Photos from this year's Oshkosh!!

JMG

Congratulations to Matt Humphrey for passing his flight test! After a lot of hard work he is now a private pilot!

Summer solstice today, first day of summer and the longest day of the year. Here is southwest Michigan it is starting to remind of home in southern Indiana as it has now begun to get hot and humid on a regular basis. As the summer continues it is a sign of something else nearing an end. My time as a maintenance student at SMAT here in Ionia is coming to a close in about 7 weeks. While I will be a student of aviation all my life, I am not sure what the immediate future looks like. It is my methodical personality to plan my life far in advance and not make many hasty decisions. Up till now my life has been a fairly regimented routine of school and more school. Do I stay in Michigan and try to find work in the Grand Rapids area? How about continuing as a flight instructor and maintenance intern at SMAT? Return home to Indiana and seek work there? Is the time right to join a missions organization formally or should I try to get some more experience in the work force first? We will have to wait and see what path I am to follow.

One of the biggest weekends of the summer in Ionia is the two day country music festival put on by a local radio station. Thousands of people show up at the country fair grounds for the live shows. I didn't pay much attention or intend to go, but I did hear from several people that this was "the weekend" for the city, especially with the number of tourists in town. There is one big problem, however. The fair grounds sit right along the Grand River in Ionia and it has a real problem with flooding. Heavy rain came down Thursday and Friday before the event on Saturday. A dam up river from Ionia was forced to release a substantial amount of water mid-day on Saturday due to this rain fall. The Grand River came up several feet in a few hours and flooded the entire music festival. All of the people made it out of the event; however hundreds, maybe close to a thousand, of cars had to be left behind in the flood. It has been all over the news here and is a real mess. It maybe Wednesday before the river drops enough to allow people to get their cars back! I was flying in and out of the Ionia airport on Saturday near the event and witnessed the water rising before my eyes. Today (Sunday) reveals the full extent of the damage from the air. The legal action and finger pointing has only just begun I am sure. As I understand the river did not even make it to flood stage and this would not be even close to news worthy if it had not been for all the cars and people at the music event. More soon!

JMG

Here you can see two main groups of cars that just a few hours before were not under water at all. The normal river location can be see running from east to west in this photo. Is this not the definition of a flash flood?

Highway M-66 runs north-south at the bottom of the photo. The center of the fair grounds is the oval at the center. It is surrounded on three sides by water. None of that water was there just a few hours before.

It is high summer here in Michigan and we at SMAT continue to press ahead with our power plant curriculum. We have taken apart several engines and put them back together in groups. Flying has picked up with the great weather. I recently had the opportunity to fly with several high school kids in Jackson, Michigan to introduce them to aviation. It is always great fun to let new people get their hands on the aircraft controls for the first time. Only one of the new aviators got sick, and everyone seemed to really enjoy the morning flying.

JMG

As you now know I have passed my exams and am a certified Airframe mechanic now. I would like to provide a few more details about this process. It was actually 6 different tests over a two week period. The FAA requires everyone to take and pass three exams from the "General" section. This is general mechanical knowledge that all people in this field need to know. This portion has a computerized written test ($100) and an oral and practical test ($125). Passing these tests first is necessary to qualify to take the other exams. Passing the General section however does not get you any license. This was not an easy section because we covered all the general curriculum last year.

The Airframe section has its own written test to take ($100) and the oral and practical tests( $125). With both written tests passed I showed up at 6:30am on Thursday to meet with Dean my instructor and DME (Designated Mechanic Examiner) for the day. I have worked with Dean since August as my teacher but he wore a different hat today. He was testing and could provide very little assistance me. After passing the General oral and practical tests in the morning I pressed on into the Airframe section in the afternoon. It really was an all day test.

The oral questions came from our text books and really almost anything could be fair game. I had to answer Dean's questions without any assistance. The practical portion included many different tasks: finding the weight and balance of an aircraft, log book entries for inspections and maintenance, inspection a welding job, troubleshooting a landing gear system and electrical system, severing an anti-skid system, looking at blueprints, making my own blueprint drawings, riveting flush and universal head rivets, inspecting a flap indicating system, inspecting a radio installation, servicing a fuel system, finding the correct torque and torquing several bolts, rigging an aircraft flight control to the proper tension, inspection an air conditioning system, looking up many different safety related airworthiness directives from the FAA, the list goes on and on. You can see why it took all day.

A representative of the FAA showed up to watch the exams and must of been satisfied as a passed after a long day of testing. It is a good feeling to be done and I am now looking forward to the next challenge of learning more about aircraft power plant systems. Thanks to the many people at the many different Churches I have visited over the last year who have supported me in this endeavor. This would not have been possible without you.

Another student, Matt, passed and got his license the same day that I did. So, to celebrate we went and got about 60 hot dogs for everyone at SMAT and had a good little cookout for lunch on Friday. It was a fun way to celebrate.

JMG

I Passed! I am now a certified Airframe mechanic!

Airframe test in the morning.....6am........all day test........it is here.