BY J. Rion Bourgeois, Chapter President

Monthly chapter meeting report

             The March meeting was held at the Teen Flight Hangar at Hillsboro Airport and was well attended.  The program was an exposition on the Teen Flight Program by Richard Van Grunsven, backlit by an almost completed RV-12.  Benton served sandwiches and chips at 6:30 as usual.

             Before getting into the Teen Flight program, Dick live and Charlie Becker by video in the monthly EAA ChapterGram shared some significant news for the experimental aircraft pilot and builder regarding flight testing and the letter of deviation authority (LODA). 

             In regards to flight testing, the FAA has promulgated a second option for Phase 1 flight testing for new experimental aircraft.  Rather than flying the assigned 25 or 40 hours, the builder has the option of task based testing.  When specific tasks are successfully completed and an Aircraft Operating Handbook (AOH) created, an aircraft can exit the Phase 1 flight testing period. 

             In regards to LODA, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 recently passed by Congress and signed by President Biden eliminates the 2021 FAA rule which required all experimental aircraft owners obtain a LODA if they desired to obtain flight training in their own aircraft.  A LODA is still required for a flight instructor to give instruction in experimental aircraft they own, or in aircraft that are advertised or otherwise “broadly offered” for flight training or testing.

             After Charlie Becker’s ChapterGram, Dick gave an extensive presentation on the Teen Flight program, supplemented by several Teen Flight mentors who were present.  The following history is based on the notes I jotted down during Dick’s presentation, and the comments from the mentors, so I may have gotten some of the sources, dates and statistics wrong.

             The story of Teen Flight begins 31 years ago when Robert (Bob) Strickland formed the Warren Lee Strickland Foundation, Inc. to provide after school opportunities for at risk middle schoolers in North Portland.  The name of the Strickland Foundation was eventually changed to Airway Science for Kids, and then Airway Science for Kids, Inc. (ASK) for short, but its mission has always remained the same.  It started out providing computers with flight simulators and radio control model airplanes  weekday afternoons after school.  Dick became involved with the Strickland Foundation, and talked with Bob about providing an opportunity for high schoolers to build a real aircraft, specifically a new, easier to build design he was working on, which became the RV-12 and first flew in 2006.  Bob died before the first RV-12 kits were delivered in 2008, so he didn’t see the Teen Flight idea come to fruition, but his Strickland Foundation, now descriptively named Airway Science for Kids, Inc., became the organizational platform to own the kits and aircraft, while the RV-12 design made the program possible due to its ease of construction. Unlike its predecessors in the RV line, the RV-12 is put together with pulled rather than bucked rivets, and almost none of its parts need to be cut and shaped by the builder, but are all pre-punched.  The RV-12 does not require the construction of a jig because all of the holes in the sheet metal are matched due to CAD design and CNC punch machines.  Its builder’s manual is also highly sophisticated with diagrams and numbered construction steps. In fact, when the RV-12 was introduced, builders of the earlier RV-3, RV-4 and RV-6 kits, which required the builder to locate, drill and dimple every hole in the skins and then buck  all the rivets , were wont to say “I built my RV when kits were kits and men were men”, and that all you had to do with the new RV-12 tail kit was throw it up in the air and it came down built in a weekend.  Of course, in reality, you did have to cleco the parts together and pull the rivets, but it was definitely hard to make a mistake in assembly.  It was perfect for a group of teenagers to build with proper guidance.

