Sinistar
En-Route
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2016
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- 3,712
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Display name:
Brad
TLDR WARNING: If you hate long threads I'd recommend you skip this one.
NOTE: This is not a Flight Club (planes owned by a group), just people wanting to fly together. There are no fees or charges of any sort.
We are at a small airport which has some really cool & fun pilots. So often I would hear: "We should all fly somewhere..." but when I follow up it turns out no one follows through. The majority of the pilots are in our small EAA Chapter. I am not in the EAA, but my wife is.
So I decided lets give this a try. But we have what I will call a gener-techno-challenge. The older pilots probably prefer telegraph (jk!), voice call or email. The youngest pilots want nothing to do with email or phone calls. Since not everyone uses social media - that's out.
1.First attempt: Email. Nothing really happened. Although I got a lot of ideas (some good) and I managed to get larger list. I purposely do not use the EAA chapter list as I am not a member. Main problem on the first try, just way too many emails to deal with and keep track of. Email is out.
2 Second attempt: Evite. Worked!!! We got 3 planes out with 8 people for a lunch run. Since there is a CFI in the group, one of the guy's daughter's logged her first time in her dads Cherokee Back to the evite...I didn't realize Evite also supports text messages. At the time I had 20 people on the list. It was 60% email, 40% text. Everyone loved it which was good word of mouth for the next one.
3 Third attempt: Evite. Aborted due to wx (MN - Feb)
4 Fourth attempt: Evite: Worked. Just 3 planes, 8 people again. Ran up to KBRD. Pretty good for MN winter flight. I list KBRD as a top 5 airport in MN - on field restaurant, nice runways, in the lakes area, close to the Twin Cities. I was schooled on the best way to get ketchup from a full glass bottle. The oldest person (82) had the best trick...that was good for a laugh
5 Fifth attempt: Evite: Worked!!! 8 Planes!!! 15 people. The wx turning nice really helped. I picked a short distance (50miles) so we got our first fabric plane out (Luscombe). Another flight lesson was also given. The coolest plane was the Chancellor He hauled up a few people who opted to not fly that day. I really liked the mix: Chancellor, Skylane, Cherokee, Luscombe, 152, BD4(?), Zenit, RV12. It took 3 runs in the old Crown Vic courtesy car to get us to the restaurant. On the way back, crammed in that car, a 80yo was sitting on a 70yo's lap up front. And they invited my rather attractive passenger (Victoria) to sit on their lap She would have did it. Those guys looked like they were 17 again...I hope I'm still out doing that when I'm 80!!!
So its not like we have any major problems or anything. But I now am starting to have some questions for anyone else who has done/organized this type of fun flight group:
Q1.) Evite: Is there anything better? Other than some lame adds it does work. Out of 30 members I am seeing 25/30 read it. About 22/30 respond. Once in awhile I send out a text to a couple that I think just forgot. I have been asked to remove 1/30. The list is probably 75% EAA members. What I am missing the most is a place to store the pictures and video links afterwards. No one goes back to look at an old event.
Q2.) Although this is not a EAA event I always tell them they can use the pictures for their newsletter, etc. Hopefully we are not crossing any EAA lines/requirements?
Q3.) For each event I always indicate this is not a sponsored event and everyone flys at their own risk. Is there any need for any official legal disclaimer? Do I have a downside here legally since I organize it?
Q4.) I am a bit worried about event fatigue setting in. There aren't that many restaurants on/near fields within 150miles of us. Some planes can't go into the airports under the Mode C veil, etc. So I have been trying to think of other flights that don't involve food runs...at least until the fly-in breakfasts start. I would love ideas for other flights besides food runs.
Q5.) Speaking of the busy fly-ins, I am sure they will want to organize fly-in departures. But even this last flying event resulted in 2 go arounds as there was no taxi way and we converged on the destination faster than we had anticipated. I am wondering if we should not mix this group with larger fly-in events or run those days a bit differently.
Q6.) We depart sequentially, no "Flights of N". I haven't seen anyone yet taking off while someone else was taking off. We have had some cases of overtake where we could see the other plane at say 1000ft away and it felt quite safe. Too far for good pictures. Should we be doing something differently here?
