JUNE 2007 CPA Newsletter



NEXT MEETING

Our next meeting will be held Sunday June 10thth on the terrace of Corona Aero Partners at 5PM. 

The open house to show Classical Aircraft has a new twist, displays are from 9AM until 2PM for the group display at the City tie down area and the open hangers display will continue until 4:30 PM. Plan on displaying your aircraft. This is an excellent opportunity to share with the community and to create interest in the airport and in flying, so let's all participate as much as we can.

Our program will be presented by Steve Panagotacos of  Procraft Fame who will discuss the vital subject of Paper Work. This should be a very informative for all private pilots. Plan on attending, bring a dish to share a happy face and a thirst for knowledge.

LAST MEETING

The editor and the secretary were both absent for the meeting The following notes were graciously submitted for back ground for the meeting
...Aircraft Display held on May 20, 2007 from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.  Nick said we had 14 planes.  Members asked if we could park planes for next display on the property previously occupied by Cullen Aircraft Sales (close to restaurant).  Fred Peters said it was fine with him and CPA should let him know if advance.  Nick said we'd wait until we have a bigger group of display planes and then vote on it.
...New potential members at meeting - Glen and Denise Whetzel.  They recently purchased a Cherokee 180.  They are both helping to restore an antique F7F Tigercat at Chino's Planes of Fame Museum.
...CPA student flight scholarship guidelines to be discussed at next CPA meeting
...Paul Bricker gave an update on the July 4th parade in Corona.  We need another plan to display on a trailer for parade.  So far, no one has volunteered a plan.  Flyover of planes would not be a problem.  We have until June 5 to turn in application to City, but need to have a plane before then.
...Airport gate cards need to be renewed.  Folks should see airport manager Rich Brodeur for this.
...Rich said no update on insurance yet.
...Barney Starr was in intensive care.
...Fred Peters showed a DVD produced by Bob Hoover regarding safety.

FROM THE PREZ

Normally by Jim Nunally:

President Jim is off on jaunt look for his column for the July issue.


CORONA MUNICIPAL AIRPORT

By Rich Brodeur, Airport Manager

Now is your chance to get rid of those unwanted metal and wire items; a Metal & Wire Only Containerà is located at the east end of the airport. Please do not throw trash in this container.

Upcoming events: June 2, 2007 -- The Great Taste of Corona, 1250 Crown Pointe Court from 5 pm to 8 pm.

Safety: None to report this month...Thanks!

Aircraft complaints: None this month; Thanks!

Hazardous Materials: Please dispose of all materials properly. You can take your oil to the east end for $1.00 per gallon or in most cases you can take it to your nearest automotive center for disposal for free. Please do not leave any oils or gasoline in open containers in your hangars. If I am not available; please do not leave oil on the ground next to the oil reclamation area, at the east end of the airport. My office phone numbers is (951) 736-2289à call and arrange a time to drop off your oil.By the way, this area is under constant camera surveillance and anyone who does leave hazardous materials on the ground is subjecting themselves to severe fines. Smile you're on camera!

Insurance: Please make sure your insurance is current and up to date and indicates The City of Corona and the Army Corps of Engineers as additionally insured.The Master Lease Holders have been issued a copy of all non-insured aircraft and will be taking corrective action to ensure 100% compliance to this ongoing process. If your aircraft is not operational and does not have insurance, you must submit a Declaration of Non-Operation Status form. Please contact your Master Lease Holder or the Airport Manager for this form.

The City Parks & Community Services Department of which Corona Municipal is a part of; has requested the Army Corps of Engineers to extend its lease to 2037. As soon as I receive the official written response, I will pass it along to you.

I will be on Vacation from June 22, 2007 through July 9, 2007. During my absence, please contact the Parks & Community Services Department at (951) 736-2241 for any airport issues.

By now I am certain that most of you have heard that Barney Starr passed away on Wednesday May 23, 2007. He was a very good man and will be dearly missed by me. I will remember Barney for his strength of spirit, kindness and the good will he shared with all who passed through our Airport Community.

Please help me keep our Airport Safe and Neighborly! Thanks!!!!

PILOT PROFILE

By Susan Brunner

This month's Pilot Profile is written as a tribute to Barney Starr (age 84), our own airport icon. Barney entered this life as Ralph Butterfield Starr. Barney was one of four children, Ruth, Harold, Barney and Alice, whose parents were Cornelius James Starr and Hazel Butterfield Starr. Butterfield was his mother's maiden name and yes, it was part of the Butterfield family of stagecoach fame. It is entirely fitting that the great man then had a passion for transportation and flying. Barney will long be remembered as the favorite Benchwarmer of all time. Here was a man who loved airplanes and people so much that he owned two airplanes long after he was able to pilot himself. He wanted others to know the joy of flying and so there were a number of people who would fly his airplanes so that others could have the joy that he shared. His remaining relatives are his sister Alice and her two sons, Darryl (and his wife, Diana) and Ed Wint (and his wife, Kay).Several nieces and nephews are also located in Indiana.