             Enter Scott McDaniels, the head of the Van’s Aircraft prototype shop.  When the RV-12 was introduced in 2008, he had a teenage son who was interested in building one.  Scott worked for a year developing a curriculum, a local entrepreneur, Ted Millar, provided an RV-12 kit, and Van’s Aircraft provided space for the class in its factory at the Aurora Airport.  Within two years, the first Teen Flight RV-12 was built, and Scott McDaniels was burnt out.  At this point, the Port of Portland offered ASK an old maintenance shed at the west end of the terminal parking lot at the Hillsboro Airport. Ted Millar and Aaron Faegre, an ASK board member, called in some favors from some local contractors, and they turned the maintenance shed into a classroom for the computer flight simulators, and a shop with lights and heat to build another  RV-12.  The second RV-12 Teen Flight project did not go as well as the first, as the new mentors did not have the teenager herding skills of Scott McDaniels.  But eventually the mentors, including Dick Van Grunsven and his brothers Jerry and Stan, developed an interview process for the prospective students and their parents, and also had the selected students develop on their own a code of conduct that the students expect each other to abide by, and to commit to every Saturday for 18 to 24 months to build the aircraft.   On the third aircraft,  instead of having all of the students in the program cluster round the same sub-kit and get in each others way, they split the class into teams and had them work on several sub-kits at once.  They developed a sequence or system to keep all of the students busy.  The program runs for two school years, working from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. every Saturday, and they are now working on their seventh Teen Flight RV-12.  Teen Flight 7 was started in October, 2021, and they expect it to fly by the Spring of 2023.  This class has 13 or 14 active students.

             Dick and mentor Richard Graves shared the success story of two of the early Teen Flight students:  Justin who is at Pensacola working towards a seat in an aircraft with a tailhook, and Paige who flies a Blackhawk for the Air Force in Alaska, and is assigned to Airventure to help with recruiting.  The two of them helped Richard build his RV-12 after they graduated from Teen Flight.

             Mentor Jim  Frisbie has built an RV, and has been involved in four or five Teen Flight builds, and chaperoned two Teen Flight students for a week at Airventure.  He finds the program to be great for the students’ development of self-confidence which will hold them in good stead in their life:  after all, if they can build an airplane, they can accomplish anything.

             Mentor Dan Benua has built an RV-3, RV-6A, an RV-10 and is working on an RV-8.  He is a Tech Counselor for EAA Chapter 105, and has helped over 100 adults with their own projects.  He was leery of working with kids, but Jerry Van Grunsven talked him into mentoring at Teen Flight, and he was surprised to find he enjoys working with the youngsters and seeing them mature, which he calls a “remarkable transformation.”

             Brent Anderson built an RV-4 and mentored a Teen Flight project.  He was induced to be the mentor for an EAA Chapter 105 RV-12 chapter project open to any chapter member to work on, which project eventually evolved into a partnership flying club.  When one of the partners decided to sell his share,  Brent purchased it and is now buying a factory built S-LSA RV-12 of his own.

             In regards to the structure of the Teen Flight program, ASK owns the kit and eventually the finished aircraft.  ASK has kept one of its  early RV-12 project aircraft for flight training,  but has sold the remainder to purchase the next kit.  The program has helped a large number of kids stay out of trouble and stay interested in their education.  Jerry says the program isn’t building aircraft:  it is building kids.  The kids work every Saturday for two school years building an aircraft.  All of the kids have excelled,  some in outstanding ways: one student was put on a satellite project as a college freshman in a class of graduate students because he had the sheet metal and aircraft construction skills they needed.  Over the years, the mentors have honed their technique of working with the families as well as the students to keep them on task. Cliff Gerber, a board member and Young Eagles coordinator for EAA Chapter 105, is also a board member for ASK. He asked Dick and Jerry how they find the candidates for the Teen Flight program, and they responded that the students find them through word of mouth.  Dick pointed out that there are other RV-12 projects in high schools around the country, although no high schools in  the local area have been interested in starting their own project.  The Teen Flight program developed by ASK has truly been a highly successful and worthwhile endeavor that has benefitted many local students.

Calendar of upcoming events

             The program subject for the Thursday  April 13, 2023 monthly chapter meeting at hangar G1 at Twin Oaks Airpark will be “Mogas in Aviation – Knowledge to Live By”, presented by Ron Singh.  The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. 

             Upcoming events, including the Poker Run (8/27/23), Pie Auction (11/9/23), Holiday Banquet (1/12/24) and the First Saturday of Every Month Pancake and Grits Breakfast are on the chapter website EAA105.org under the “Calendar” tab.  I hope to see y’all at the next Saturday breakfast on April 1, 2023 and the next monthly chapter meeting on Thursday, April 13, 2023.