Air club celebrates 50 years

MOSES LAKE — The list hanging on the clubhouse wall is faded and hard to read.

But it’s the list of the pilots who, 50 years ago, signed on to become Chapter No. 355 of the Experimental Aircraft Association at the Moses Lake Municipal Airport.

“Feb. 13, 1970, was when the original club list was signed,” said pilot and aircraft mechanic Ron Piercy, club president and owner of Rainbow Flying Service, which specializes in repairing and rebuilding airplanes.

It may be a few months late, but the association celebrated its 50th anniversary last week with a corn feed — Piercy grows his own corn — and some time for its members, nearly all pilots, to get together and talk about airplanes.

“It’s neat to have people who have the same interests you do,” said pilot and retired farm appraiser Jerry Richardson. “I’m hoping we can get some young blood in here to carry on, because we’re all getting old.”

According to Piercy, the club was started by enthusiasts who built their own airplanes and would get together to help with bigger club rebuilding and refurbishing projects.

“Today, it’s kind of a misnomer. We embrace all kinds of aviation, and it should probably be called the Sport Aviation Association,” Piercy said.

Based in Oshkosh, Wisconsin — home to one of the largest airshows in the country — the EAA advocates for private pilots, provides training and insurance, lobbies government for legislation friendly to pilots and helps promote local events like fly-ins.

The Moses Lake group meets every third Tuesday at 6 p.m. for dinner and then at 7 p.m. to work. The club’s current project is rebuilding a 1946 Ercoupe (pronounced “aircoupe”), a plane that was designed to be so easy and foolproof to fly that the pilot needed only a driver’s license.

Darel Fuller opens the side door to the hangar where the association is working on the 74-year-old blue-and-white plane. It’s nearly complete and ready to fly, awaiting the installation of a rebuilt carburetor, which was ordered from Illinois several weeks ago.

“There’s no rudder,” he said of the Ercoupe. “It has a steering wheel like a car, which adjusts the wings and the tail, and a foot pedal for a brake. And that’s it.”

Normally, a rudder on the tail is used to steer the plane in flight and is controlled by foot pedals.

Fuller said in the past, the association has repaired airplanes and sold them to help cover the club’s costs. But not the Ercoupe, and he was looking forward to getting it running.

“I’ve never flown one,” he said.

“It’s a fun little airplane,” Richardson added.

Richard Pearce, a retired Big Bend Community College flight instructor, said he’s been flying almost his entire life, including over 200 missions as a KC-135 tanker pilot over Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.

When he retired 23 years ago, Pearce said, he fixed up a little early-1930s Taylor aircraft that had no instruments or electrical system and flew it completely around the United States.

“I tried to stay within 60 miles of the borders for the United States. It took me 30 days,” he said. “I had to hand-crank to start it. I wanted to do it in a manner that those old aviators had to do it.”

Richardson said he didn’t exactly fly for a living, but as a farm appraiser working for a bank, the ability to fly to and from appraisal sites made his job a whole lot easier.

“Before I got permission to use the airplane, I drove a pickup and put 25,000 to 30,000 miles a year on it, and I was never home for dinner,” he said. “Once I got the airplane, I was home for dinner. Every night.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at [email protected].