LEADER'S WORDS

By Ron Dietes, Squadron Leader

     Air Show season 2008 is quickly approaching and I am happy to report that the “B” inspection is almost complete.  We ran into a problem with the right hydraulic pump and to correct the problem we had the pump overhauled by Aero Accessories.  It is now back on the Rose and the engine has been test run and it appears that all is functioning normally.  Grant and I will do the maintenance flight on Wednesday (April 27th).  Since we finished a little early, we are touching up some minor surface corrosion and then re-painting the areas so the Rose will still be the center of attention in the hangar.  Gary Austin the new CAF Chief of Maintenance will be coming to San Marcos to inspect the Rose.  Gary has been asked by the CAF staff to inspect each CAF B-25 and we are working on a time that is convenient for him and us.

     The 2008 Ground School was held on Sunday February 24th and was extremely well attended.  Tim Black, Jim Liles, Jerry Taylor, Ron Dietes, Grant Lannon and Bubba Renfro were the presenters this year and I want to thank them for the excellent job and hard work that went into their preparation.  After the quiz, we even had enough time to do a thorough walk around of the Rose, so that items discussed in class could be seen on the B-25.  We had good interaction this year and I really was impressed with the attention and the quality of the questions.  A big Thank You is due to Jim Liles for the excellent lunch.  There was some left over so the folks at the hangar during the week will be eating well.

     The air shows are coming together and you can probably find the list elsewhere in the newsletter.  Several more shows have been confirmed and we have added Rome Georgia to our shows.  The 2008 Air Show sign up list will be sent out very soon.

     On Saturday February 23rd we had twenty (20) members of the Southwest Research Institute Flying Club tour the hangar.  They were very impressed and every person I asked indicated they had a very good time and thanked us for the hospitality.  They even joined us for the traditional Saturday lunch in the break room.  There was some of Jim Liles’ excellent chili and sausage.  All I heard was yummy, yummy from the group.  Since the president of the club was a church friend of Charles and Dorothy Greinke, they also came to the hangar to visit and reminisce about their days with the Yellow Rose.  It was great seeing them around the plane again and I was even able to get Charles to climb up in the left seat so I could take a picture.  Seeing Charles up there brought back some good memories of my time flying with Charles.

     I have been in contact with Roy from Global Engines in Oklahoma City and they have torn our second engine down for the inspection and have sent the crankshaft bearings for re-plating.  We are now in the waiting mode until the bearing come back.  He will then begin re-assembling the engine getting it ready for the test cell.  After running the engine for five (5) hours in the test cell, we will drive up there to pick it up and bring it to the hangar in San Marcos.  The current plans are to hang the overhauled engine on the Rose in July and August.

     I have asked all the members that wanted new Yellow Rose business cards to send their information to me so I can have the printer do the cards.  So far I have nine (9) members that want cards.  If you want to be included just send an email to me at t6cpilot@satx.rr.com and I will add your name to the list.  The names I have are:  Steve Gladwin, Zac Armstrong, Ray Clausen, Richard Baer, Bubba Renfro, Greg Young, Herb Welch, Dennis Shields and me.  The best price I was able to obtain is $100 for 1000 cards.  That is for 4 color front and back.

     The next meeting will be held on Tuesday March 11th at 6pm in the Briefing room of the San Marcos hangar.  See You there.

MINUTES OF THE YELLOW ROSE SQUADRON MEETING

FEBRUARY 12, 2008

Meeting commenced at 1805 by Squadron Leader, Ron Dietes

 

Pledge of Allegiance and Prayer

 

New Members and guests were introduced:

                Buzz Perez – New Member

                Don Loucks – New Member

                Mike Vala – New Member

                Steve Brown – CAF President and CEO

 

Officer Reports

 

Executive Officer (Bubba Renfro):  Bubba Renfro announced that he has been in contact with the Hangar Hotel in Fredericksburg and has reserved December 6, 2008 for the Yellow Rose Squadron Christmas Party.  Bubba indicated that Fredericksburg holds Hangar dances and we may be able to use that event to sell rides.

 

Adjutant (Pat Moore) – Absent (ill).  Ron thanked Ed McCafferty for volunteering to take the minutes.

 

Operations (Steve Gladwin):  Airshow schedule as previously published is still good.  No changes or additions.  Methods were discussed for signing up to fly on the Rose to airshows.  Decision was made to continue with existing scheme of schedule being e-mailed to eligible members and sign-up will be first-come, first-served by email reply.  Confirmation emails will be sent before trip.

 

Finance (Judy McMillan):  Judy passed out her monthly finance report.  Judy announced that CAF ANUAC will double from $5100 to $10,200.  A $500 discount would apply for early payment and approval for that payment was given during the approval of the finance report.  Moved by Jim Liles, seconded Bob Gardner.

