take some time to address all the money-dependent projects. In the meantime, we all pitch in as we can to keep our costs down as tenants.

Mark and Steve are working away on their RV-4 project in Hangar 6 .. the wings are on and they’re plowing through those 90% done, 90% to go things, bits and bobs, one at a time.

HANGAR WAITLIST (unchanged from January)

1. Norm Earle (Private hangar by request) 6. James Spurgeon (Museum Hgr due to size)

2. Ben Flaspoehler 7. John Duncan

3. Mike Lynch

4. Barry Duncan

5. Roger Benton (Museum Hgr due to size)

As always: Contact us with any questions: Alex Nelon 828-595-5950, Mark Cigal 860-930-5453