Greenbank Newsletter, May 2006 

 Newsletter Archives

Well well, when I started thinking about doing a monthly newsletter, I could never have imagined that there would be a time when I would miss 3 months due to my schedule. I am not complaining of course but time windows are quite interesting.

            There are quite a few items that I need to share with all of our “team” at Greenbank so I will try to deal with some of the more important ones so that if you get too bored reading some of this, you will have at least read about the priority issues first.

            As some of you have already heard, for the summer months of June July and August we will be holding Sunday morning fly in church from 830am to 1030am Sundays of course with a free continental breakfast. We will have some very interesting speakers there from Transport to Missionary Aviation to our father goose man Bill Lishman. I really hope that you all can fly in or drive in for some great fun and interesting talks. Of course all the family can come kids and girlfriends too. If anyone feels like helping me with the logistics of bringing in around 5-10 aircraft in at the same time please HELP!! We will also have some games for children and we hope and pray that they know what a prop is. No dogs please!! We are advertised in Copa, UPAC and RAA and we don’t know what to expect.

            1^ST Class Flight Centre is starting another  Private Pilot course on Tuesday May the 30^th and will do future weeks thereafter on Wednesday nights 6:30pm to 9:30pm. The cost is 550.00 plus 325.00 for the books. Please contact our instructor Dave Wilson if you plan to attend or if you know someone that might be interested. Their link is on our website greenbankairways.com. Dorothy and I will be attending this course as I am really looking forward to her achieving a flying license. She’s excited too so when you see her please encourage her in her decision please.

            1^st Class will also be doing a Ultralight Private Pilot course probably on the second weekend in June. That would consist of 1 or 2 weekends. Imagine that. You can learn to the ground school for that category of pilot in 10-15 hours. They are also in the throws of acquiring an advanced ultralight to teach in. You can also contact Dave Wilson for that too.

            Greenbank should be paved or rather runway 34/16 will be in September. We will start to dig September the 5^th. Our runway should be 2700 feet long by 72 feet wide. A further 3-400 feet will be added in about 2-3 years. (another long story) This will allow a “fully” operational airport all year round. The alternate will still be turf. There will be taxiways from all of the hangers to the fuel and out to the main runway. The flight school will have a taxiway and a large parking area right at the spot that the training 150 sits right now.  

            The runway lighting components have all arrived and at time of writing will be gradually installed and hooked up to an arcal switch. For anyone who does not understand, that is a switch that turns on the lights while you are flying by depressing your mic switch 4 to 7 times in a row. The wiring that we have now will be replaced with new wires when we dig the top soil off of the the runway prior to the gravel being laid.

            Our driveway should be overlaid with recycled asphalt by the time you read this letter this week right up to the flight school so no more dust all over the place. Please park in the parking lot when visiting and if you are flying away for any length of time, please advise Dorothy or myself or if that is not possible, leave a note in the letter box by our door.

            If anyone is planning on vacating a hanger please give us a months notice as we have people begging for space and we would not want to miss a month due to a last minute decision. If you are leaving please do not feel badly as you won’t stick it to us but please try your best to give us notice. It also helps us to sort things out with some lead time.

            We have some steel trusses that would be perfect to build a hanger. They are being advertised for sale right now but if you know someone who might need them let me know. They are 25 feet long by 3 feet high (braces make them that high) They can be attached to create 50 feet long so they are perfect. I am sorry to say though that we would not entertain them being used on our airport property as we don’t want a cheap building at the airport-sorry. The cost would be around 150 each but they are worth I am told 300 each even used even though they are in perfect condition.

            If you are washing your aircraft please use bio degradable soap so you don’t kill the grass please.

            Mogas will definitely be here this week and sorry for the delay.

            Please absolutely use a radio when flying in our airspace. It is both illegal and dangerous to be NORDO here at Greenbank. If you see someone doing so please advise them.

            Lastly thanks for your patronage and hopefully the coke machine will be operating in the next couple of days.

            Have a wonderful summer and remember if you are flying prior to 9am, please take off and do not fly around in circuits prior to that time in the morning.  Especially ultralight 2 stroke engines.

            Thanks and safe flying,                                                                                   

  Micky and Dorothy Jovkovic