SOAPA 2005 Meeting in Key West, Florida
 

In case you come directly to the messages section of our site with a favorite, I wanted to let you know that SOAPA has announced their 4th annual meeting will be held in Key West. Check out the home page of this site for more information.

http://www.337skymaster.com/

Blue skies,

Kevin

And, you can sign up easily on the Web, and pay using your credit card, via PayPal. Quick and Easy.

Jim,

Will you and Jenny get to MIA soon enough to go to Great Harbor Cay or need a lift to KEYW?

Joyce and I have a couple of seats.

Jim Muse
Skymaster 1952M

Afraid not. The Skymaster is still out of commission. We have booked airline tickets directly to Key West.

Liza and I will be arriving on Delta 4421 scheduled to get there at 6:40PM. Jim, Jenny, you aren't on the same flight by chance are you?

Kevin

Getting there
 

For those of you flying into Key West, here's a message I posted several months ago.

"You raise some issues about flying VFR to Key West which I was going to cover as we get closer to the SOAPA meeting, but let me identify them now and we'll review them again in May. BTW, you will want to come in VFR, for maximum sightseeing.

There are only two things noteworthy, and both are shown in the Sectional (figure below).

First, as Pat points out there is a tethered balloon about 20 miles before you get to EYW. It has radars for drug interdiction and is shown as a hashed circle and identified as R2916. It's easy to circumvent just by staying south (or wide north) of the Keys, as Pat indicates. South is prettier.

Second, the Key West Naval Air Station is just 3 or 4 miles before you get to EYW. There is a note on the Sectional alerting you to intensive military flight activity and giving you the freq for EYW approach. Interestingly, when you call Approach you won't be talking to FAA ATC but Navy ATC. They'll assign a squawk code, and route you around the base and then hand you over to the EYW tower. You can come in north or south of the base.

On the matter of fuel, 100LL is now about $2.70 self-serve and $3.00 full service at Marathon, about the same price as TMB in Miami (for those coming into Miami Sunday for the Bahamas trip or Tuesday for the see-Miami-like-a-native stop). It's about $4 at EYW (note, however, that Paul Rooy has negotiated a 24 cent discount for SOAPA attendees and a halving of tie-down price -- from $30 to $15 -- if you fuel up at EYW). Cheaper fuel can be found in Central Florida ($2.40 at ZPH and $2.50 at OBE)."

Fuel is somewhat higher now, but the trend is right (cheapest in Central Florida, cheaper at TMB, higher at EYW).

Ernie

Kevin,

Jenny and I will be arriving a little earlier than the conference. We are arriving on Sunday, May 15 at about 10:00 AM on Delta flight 6295. We will spend Monday with an old friend of mine from our Air Force days. We have not seen each other in 35 years. (Hope I haven't changed as much as I'm sure he has.) We will be going boating for his grandson's birthday.

This will give us a couple of days to look over Key West before everyone else arrives. I will have a cell phone and if Sprint works down there, the number is (804) 647-2461. Actually, that's still the number even if Sprint doesn't work down there.

Assuming we have a high speed Internet connection, I will also be monitoring e-mail at Jim.Stack@comcast.net.

We are looking forward to meeting you and Liza.

Jim

Excellent. We'll give you a ring when Delta deposits us in Key West.

Thanks,

Kevin

They must be having to much fun.

Oh yes. Great meeting presentations during the day, Key West nightlife at night. No time to upload pictures...

Census: 14 Skymasters and Peyton and Keven Kenison arrived in Peyton's Cherokee 6 in addition.

45 attendees plus several speakers.

Tired. Must sleep...

Kevin

Couldn't resist.
I recall someone saying that when we were at Treasure Cay.

What an active and wonderful day... I'm so tired... must s.l..e...e....p.....ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

I wanted to apologize to those at the meeting that I didn't say good-bye to. I hung around the airport until 3:30 to see you all, but had to leave for reasons many of you know. It was my privilege to meet (or see again) all of you. Hope to see you soon.

Ernie

Oh well . . .
 

Gerry, Larry, et al.,

We hate that you had to miss it! Great presentations, great participants, just a great meeting overall. Kudos to Paul and Mary for their efforts.