Barney's doctors, in September 2006, gave him only a few months to live. Barney, being who he was, fooled them all, and lived more than 8 ¢ months. What was really funny was that hospice most often could not find him at home, and several times went to the airport to check on him! He attributed this to his going to breakfast with his buddies, including Gale Grant and Nick Nicolary, among others, and his "Sundays with Barney" with Pat and Susan Brunner, as well as continuing his daily ritual of being with his airplanes and friends on the field. He further believed that the vitamin treatments he received kept him going longer than the doctors gave him. He went peacefully, on his terms, with his loving sister, Alice, by his side.

Merchant Ships, Prospecting, Clay, and Airplanes
The Interesting Life of Barney Starr
By Jim Shuttleworth
Words in Italics have been added by Susan Brunner

Barney is not his real name -- it's Ralph Starr, but from an early age he liked to go fast. So it was, that a neighbor nicknamed the young Ralph, "Barney" after the legendary racecar driver of the day, Barney Oldfield, and the name has stuck with him all his life.

As a young boy, Barney was enamored with Charles Lindbergh's famous first solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927. This spawned a life-long interest in flying. Always a bachelor, Barney says he has never had to buy shoes for kids and has been able to lead an adventuresome life. I'd say that's a bit of an understatement.

...Barney joined the USMMV-WWII and the Lane Victory in 1988 and has been a steady contributing volunteer ever since. You'll find him in shaft alley during the cruises telling engine room tour passengers about the shaft and propeller.

And well qualified he is in the engine room, having served in many merchant ships as an oiler, fireman and water tender for a period of about 15 years. In the early years of the Lane Victory and the USMMVWWII he stood tour watch on board just about every weekend.

Everyone that hangs around Corona Airport knows "Ole Barney." Most days you'll find Barney at the airport from about 10:30 in the morning until 2 or 3 in the afternoon. In the few hours I was there one Saturday, he had no fewer than four friends visit him.

Two hundred of his closest friends threw a birthday party for him last October in a hangar at the airport. He was 84 and just out of the hospital, recuperating from a heart attack, and defying his doctor's predictions. He is hoping to have regained enough strength to stand his watches in shaft alley this summer.

And yes, he has a younger girlfriend at the airport too. You should see her, all dressed in bright red. She's a 1943 Stearman PT-13, biplane - a former military primary trainer. You can instantly see the immense pride of ownership he has in that airplane. Barney is very generous too. Although he does not fly solo anymore, he often arranges for another pilot to take interested people up for rides in his Stearman.

Barney is especially keen on promoting private aviation and supports local air shows by making this beautiful old biplane available for "barnstorming" rides and display. In years past, Barney flew air-sea, and land rescue missions in his aircraft for the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), an auxiliary of the US Air Force.

Barney's Stearman PT-13, flown by friends while he was in the ship, and similar other aircraft would do a fly-by during the summer cruises of the Lane Victory.

Barney's got a nice setup in his hangar - the Stearman of course, a couch and several chairs, a refrigerator full of cold drinks, and a welcome mat that's always out. Barney has owned three Stearmans; a Consolidated Vultee BT-13, and other aircraft over the years since 1946.

Barney bought his first Stearman in 1946, just after WWII ended. He hadn't learned to fly yet, so a friend flew it from Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Barney bought it surplus from the government for $510, to Knox, Indiana. He and his brother put a new engine in and Barney took flying lessons. It wasn't long before Barney flew the Stearman to Santa Monica on his cross-country solo flight, required for his pilot's license. In recalling his lessons Barney remembers the day they took all of his instruments away (what instruments??) and made him fly the airplane only by the feel of the stick. His solo cross country was from Rochester, Indiana to Culver, City California and he made it without mishap. His sister recalls that he landed in a corn field in Missouri to get his bearings and he said by the time he got to California he "bought near froze to death."

Barney loves flying and aviation. He says it gives him a reason to live and get up everyday. He wonders why anyone would sit around and rot when there is so much in life to do. And Barney's done a lot, as you'll see.

Barney has a very good outlook on life --- "live life to the fullest." I think you'll see from his story that he has done just that. Barney has been to 50 countries and all the continents. He likes to engage everyone he meets on his or her own level and get to know the real person.

He believes all people, around the world, are intelligent in their own right. He illustrates this belief with an example of when he was a merchant seaman during WWII. He struck up a friendship with a young native boy in New Caledonia who spoke four languages ---- his native tongue, French, German, and English. A lot of us have trouble just speaking English.

