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John Vining  (Ohio)

My interest in aviation started when I was about 8 years old when my community dedicated our new airport (now the Gerald R Ford International Airport) with an airshow that included the Blue Angels and Bob Hoover flying his P51 "Old Yeller"  I was completely enthralled and set about to fly by making various types of wings. With the wings strapped to my back I would ride my bike down my street trying to become airborne. I attended many airshows through my college years and eventually in my early adult life took lessons and got my private pilot's license. 

I was very good at making and building things and had a mind for engineering, but I also was very talented at music and managed to be accepted at the Cleveland Institute of music. I studied there for five years before making my professional Opera debut with the Santa Fe Opera.  I moved to NYC and sang for the next ten years for many major opera companies including Pittsburgh Opera, Opera Memphis, Chicago Opera,  Opera Grand Rapids, and The Glimmerglass Opera. I also did many world premieres in NY including Kandinsky's The Yellow Sound and Musgrave's The Voice Of Ariadne. I also appeared in many off Broadway shows particularly Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein's "The Mother Of Us All" which won both an Obie award and a Drama Desk award.  

After having a great time in opera and making no money I retired and completed a Masters in education. I have spent the past twenty years as Director of music at the St. Vincent School.  I love flying and love being at Airventure. One of my most delightful discoveries at the convention was the Flying Musicians Association.  I look forward to hosting each summer, the ultralight music jam.  We have such a great time with so many talented performers.   

Ted Piltzecker (New York )

Visit [email protected]

(Caution: This is the sad part to Ron's story continued from last issue. We can all learn from this.)

I was part owner of a Piper Arrow PA-28 R 200. I was involved in a midair collision on short final to Johnson Creek Airport(3U2) in Yellow Pine, ID, that took my son's life and severely injured me. My injuries included a right compound femur fracture, a left tibia fracture, many broken ribs and cracked vertebrae, a broken collarbone, a completely de gloved right hand, a broken wrist and radius, broken fingers, and metacarpals, a ruptured pupil in my right eye, a broken nose, a brain contusion, a lacerated liver, and all the scrapes and abrasions that would go with having your airplane fall to the ground from 50 feet at 75 MPH. The biggest injury is the hole in my heart left by losing my precious boy at the tender young age of 21 months, and it will always be there. After a lengthy recovery, and then two years off from flying , I decided to get back in the air. I had chopped my certificate and medical and resigned my credentials with the FAA. To fly again, I had to pass all the tests again, the written, the oral, and the practical exam were required to get my license back. Passing wasn't my biggest obstacle, as I hadn't forgotten at all how to fly. In fact, my first landings after two years were all very good. My biggest obstacle was passing my class 3 medical exam. After all my injuries, my AME had to defer my medical to the medical certification division of the FAA. They asked for all of my records pertaining to my treatments and medications after the crash, and asked me to have all of my injuries examined again and documented again. On my check ride, I was rechecked on my hood work because it took me too many turns to keep the VOR OBS centered. After some additional hood time with a CFI, I passed on 9/30/2015. I was renting an Archer for this retesting. Those are fun planes to fly. Right now, I own a Cessna 150E. It has a lot of fun options added to it, including a Horton STOL kit. I am not doing a lot of cross country flying at this time, so something cheap to operate is great for enjoying my flights looking at all the cows and corn here in Minnesota and Wisconsin. I do take it on short XC trips to see friends in Wisconsin. I fancy taking a long low and slow XC trip in it sometime, but I am not yet sure when or where I will go.

 

My accident was horrible. Every accident has a chain of events that leads up to it. When we sit down in person, we can talk about it. I haven't really discussed that aspect with many pilots, but I think we can all learn from it. If I go to an event I may speak about it there. I don't want others to make the same mistakes that I and the pilot in the other involved aircraft made. Thanks for lending an ear. 

The AOPA Air Safety Institute is using this accident in their live seminars now.

A huge THANK YOU to you all for the support to make this first Flying Musicians Association HangarJam in partnership with the EAA Flying Bears Chapter a success!

 

Virginia counted 52 folks in attendance.  $202.00 was donated and split between both FMA and The EAA Bears Chapter; both organizations received $101.00 each for Scholarships. ( editor's note - another 100 dollars was donated to up the contribution to each to $151.00)

 

There is definite interest from some local band directors for having their kids play music next year and have asked me to check with them in December when they get their Spring Calendars in order. 

The Skypark Aviation Festival & Expo at KBTF just north of Salt Lake City UT was held June 2-3. The FMA had a reserved booth at the event which was staffed by NW Regional Ambassador Louise Vickerman both days. There was extensive media coverage from local tv stations & the turnout was the highest yet. There was a movie screening out on the ramp on friday night after dusk & Saturday featured skydivers from KOGD & some aerobatic displays. Interest in Flying Musicians was very high & many people stopped by the booth to find out more about our organization. I passed out ALL of the rack cards I had on me! 

Here's what the KBTF FBO manager had to say about the event: " Thank you to everyone who came out to the Skypark Aviation Festival this year. This was the best one yet. We saw a lot of happy faces and the vendors really enjoyed this year and reported a lot of success at this event. It was a little hot but there was lot to do and some awesome food trucks this year. We hope to continue in 2018 and as always we will make changes to make this event even better. If things go as planned there could be big news for next years festival." 

Lets plan on FMA having a bigger presence next year & hopefully we can get some folks together to perform at the festival.