Of course, we had to overcome the terrible location at Key West, but . . . we are all troopers, and have suffered through the bad environment so far. Hmmphh.

It was great to see everyone again. The good news is that a year seems to fly by pretty quickly. Allie Cat and I look forward to seeing everyone again next year.

Well, off to Duval Street, Blue Heaven, and The Green Parrot!

Cheers.

Keven
________
Vaporizers

You know, this morning in Key West it is 72. That's not a lot warmer than the 44 we have here in Kalamazoo.
Well, maybe it is.

Keven Kenison caught Liza and I suffering through an afternoon at the beach just now. You know, sun, cool breeze, scenery...tough duty, but someone has to keep the local bars in business, even if my doctor is making me keep the drinking on "low" rather than my usual setting this year...

I took many pictures, as did several others. I will get them up on the site when I return to a faster internet connection.

Also, folks, please keep the number of pictures you post here (as opposed to sending to me) to the bare minimum, as they just fill up our more expensive database space.

But please email me everything you've got, and I will put most of them (avoiding too much duplication) on the site as we have in past years.

It was a very successful event. Kudo's to Paul and Mary for running a well organized, well managed and most of all damn fun event!

Kevin and Liza

Liza and I caught colds (me on the last day) in Key West. Delta messed with us, only 3 hours of sleep Sunday night, which softened us up nicely so that we are both sicker than (insert favorite simile here).

Have not received any photos yet from anyone. When I feel better, I will fix the home page, upload the pictures, and write a bit about the meeting.

Sure was nice to put faces with all those "web names"...

Thanks everyone.

Kevin and Liza

Hello all,

Thanks to Ernie, Paul, and Mary for organizing such a great meeting! It was so nice to put faces with the names, and hear so much valuable information.

I'm sorry I didn't get to party with everyone Friday night, but I saw a weather window and thought I'd make a dash for it. Got to Memphis after finding a gap in the thunderstorms in northern Florida Friday night. (Southeast US weather still spooks me)

Rick and Keven...I still can't get my AnywhereWx to work! I must be the biggest non-geek there is! But, I imagine it's nothing a few more hours on the phone won't fix.

Based upon the numbers, I'm surprised there isn't a MSOAPA (Montana Skymaster Owners and Pilot Ass'n). I don't know if we even have three Skymasters in all of Kansas, much less together in one meeting!

Anyway...what a wonderful time! The hard work and preparation was so obvious in every detail of the meeting and presentations. Thank you all!

Kimber

Key West a Blast!
 

Dad and I had a great time at Key West and were really glad we decided to go. I especially enjoyed the sailboat ride (I'm a real sucker for free beer, and the sunset was fabulous).

Just wanted to say thanks to those who put in all the hard work to make the event a success. It greatly exceeded my expectations. Truly a professional job. kudos to all!

Kyle Townsend

Where are all the photos
 

All us poor guys that could not come to SOAPA meeting are waiting for all those photos of what we missed. Some day I will make one of those meetings. Probably after I retire from this rat race. Dale Campbell

This is Discouraging

After the Bahamas, no one submitted anything until we got home, but we didn't have internet access until we got home.

In Nashville, and at OKC, stories and photos were submitted while it was in progress.

It's been 2 1/2 weeks coming up on 3, and we who were not there still haven't heard from those of you who were.

Did you stick to the schedule that was posted? What was the Adam like? How was Owen's presentation. What should we get our planes for christmas? What does the Raven, and nexrad look like?

Larry,

Our main photographer wasn't there.... YOU!

The Difference
 

Larry:

The difference between the prior venues and Key West is that all of us are STILL trying to recover from the night life. :)
________
BLOWJOB FRENCH

Thanks Keven, I was trying to figure out a succinct way to put that. Well done...

I have pictures that I took, and pictures that Mary took, no other submissions so far.

I know, I promised I would get it done by Sunday. Luckily, I didn't say which Sunday. Being sick for two weeks, and gone a week before that, puts one a little behind.

I will get the info up as soon as I can.

Kevin

Oh, I understand about Sunday.
Thanks.

Hmm, do Lisa and Paul know about this??
Never mind, we don't want to know.

Okay, it's an excuse. weak, but it's there.

