http://www.pleonast.com/user/rstatham recent pleonast.com entries by user rstatham en-us http://www.pleonast.com/user/rstatham?l=5&entryID=595501 Today I formally earned my Civil Air Patrol Wings, so I thought I would share with everyone how that works.  It's actually pretty neat. The CAP is the USAF Auxiliary, so they want to make sure that the pilots that fly their planes are current, and have been formally tested-- as well as current with all FAA standards as well (of course).  My Squadron Commander was super about telling me about what I needed to have, tests to take ahead of time.  I had called ahead a week ago and scheduled my check ride with Tom, a retired Delta 777 Captain with about a billion hours (at least) of flying time.  Before I arrived I had taken an on-line Civil Air Patrol test to ensure that I knew my CAP regs, so I brought proof of that with me as well as some key information on my plane and Civil Air Patrol Cessna 172's. My Squadron Mate Courtney Brooks met at the airport (today was election day no less!) and we pre-flighted Trixie and took off, heading for McC... 2008-11-04 http://www.pleonast.com/user/rstatham?l=5&entryID=591859 Sunday evening again? Been sitting here for the past two hours doing some final "homework" for my Board Meeting presentation tomorrow in Chicago. Was an absolutely beautiful weekend after a very busy week this week-- got to fly a little on Saturday, went and saw Mom and Dad up in Hiawassee that afternoon. Saturday morning at our Civil Air Patrol Squadron meeting, I set up a squadron photo in front of one of our Cessna 182's. Great group of guys- you can check out the link to the left to learn more about what we do-- it's pretty interesting. I've really enjoyed working on the Squadron website, and it's starting to get noticed around the country already. I've designed the squadron patch, the site and some posters (since we do that at work, too). Here's a couple of poster designs I did this month and posted on our site: Well, so much for the Civil Air Patrol. Today after church world's greatest living Statham (Jim) and I managed to cut down and cut up four tr... 2008-10-27 http://www.pleonast.com/user/rstatham?l=5&entryID=589336 Here it is mid-October and we're having a nice turn of cold nights and cool, clear sunny days. Got down to 44 degrees last night, getting down in the low 30's tonight. Really nice and cool with those clear blue skies that only come out in the Fall. Yesterday (Saturday) was World Scouting's Jamboree On The Air ("JOTA") which is a world-wide Ham Radio event with Scouting. My Ham friends Chuck Lemming and Ryan Bagnal set up stations at Scoutland Scout Camp in Gainesville and used my radio call sign: KX4BSA. We had over 150 Cub Scouts come through and all that wanted to talk on the air were able to do so. Fun. Civil Air Patrol is going pretty well; I put a ton of effort into my new role of Public Affairs Officer and webmaster, and you can see from the links on the left that our Squadron website I created looks pretty good. At least they like it so far! I'm also working on my flight quals with the CAP, and hope to have my wings for my uniform by the end of the year. Pass... 2008-10-20 http://www.pleonast.com/user/rstatham?l=5&entryID=581664 About a month ago I was recruited to join the Civil Air Patrol, a really interesting service organization. The CAP is the USAF Auxiliary, and performs a series of humanitarian and national security missions, almost always at the local level. There's a CAP Squadron at the Dahlonega Airport, and I met the Squadron Commander, a retired Naval Aviator who has over 5,000 hours (!!) of flight time and a super guy. So now I'm Lt. Statham, the Communications Officer and Public Information Officer of Squadron GA 477, Georgia Wing of the CAP. Impressed? Well, it's been fun so far. Ours is a senior squadron, made up of guys from their 20's into their 60's. We have retired airline pilots, businessmen, engineers, even a musician and several computer geeks (like me). Most of our members have thousands of flight hours doing search and rescue (our squadron does a LOT of flying) and training. Check out our new website that I created: www.ga447.org. Audrey says (rightfully so) that I'm painfu... 2008-09-30 http://www.pleonast.com/user/rstatham?l=5&entryID=568483 Jim and Alyssa had wanted a small, quiet and private little wedding at our home- we were all sworn to secrecy on pain of death, dismemberment or at least getting a major wedgie. It was a very nice ceremony at our home last Friday night (August 22, 2008). Steve Trammel (our evangelist from church) came with his wife Anna- he conducted the ceremony and she took most of the pictures! Here are some for your viewing pleasure, before, during and after the ceremony, which we did in our study: It was very nicely done. My new daughter-in-law (whom I love DEARLY) was crying a bit, and that dear son of mine was standing tall and holding her hand. Audrey and I were on each side of them, and Cathy was seated taking it all in! After the ceremony we went outside for photos, then we had a nice dinner before the bride and groom took off for the mountains. We surely feel blessed to have such a fine daughter-in-law. Hmmmm.... wonder if she can make him change his socks? 