 

Maintenance (Jim Liles):  The B inspection is complete except for the check flight.  The aircraft needs washing and scheduling will depend on the weekend weather for the next few weekends.  Jim thanked those for their labor on the inspection work.  Especially because of the recent cold weather and the heavy solvent people had to use.

 

PX (Greg Young):  Waiting for firm airshow schedule before making a final order for replacement items.  Crew polo shirt (both green and white) have already arrived.

 

Newsletter (Jerry Taylor):  Absent.  Ron reminded everyone that submission of articles is due the 25th of each month.

 

Safety (Vacant):  Ron Dietes announced that Mel Soderburg was forced to resign the position due to impending knee surgery and the expected long rehabilitation time.  The duties are currently being performed by Ron Dietes and a replacement is being sought.

 

Adopt-an-Airport (Mike Colaluca):  Absent.  Ron Dietes announced that Mike is preparing to have surgery and will be unavailable while recuperating.  Ron reminded everyone to pick up any trash blowing around the airport and to keep a general open eye for things that need correcting.

 

PR (Bob Gardner):  The upcoming issue of Warbird Digest has a photo-story on the Yellow Rose.  Release date is unknown but likely late February, early March. 

 

Doolittle Raider, Bob Hite, autographed a photo that was taken of himself and the young son of the Laughlin AFB Operations Officer.  One for us, the other for delivery.

 

The USAA annual report will feature the Yellow Rose on its cover.  Expected copies to be up to 1 million.  Thanks to Shane Arwine for his work on this effort..Shane presented an American flag that was flown over Camp Fallujah as a “thank you” from the Chaplain and the men of the 14th Marines in Iraq for the donations made by the squadron to provide cameras and comfort items for the troops.

 

New Business and For the Good of the Squadron

Ron Dietes announced that Ground School will take place on Sunday, February 24, 2008.  There may be a charge for the materials. 

We will probably not fly the Rose to the Doolittle Reunion in April.  Prospects for making the trio financially worthwhile are not good.

 

Business cards will be ordered by Ron for those that have requested them. ($100/thousand cards.)

 

Jim Liles passed around a Yellow Rose photo to be signed by YR members as a “thank you” to the caterer for supplying the food for tonight’s event.

Members are encouraged to attend the Winter Staff Conference in Midland.

 

Bubba Renfro was applauded for the work he performed on the recent “ride for hire”.

     Judy McMillan suggested that a welcoming/membership committee be created to make entry into the Squadron by newcomers more efficient and friendly.  The suggestion was widely applauded.

     CAF CEO and President, Steve Brown was introduced and made some opening comments about the purpose of his visit.  He suggested that the conference be hale in conjunction with the Centex Wing so all would hear the same questions and answers.

 

Meeting adjourned at 1840.

 

Note:  The 200 Mile Circle Committee convened for a short period of time after adjournment of the Yellow Rose Squadron meeting.

PX Report

By Greg Young, Squadron PX Officer

   With the airshow season now just around the corner, I am starting to order PX items.  Jim Liles obtained more of the popular Patriotic theme caps.  The order for crew shirts is still out.  My supplier in Vermont has a B25 model (1/48th scale) that I will try although it is not totally accurate and is an assembled version of the snap together models that we already sell.  Other than that, there is not much else to report so until next time...Happy Landings

Ground School 2008

By Bubba Renfro, Squadron XO 

     We had our annual ground school on Sunday, February 24th from 9:00-3:00. We had a real good turn out with I think 24 attendees. We have some new members who also attended.

      As always, it is quite an interesting and informative class to attend. It's fascinating to learn about the systems and components associated with this old airplane and gain some insight to what makes it work. I urge all members to attend this yearly class. It's fun and I guarantee you will get something out of it.

DOOLITTLE EVENT

By Grant Lannon

I talked with Tom Casey on Friday and the event at Aux 1 at Eglin is on for the last weekend in May.  There will be 4-5 B-25s there for the short takeoff contest at the field where the Raiders first tried it. Tom Reilly will be bringing two B-25s for fuel only. The others are: Georgia May out of Troy, AL, us, and maybe Special Delivery.  There will be 9 raiders at the event that will take place before noon on 31 May.  There will be extensive advertising of the event.  Rooms will be provided.  We and SD will be the only aircraft qualified for Ride For Hire and if SD does not come, it will be us only.  We will move to Crestview to give rides on Saturday afternoon and Sunday.  Rooms will be provided.  So, we should plan on arriving on Friday and, depending on scheduled rides, leave Sunday or Monday.  The History Channel will be there and may want to ride on our aircraft to film it.  Tom is trying to get money and gas for each aircraft but our RFH should help with expenses.  We may want to have members donate money to reserve seats if the money is not forthcoming (as we did in Columbia).  Tom will keep me posted.  Feel free to broadcast this to the membership.  By the way, Judy did an analysis of the new ANUAC requirement and if we give 10 rides with 5 pax (we are going to get a 9th seat in the airplane), we will cover ANUAC for this year.

