Bruce,



FWIW, that is my philosophy for how the FOD TW fly-in should be conducted.
I feel that people come to type specific fly-ins to talk to other builders
and look at airplanes. From my perspective a perfect fly-in would be one
where it kicks off at about noon on Friday with forums intended to help the
builder with building his/her airplane. The Friday forum(s) would maybe be
an electrical or composite construction or engines or whatever the current
builders could use to better construct their airplanes. A welcome dinner at
a buffet place or truck stop on Friday evening where the organizer needs no
real hard numbers of money up front would be ideal.



Saturday would kick off with a performance run while it is still cool and
hopefully calm. There would be 2 forums on Saturday; one for the Q's and
one for the Dragonfly's. This would leave lots of time for looking at
airplanes and giving rides. The poker run was a great idea that I would
like to see developed as a means to encourage more flying at the fly-in.
The Saturday awards dinner would be at a restaurant where you could get a
private room and did not need to collect money up front or have real hard
numbers again. I REALLY ENJOYED having the dinner this year at the airport,
but Spud was still forced to collect money up front and provide the caterer
with hard numbers several days before the event. If someone happened to
show up at the last minute, how could you turn them away? You end up having
to add a few extra meals just in case and this increases the cost a little
for everyone. Money is not a significant issue for a fly-in like this; we
always do everything possible to keep the costs as low as possible. If
someone is going to drive or fly 1000 miles to come to the event, a few
extra $ is not a concern. An on-field restaurant large enough to
accommodate the dinner would be great, but they would probably want money up
front and firm numbers.



I am a big fan of the less is more concept. I probably spent 6+ hours
standing at my airplane on Saturday alone answering questions and talking
about how to do things. The Dragonfly forum was a great place for everyone
to get together for an hour or 2, but all the real serious questions were
asked at the airplane looking at pieces parts. The cowling off thing that
several Q guys did in the hangar while the Dragonfly forum was taking place
was GREAT.



Jeff



_____

From: Q-LIST@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Q-LIST@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
jcrain2@juno.com
Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 9:02 PM
To: Q-LIST@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Q-LIST] Comittment!



Jim,
Your fly in is part of the reason I pursued the "Brainstorming". LVK
is set up so that pilots can get around easily for food and lodging.
The event is pretty laid back and open to pilots and builders going 1
on 1 for info. The size doesn't matter with these 3 attributes. It
can happen with 50 aircraft or 2. You are not strapped to
transportation and catering. I would love to come back out to your
event again sometime. The food was great Sat night by the way!!!
Joanne and I really enjoyed the time spent with you all at LVK.

Bruce Crain




.


<http://geo.yahoo.com/serv?s=97359714/grpId=2124158/grpspId=1600065618/msgId
=26366/stime=1160013826/nc1=3848644/nc2=3848528/nc3=3>