2008-08-28 http://www.pleonast.com/user/rstatham?l=5&entryID=562505 Greetings to my loyal Pleo pals (both of you...) from sunny and friendly Washington, District of Columbia. Thanks to the wonders of Delta Airlines, Dollar Rent-A-Car and Courtyard Hotels, I had an easy trip up this morning from Atlanta, three productive meetings, and now some decompression time this evening. For those of you who have asked about my recent flying experiences, Audrey and I had a great trip to visit Libby in Louisville last month as well as a fun trip with Cathy to Birmingham to see Meg, Andy and the grandkids. July 2008 was a record month of flying for me, crossing the 200 hour mark and 425 landings. We really enjoyed getting to Louisville- Libby's got some great friends and has really impressed us no end. Go, Libby! You can, as always, view my flying blog at www.rossstatham.com. Jim made it home from Africa two weeks ago, and has been enjoying hanging out around the house with Alyssa, his fiance (or is that "finance"??). You can read his Pleo blog to s... 2008-08-13 http://www.pleonast.com/user/rstatham?l=5&entryID=548227 Since I'm getting very close to my 200-hour mark, I decided to fly Dahlonega (GA) to Pickens County (SC) to Andrews-Murphy (NC) to Blairsville (GA) and home. None of the "legs" on each flight was over an hour, plus I got to fly dead smack over the Smokey Mountain National Park. My first leg was to Pickens County SC (LQK) for a total of five landings. As I was about 20 miles out I heard a Piper SuperCub (1950's vintage) aircraft calling in, but he was flying much slower than me (if that's possible). I was in no hurry, so I told him to go ahead while I did a leisurely 360 degree turn to give him more spacing. When I got 15 miles out I began my descent, and entered the airport traffic pattern about the time he landed. I did four "touch and goes" on runway 23 and the fifth time I came to a full stop. You practice landings like you practice parallel parking; it's good to vary the conditions a bit and to learn new airports. Once I got on the ground, I talked to th... 2008-07-08 http://www.pleonast.com/user/rstatham?l=5&entryID=542019 Three evenings this week, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, I spent working on small to medium fixes in Trixie. (Hey, not to worry, I like to putter.) But this morning I got to go flying, so it all evens out. Tuesday was the biggie- the liquid compass needed some work, but Garrett, who's an A&P (and about to retire) had a repair kit. I flew over to Jasper and he made the fix for me and help me get it re-installed and working Tuesday evening. Thursday night was cleanup night- the leading edges of both wings, the nose and struts were covered in bug splatters. I also cleaned the plexiglass all the way around, inside and out, and at my buddy Ferrell Brown's suggestion, I waxed the leading edges and struts after I'd cleaned them. I went ahead and waxed the cowling, too- plenty of dust and dirt. Put some "shine" on the tires, too. I'm trying to decide if I want to change the yellow stripe on the side of Trixie to a dark gray or some other color. Still thinking about it. ... 2008-06-21 http://www.pleonast.com/user/rstatham?l=5&entryID=536879 As I type this Audrey and I are at the Mariott Courtyard in Chapel Hill in northwestern North Carolina, where we flew up this morning on Trixie. Very easy flight! Our friends Ed and Joan Rigel had a daughter getting married in Chapel Hill, North Carolina (a 5-6 hour drive), so we decided to fly. We loaded up Trix and had an easy "short field" takeoff and turned to a heading of 79 for a projected 2:30 flight to Chapel Hill. The flight was easy. We steadily climbed to 7,500 feet to get over the mountains and the heat (yep, projected to get in the high 90's today on the ground), and as soon as we crossed 6,000 feet it really cooled off. I leveled off at 7,500 and was headed just a bit north of Greenville Spartanburg and just west of Charlotte. (If you click on the flight planning printout you can see some of the detail.) About 40 miles from the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport (GSP) I called them on the radio and got flight following to Chapel Hill. They gave me a c... 2008-06-07 http://www.pleonast.com/user/rstatham?l=5&entryID=532987 Last Friday night our sweet Cathy graduated from North Forsyth High School. Yep, Statham number four finished up with a bang! As you can see from the photos, Cathy sang a solo at the beginning of the graduation (over 400 seniors!), but having Andy, Meg, Evan and CJ with us in the audience surely made the long ceremony well worth it. There was quite a crowd- we were in the Cumming Fairgrounds, and with the metal roof, rain, dirt floor, catcalls, whistles, air horns... well, it was a noisy and lengthy affair. We're proud of our Cathy. She did good. 2008-05-28