Born in October 1922, Barney was raised in Knox, Indiana, about 60 miles from Chicago. He lived on a farm until he graduated from high school in 1941. He drove to California, in a 1934 Ford, with a friend soon after graduating and got a job working in the Douglas Aircraft factory in Santa Monica as a spot welder, making windshields and bomb bay doors for A-20 Havoc bombers.

...When the war broke out he wanted to do more for the country and spoke with a Union Oil Company tanker captain who wrote him a letter of recommendation to the US Coast Guard so he could obtain his seaman's papers.

...A few days later, in March of 1942, he was shipping out aboard the Union Oil Tanker Paul M. Greg, built by Bethlehem-Sparrow Shipyards at Sparrow Point, MD in 1941. The Paul M. Gregg was in coastwise service between Seattle and San Francisco, traveling in four-to-five ship convoys accompanied by a subchaser. It wasn't long before trouble started brewing --- a Japanese submarine was spotted off Anacapa Island, California.

...One of the ships started firing at the sub, but the "green" crews nearly hit one of the other ships in the convoy by mistake. Fortunately, there were no casualties.

...Barney's next ship was the Kit Carson, a Liberty ship. He sailed to New Caledonia with a load of building supplies for the US Navy Sea Bees (construction battalions), who were building new airfields and port facilities.

...The Liberty ship F. Marion Crawford was his next berth. On this lengthy cruise, in convoy and accompanied by three destroyers and a subchaser, they landed equipment for the New Zealand Army in New Caledonia, where they had to take it into the jungle and unload it at a remote training camp.

...Then, unescorted, the F. Marion Crawford headed for San Francisco. But just shy of the Golden Gate their orders were changed. With a following sea, and no air ventilation in the engine room, the temperatures reached 134 degrees Fahrenheit. Thirty-two days after leaving New Caledonia, short on food and existing mostly on coffee, they reached Panama. From Panama, the ship headed for Cuba where they picked a load of sugar in sacks. The sugar was taken to Brooklyn, NY to the Domino Sugar refinery, near the Williamsburg Bridge. It was a Friday night, and the ship had no money to pay the crew until Monday. So with only a dollar to his name, Barney and a shipmate, who had no money at all, decided to go ashore and take in a move for .25 cents each (Barney paid). A magazine purchase later and Barney was down to a remaining 25 cents. But on the way back to the ship, a women's softball team befriended them and treated them to beer and food. After that, Barney always had friends there.

...Barney wanted to be part of the invasion of Europe --- D Day as it would later be called. Everyone knew it was coming. So he decided to shop out on some vessels in the Atlantic. First was the Cape Constance, a C-1; the Liberty ship Keith Vawter followed. Later he made two voyages in another Liberty ship, the Binger Herman, both trips to England, including one with a load of Sherman tanks.

...But on D-Day, June 6, 1944, Barney was in the Keith Vawter again --- Baltimore, Maryland, Maryland to Capetown, South Africa. From Capetown they sailed to Buenos Aires for shelled corn; then to Rio de Janiero for aircraft engines and on to Galveston, Texas to pick up a load of grain.

...After D-Day, Barney served on the Liberty ship Frank B. Kellogg, in a 127-ship convoy to the Mediterranean Sea ports of Naples, Marseilles, Sicily and other ports.

...His first Victory ship was the Southwestern Victory, which he was in from San Pedro to Calcutta, India via Melbourne, Australia with Us Army Air Corps equipment in 1945. Barney served in this ship with the famous American Indian athlete and 1912 Olympic games champion Jim Thorpe.

...They became quite good friends. Barney says Jim was recognized everywhere they went. Arriving in Newark, New Jersey, even the tugboat skipper recognized the famous Jim Thorpe.

...Service in the Matson Steamship Company's Matsonia and Monterey followed. He traveled to many exotic ports, including Honolulu, Fiji, Bora Bora, Auckland, and Sydney in these famous ships. Barney served in several other freighters, including the Sea Bass, a Matson SS Company C-3, then he finally left the sea in 1946.

In the early 1950s, Barney became interested in prospecting. He soon learned that it was not going to be easy "poor boying it" as he terms it. That is, trying to make a big strike or deal without financial backing. He studied hard though, taking many geology and mineralogy classes. He soon determined that there might be good potential in clays and other related minerals needed in the ceramics and building industries.

He prospected all over the western US and has had mining claims in Idaho, Arizona and California. He still receives royalties from some of these claims. He did pretty well, judging from all the airplanes he owned, but of course he didn't have those "kids' shoes" to buy.

