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AIRVENTURE TODAY
EAA staff-built Zenith not all that different than the One Week Wonder By Randy Dufault
H
al Bryan, EAA online community manager, admits that he did not spend nearly as much time as some did on the recently completed EAA staff Zenith CH 750 STOL project. But for him that time was a life-changing experience. “This is my 17th convention,” Bryan said. “But now I can walk around the grounds and say that my homebuilt is here, on display, at Oshkosh. “I say ‘my’ in the broadest sense of the word. Of course it belongs to all the builders. But deep down, viscerally, personally that changes this whole week for me. And it changes how I look at other people’s projects.” Over the last 22 months, Bryan and other members of the EAA staff worked on the CH 750 as an opportunity to learn more about the process of turning a bundle of parts into a functioning airplane. When asked how he thought his skills progressed over the course of the project Bryan said, “I’d never pulled a rivet before this, so I think I was your consummate newbie. “Where I am now is that my confidence in using the tools and my skill level is orders of magnitude beyond where I was when we started. “The accessibility of building is something that I’ve certainly known about, I’ve
appreciated it, and I’ve evangelized it. But now I can say I’ve experienced it. It’s actually in there.” Unlike the One Week Wonder, the staff project did not have a particular deadline, and its progress was governed by the amount of time EAA staffers could commit. A group would gather for a few hours on Wednesday evenings and for three to five hours on Saturdays. Everyone’s day job just did not allow for full-day build sessions. Bryan did want to thank Tracy Buttles of New London, Wisconsin—not an EAA employee but an experienced Zenith builder—for serving as a volunteer mentor to the build team. The One Week Wonder continues to be on schedule. The tail is on, and the wings are expected to be test-fitted before this issue of AirVenture Today goes to press. In keeping with a tradition known to many homebuilders, the plane is not able get out of its build location without some disassembly. Sometime Saturday the wings will be removed in order to get the craft out of the tent. Once outside the wings will be reattached, and work will continue toward the goal of taxiing in front of Sunday’s air show crowd. Stop by and see its continuing progress at EAA Square.
PHOTO BY PHIL WESTON
The EAA staff built Zenith aircraft. PHOTO BY RANDY DUFAULT
Doug Dugger from Cloverdale, California, (left) and David Dunn from Palmyra, Wisconsin, (right) work on attaching One Week Wonder’s vertical stabilizer.
Sen. Inhofe’s 35th consecutive AirVenture By Joseph E. (Jeb) Burnside
U
.S. Senator James M. Inhofe (ROklahoma) continued his uninterrupted attendance streak this week at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2014, which now stands at 35 years. In addition to camping with family and friends, Inhofe is at AirVenture to learn about the impact of his recently enacted bill to preserve and enhance pilot’s rights when dealing with the FAA. In 2010, after landing on a closed runway at a south-Texas airport, Inhofe got a taste of the FAA’s enforcement process and didn’t like its one-sided nature. The result was a legislative fix to what he saw
as the agency’s overreach. That bill, the Pilot’s Bill of Rights (PBR), was enacted in 2012. Since then, and thanks to the FAA’s failure to implement PBR as he thinks it should, Inhofe is developing a follow-on measure, dubbed the Pilot’s Bill of Rights 2 (PBR2). According to Inhofe, PBR2—which he plans to introduce later this year—will pick up where its predecessor left off. He wants to help further level an uneven playing field by expanding to all FAA certificate holders, including repair stations and Part 135 operations, PBR protections such as due process and appeals.
Inhofe also wants to put an end to what he sees as unfounded searches of general aviation aircraft by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). In recent years, the CBP has conducted several well-publicized searches of private aircraft traveling domestically, despite a lack of probable cause. Inhofe wants his new bill to prohibit CBP from stopping and searching a GA aircraft unless it can articulate that something suspicious is occurring. As PBR2 is presently envisioned, CBP must have probable cause to stop and search a private aircraft flying wholly within U.S. airspace.
Other issues Inhofe is considering for PBR2 include reforming the FAA’s medical certification process, streamlining aircraft and equipment certification, and clarifying that FAA contractors—like the Flight Service system and non-federal control towers—are subject to the same freedom of information requirements as the agency itself. To learn more about these issues and how they can be addressed—or to raise your own concern with FAA enforcement and other harmful government impacts on pilots—be sure to attend Sen. Inhofe’s listening session, today at 10:00 a.m., in Forum Pavilon 1.