I cannot believe this.. I had a HUGE thank you written with everybody mentioned (appropriately) and it all went away.

I will do it again... but not tonight.

This was a FABULOUS experience. We met wonderful people and had a great time.

I also learned a bunch of stuff about Skymasters and a hell of a lot about weather.

Thanks to Ernie, Mary, Paul, Kevin & Liza.

The rest I will get to tomorrow.

Good Night, Wayne and Dianne.

Jim and Joyce

Changed my mind.
I appreciate the flattery.
It won't get you anything, except my eternal (for the next nanosecond anyway) appreciation.

nano nano nano!

Paul Rooy wrote a short blurb on the Bahamas trip and the Miami evening stop-over on the Home page, and I thank him for that. I didn't take pics with my camera and instead relied on others, so hopefully will see some pics soon. While we're waiting for those, and in the spirit of adding a bit of meat to the affair for those who didn't make it and are hungry for details, let me share some thoughts I've had. These are peripheral things, over and above the fine talks we heard at the meeting.

It was very interesting to hear from Jenny and Jim Stack the people problems they've had with their aircraft, considering Jenny's job with the FAA.

It was an eye opener to see Walt and Jean Simendinger's beautifully restored 336.

It was fascinating to listen to Dave Riley's stories of his FAC days flying O2-As in Vietnam.

Ken Hollrah took his wife Dee Ann and me to the Bahamas in their 337P, and it was good to hear about LOP -- given that I would talk about it at the meeting later that week -- from someone so knowledgeable about it.

Finally, I can't tell you how incredible it was to see the 21 strangers from all around the U.S that went on the Bahamas trip come together as a group of friends, united largely by a single interest: flying their Skymasters. And hats off to Jim and Joyce Muse of California, who graciously flew Wayne and Dianne Craw of Montana, first to the Bahamas and back, and then to Key West; by the end of the week, it seemed they had become good friends. What a delightful foursome!

Ernie

Ernie...

I can't get to your web site anymore. Does it have a new URL?

Also, I can't email you from here... It says you don't want me to (sniff sniff).

SOAPA 2005 Article and Pictures Published
 

SOAPA 2005 article and pictures have been published. See link on home page.

Kevin

Great Job, Kevin

2005 SOAPA Coverage
 

Kevin,

You did an outstanding job on the meeting coverage... Well worth waiting for. Thank you!

Thanks guys.

Kevin

Thanks to Roy and Ernie's lively discussion, I just installed GAMI's on my Skymaster, and have been very pleased so far. The cylinder head temps now have such a pretty, level look on the GEM.

Before the install, I was unable to fly direct from KC to Steamboat Springs without stopping on the front range of the Rockies for fuel, since I didn't have enough reserve. (I have a '74, with 123 gallons) Last weekend, running LOP, I was able to make the flight, with an 18 knot headwind, with over an hour-and-a-half reserve!

In addition Roy, there has been none of the roughness (so far!).

Again, thanks for a wonderful meeting, and hat off to you, Ernie, for all you did.

Kimber Eubanks

Jim:

The correct URL for my Skymaster website is www.SkymasterUS.com, as listed in Kevin's page of websites. However, I note that it's not coming up, so I need to look into it (an hour after I first wrote this, it did come up, so maybe it's fixed -- I'll keep an eye on it). However, you can get to it at http://www.consultresearch.com/337.htm, where my e-mail address is also listed.

Please note that I'm out of the country most all summer, and I have poor to none web access, so be patient.

It was good seeing you and Jenny in Key West.

Ernie

Oops...
 

OMIGAWD, what was I thinking?

I just reread my posting...it was not "Roy and Ernie's" discussion, but Paul Rooy and Ernie's discussion.

Sorry.

The point remains...it was an excellent discussion. And an excellent conference. Thanks for all the hard work.

Kimber

Kind Aviators,

Thank you for your extremely kind remarks! Mary, Ernie and I had a gas putting on the Fly-In, and it would not have been possible without the huge amount of help from the other Committiee members, and the support of the SOAPA membership and attendees. Thank you all for making the '05 SOAPA Fly-In a success, and we look forward to seeing all of you during the "06 SOAPA Fly-In.

Paul & Mary
N462DA