...or just any other ideas in general? I'd love to keep it going!!! But I want to keep it safe, fun and have some sense of purpose.
NOTE: This is not a Flight Club (planes owned by a group), just people wanting to fly together. There are no fees or charges of any sort.
We are at a small airport which has some really cool & fun pilots. So often I would hear: "We should all fly somewhere..." but when I follow up it turns out no one follows through. The majority of the pilots are in our small EAA Chapter. I am not in the EAA, but my wife is.
So I decided lets give this a try. But we have what I will call a gener-techno-challenge. The older pilots probably prefer telegraph (jk!), voice call or email. The youngest pilots want nothing to do with email or phone calls. Since not everyone uses social media - that's out.
1.First attempt: Email. Nothing really happened. Although I got a lot of ideas (some good) and I managed to get larger list. I purposely do not use the EAA chapter list as I am not a member. Main problem on the first try, just way too many emails to deal with and keep track of. Email is out.
2 Second attempt: Evite. Worked!!! We got 3 planes out with 8 people for a lunch run. Since there is a CFI in the group, one of the guy's daughter's logged her first time in her dads Cherokee Back to the evite...I didn't realize Evite also supports text messages. At the time I had 20 people on the list. It was 60% email, 40% text. Everyone loved it which was good word of mouth for the next one.
3 Third attempt: Evite. Aborted due to wx (MN - Feb)
4 Fourth attempt: Evite: Worked. Just 3 planes, 8 people again. Ran up to KBRD. Pretty good for MN winter flight. I list KBRD as a top 5 airport in MN - on field restaurant, nice runways, in the lakes area, close to the Twin Cities. I was schooled on the best way to get ketchup from a full glass bottle. The oldest person (82) had the best trick...that was good for a laugh
5 Fifth attempt: Evite: Worked!!! 8 Planes!!! 15 people. The wx turning nice really helped. I picked a short distance (50miles) so we got our first fabric plane out (Luscombe). Another flight lesson was also given. The coolest plane was the Chancellor He hauled up a few people who opted to not fly that day. I really liked the mix: Chancellor, Skylane, Cherokee, Luscombe, 152, BD4(?), Zenit, RV12. It took 3 runs in the old Crown Vic courtesy car to get us to the restaurant. On the way back, crammed in that car, a 80yo was sitting on a 70yo's lap up front. And they invited my rather attractive passenger (Victoria) to sit on their lap She would have did it. Those guys looked like they were 17 again...I hope I'm still out doing that when I'm 80!!!
So its not like we have any major problems or anything. But I now am starting to have some questions for anyone else who has done/organized this type of fun flight group:
Q1.) Evite: Is there anything better? Other than some lame adds it does work. Out of 30 members I am seeing 25/30 read it. About 22/30 respond. Once in awhile I send out a text to a couple that I think just forgot. I have been asked to remove 1/30. The list is probably 75% EAA members. What I am missing the most is a place to store the pictures and video links afterwards. No one goes back to look at an old event.
Q2.) Although this is not a EAA event I always tell them they can use the pictures for their newsletter, etc. Hopefully we are not crossing any EAA lines/requirements?
Q3.) For each event I always indicate this is not a sponsored event and everyone flys at their own risk. Is there any need for any official legal disclaimer? Do I have a downside here legally since I organize it?
Q4.) I am a bit worried about event fatigue setting in. There aren't that many restaurants on/near fields within 150miles of us. Some planes can't go into the airports under the Mode C veil, etc. So I have been trying to think of other flights that don't involve food runs...at least until the fly-in breakfasts start. I would love ideas for other flights besides food runs.
Q5.) Speaking of the busy fly-ins, I am sure they will want to organize fly-in departures. But even this last flying event resulted in 2 go arounds as there was no taxi way and we converged on the destination faster than we had anticipated. I am wondering if we should not mix this group with larger fly-in events or run those days a bit differently.
Q6.) We depart sequentially, no "Flights of N". I haven't seen anyone yet taking off while someone else was taking off. We have had some cases of overtake where we could see the other plane at say 1000ft away and it felt quite safe. Too far for good pictures. Should we be doing something differently here?
...or just any other ideas in general? I'd love to keep it going!!! But I want to keep it safe, fun and have some sense of purpose.