Wanderlust got Barney again in 1965. He went back to sea, this time during the Vietnam War. He served in various ships, such as American President Lines' President Johnson and various Matson vessels, until 1976 when he left the sea for good. He had continued prospecting between trips at sea, and established a good business association with US Tile Corporation in the Corona area where he now lives.

In addition to his present airplanes Barney has owned a BT 13 and a T-6 and has flown many planes including Ryans and Wacos. His favorite airplane was his BT-13. We are all grateful to Barney for just being here and for his contributions to the fun that can be had at Corona airport. Luckily, before he passed away, the boys on the field were able to get him up into the BT-13 via forklift and give him one last ride.

...Finally, the Corona Pilots Association and Barney's friends are grateful to Barney's sister, Alice Wint, who dropped everything, stopped her life, and came to be here in California with Barney for the past 8 1/2 months. What a sister he had!!! She came here on September 5, expecting to take him home with her and care for him there, but he wanted to stay here with his friends, so she stayed and drove him to Costa Mesa and Diamond Bar many times each week for vitamin drip treatments. She certainly deserves some recognition in his life. She ALWAYS had a room in her home for him and many times he returned to her after being out on the seas or digging in the dirt while prospecting. She recently moved to a new home and has a room for him there, but unfortunately, he never did see it, except in pictures. Again, what a sister!
......

A memorial service will be held on July 21st at 10:30 a.m. at the airport.The Civil Air Patrol will be present to do the Color Guard and the Veterans Honor Guard will be on hand for the salute, playing of taps, and presentation of the American flag to Barney's sister, Alice. This will be a potluck event, so bring some food to share. The following day, July 22nd, his ashes will be sent to sea off the Lane Victory. If you would like to attend this service, please purchase tickets for the trip at www.LaneVictory.org .


News you really need

More sad news

Long-time Corona passer-by and seller-of-airplanes Greg Stitch met with troubles at Pahrump,NV.

Accounts say his wife tells he passed away from his injuries on Tuesday 5/29. The Pahrump newspaper says he was returning to the Pahrump airport immediately after unknown takeoff troubles. Accounts relay that he never regained consciousness after being taken to the hospital on Friday 25. Services were held Sunday June 3rd on the terrace. Our condolence goes out to his family.

On an editorial note CPA would like to extend our appreciation to Fred Peters for his generous granting of the Terrace for many CPA events. The facilities provide an excellent venue for aviation enthusiasts joining for a number of reasons like meetings special BBQ's and infrequently the use of the facility for farewells to our own airmen.

Additionally appreciated is a small group of our members like Pat and Susan Brunner. They give lot of effort(and some out of pocket expense) to see that things are nice. Let's all give them a big thank you and offer some help and on occasion maybe even a little financial support

Important notice:

For all hangar tenants of Corona Aero Partners and the old SVS (now Fred Peters), please be on notice that ALL TAXI WAYS ADJACENT TO THESE PROPERTIES will be re-sealed on June 4, 5 and 6, (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday). YOU MUST NOT TAXI YOUR AIRCRAFT OR DRIVE YOU CAR ON THESE TAXI WAYS DURING THESE THREE DAYS. This small inconvenience will make things better for years, so please tolerate the 3 day inconvenience. You will have less gravel in the prop and a smoother taxiway.

Your plane can be left on a city tie-down, at no cost, during this period if you need to access it. Please help us make the area better place by adhering to this request,


Who has been traveling lately ?

Our President and Secretary the Nunallys have been gone flying the Old black Magic Apache to the east coast and to Arkansas. Jim and Margaret have developed into real cross country travelers.

The editor and Bob Heer recently made a trip to Denver and Pueblo Colorado. This time there is no bragging rights for speed. Groundspeed for the first half of the western leg was a solid 106 knots.

Don't' forget the Fourth of July Parade in Corona. See Paul Bricker to offer your help.

Airfaire is early October much help will be needed that week. Plan on helping us put on this annual show.

Good of the order

Blonde Pilot

A blonde pilot decided she wanted to learn how to fly a helicopter. She went to the airport but the only helicopter available was a single-seat helicopter. The Instructor figured it would be all right to let her go up alone since she was already a pilot for small planes and he could instruct her via radio. So up the blonde went.

She reached 1,000 feet and everything was going smoothly. She reached 2,000 feet. The blonde and the Instructor continued to talk via the radio. Everything was going smoothly.

At 3,000 feet the helicopter suddenly came down quickly, skimming the top of some trees and crashing into the woods.

The Instructor jumped in his jeep and rushed out to see if the blonde was okay. As he reached the edge of the woods, the blonde was walking out of the wreckage. "What happened?" the Instructor asked, "All was going so well until you reached 3,000 feet. What happened then?" Well," began the blonde, "The higher I went the colder it became so I turned off the ceiling fan.






End_June 2007