Builders:
Grace and I are with family today, but we will be back in the shop on the 23rd. From that point forward, we will be working in the shop every day until we depart for Corvair College #30 at the Zenith Factory in Mexico MO September 16th-18th. Sign up for #30 was open for 90 days, but is now closed. After the college we will be staying at for 2 more days for the Zenith open house before heading back to Florida. If you couldn’t make it to the college, but are thinking of heading to the open house, please attend, we will no longer be wrenching on engines but we will have a full compliment of our parts, be doing core inspections, and most of the pilots planning on flying in for the College are planning on staying through the open house. It is a good chance to meet other Corvair builders.
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If you are one of the builders who signed up for #30, we will be shortly sending a series of emails with more information. This is standard procedure for colleges. We send the bulk of the prep work info after the sign up closes because we send it as a block email to everyone and if builders have questions we cover the answers in a FAQ page for everyone to read.
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Corvair College #31 will be in Barnwell South Carolina, November 7th -9th. Be aware that the sign up is more than half full already, and November sounds like a long way off, but it isn’t. I have no definite date to close the sign up, but I would be surprised if it doesn’t fill up by the end of the Zenith Open house September 20th. Last year after CC#26, we attended the open house the next day, and there was a large number of people who heard about the College and signed up for #27 that day. If you have plans to attend Barnwell, do not get shut out, sign up today, here is the link:
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https://corvaircollege.wufoo.com/forms/corvair-college-31-registration/
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Barnwell is always our year end event, it is the classiest show of the year. If you are considering bringing your spouse or family to any event, Barnwell is perhaps the best one on the calendar. We always have a very special dinner and award the Cherry Grove trophy to the aviator who has made the greatest contribution to Corvair powered flight that year. P.F. Beck and his crew make the event classy, and this year will be their 5th consecutive event at Barnwell. Don’t miss it.
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Get a look at this link: The Cherry Grove Trophy
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American Hank Wharton, legendary arms smuggler, who used planes like the Lockheed Constellation above on repeated missions to fly food to starving Biafrans through Nigerian jet air defenses in 1968-69. A ‘Humanitarian’ with solid brass balls. There is a fair chance that a man standing in parents home in NJ today survived on food that came off this aircraft.
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I write this from my parents home in NJ. Traditionally we stop here for a few days on our way home from Oshkosh, a 1,000 mile detour we also use to make summer house calls. This year we have extended the stop to 14 days because my Father broke his leg in a fall just before Oshkosh. Grace the dog and I are now taking a turn caring for him at home, following all the other children who have been here already to relieve my brother and his wife who have done the lion’s share of the work thus far. Dad is doing much better, and Grace and I will drive back to the shop in Florida and be at work by the 23rd.
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Over the years I have shared a number of stories about my father because I am very blessed to be his son, but I has always been my hope that these stories were a catalyst for friends to consider how all of our Fathers who made us who we are. Countless builders have also shared stories of their own Fathers in letters and in person, and I have listened to them all with admiration for the love they contained.
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To assist with the care at night, the family has brought in skilled CNAs. One of them named ‘Remmy’, was very moved that in our family he could not differentiate children from spouses by watching us; everyone calls my father ‘Dad’, and my mother and father treat us all the same. He took a moment to explain that he had emigrated to the US, but his childhood was in Africa, and he said “This kind of family, it is the strength and the riches of Nigeria.” He went on to explain that he was from the eastern half of the country which was Biafra, and he was a three year old during the war, surviving what many others did not. When a man born into war in one of the poorest countries on Earth takes a moment to remind you that the greatest poverty is not the absence of wealth, nor even of sustenance, but it is the absence of family and love, his words are worth considering at length. -ww.
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