MAINTENANCE MATTERS

By Ron Dietes

     This past month has been very busy for the Maintenance Team.  The “B” inspection checklist items have been completed and a maintenance flight performed.  While doing the engine run as part of the inspection, the right hydraulic pump failed, so we had it overhauled and checked out in no time at all.  Jim Liles and Ray Clausen did a great job finding the problem and then swapping the pump.  During the maintenance flight the left load meter was not indicating correctly, so we have been trouble shooting that problem and with the help of Dave Howard isolated the problem to the Generator Field Relay.  We could not find a suitable unit in San Antonio, so a serviceable unit has been ordered from Dallas and we expect it to arrive in time for the Rose to make the Goodfellow show on March 15th.  We also discovered that we do not have any reliable spare load meters.  I will call the names of a few companies that I received from Aero Accessories.  We really need to have a spare load meter.  Speaking of spares, we plan to have the faulty Generator Field Relay overhauled, so we have one on the shelf in case this happens again.

     Since the new Headquarters Maintenance Officer is making the rounds inspecting B-25’s for corrosion, we have taken the initiative and started treating any suspect areas of the Rose.  Not only that, but we are also working on the peeling paint in the interior of the Rose.  Hopefully, we’ll have all the corrosion and peeling paint work completed prior to the Goodfellow show.

     I talked to Roy from Global engines and he informed me that our second engine has been dis-assembled and the main bearings have been sent to California for re-plating.  The current plan is to change out the left engine after the July 4th show in Fredericksburg.  That gives us almost two months to swap the engines.  We think that will be enough time.  The issue is the two oil coolers.  They need to be cleaned out and inspected before Global will warranty the engine.  That takes about four weeks.  It is a very time consuming process to clean out all the sludge from the cooler core tubes.  Of course, the overhauled engine will have the magnetos already installed saving us the time required to time the engine and magnetos.  We’ll keep you informed of any our plans when Global lets us know the bearing are back.

     My thanks go out to regulars of the maintenance team that show up at the hangar almost every day to work on the Rose.  Thanks to you folks, we were able to complete the “B” Inspection in record time.  Good thing too, because of the issues we found with the hydraulic pump and the load meter.

     Remember we work on the Rose every Saturday and there is also usually someone at the hangar on Monday, Wednesday and Friday too.  If you have time come on out and help.  It’s fun and I really appreciate it and so does the Rose.

SQUADRON MEMBERS

From Ron Dietes

     You may want to get a copy of the March/April 2008 issue of the Warbird Digest magazine.  This issue has an article about the Yellow Rose.  Bob Gardner has been working on this for a quite a while.  Way to go Bob!

     Bob has also been working with USAA (Shane Arnwine) on the Rose being on the cover of their annual report.  We did the photo shoot last Saturday.

B-25 Yellow Rose 2008 Schedule

 By Steve Gladwin, Operations Officer

March 14th / 15th             Goodfellow AFB*

April 4th / 6th                   Kingsville NAS

April 11th / 12th               Burnet Tx.*

April 24th                       San Marcos (local)*

May 2nd / 3rd                   Dyess AFB

May 9th / 10th                  Laughlin AFB

May 16th / 19th                Fairhope Al.

May 23rd / 25th                Tinker AFB

May 31st / Jun 1st           Eglin AFB

June 12th / 15th               Ada Ok.

July 4th                          Fredricksburg

Sept 11th / 15th               Rome GA

Sept 19th / 22nd               CAF Airsho 2008 Midland*

Sept 27th / 28th               Greenville Tx.

October 17th / 19th          Little Rock AFB

Nov 1st / 2nd                   Lafayette La.

* confirmed

 

The Air show details are gradually filling in as the season opener draws closer. We have recently added the Doolittle flying demonstration at Eglin AFB in Florida, this being the base that the Raiders did their training prior to their departure for the mission. Sponsorship details are still being resolved but for now, it is at least an organized possibility.

     Since the last update, Ada OK and Rome GA have also been added.

     To sign up for seats on the Yellow Rose, contact Steve at

skgladwin@suddenlink.net.

Ron Dietes will be coordinating flight crew and Flight Mechanic.

2008 Yellow Rose B-25
Squadron Staff Officers

Squadron Leader - Ron Dietes

t6cpilot@netzero.net

Executive Officer - Bret Renfro

bubba@gvtc.com

Finance Officer - Judy McMillan

heyjude@texas.net

Adjutant - Pat Moore

patrickmoore99@mail.ev1.net

Operations Officer - Steve Gladwin

skgladwin@suddenlink.net

Maintenance Officer - Jim Liles

james.liles@gte.net

Safety Officer -

PX Officer - Greg Young

tbolt52@hotmail.com

Publicity Officer - Bob Gardner

bob@rhga.com