EAA Chapter 430 Newsletter, January 2025

EAA 430 FLYER Serving Northern Olympic Peninsula JANUARY 2025 From the Left Seat With President Ray Ballantyne Greetings fellow aviation enthusiasts! I was very saddened to receive word that Robert “Bob” Hicks recently passed away. Bob dedicated a major portion of his life to aviation. He was involved with EAA in general, and Chapter 430 in particular. He served on the EAA430 board of directors for over a decade and was the President for a total of six years. I hope you read his story later in this newsletter. Leaving a legacy for the future of aviation on the Olympic Peninsula was important to him, and during the time he presided over the chapter it was always a struggle to find a place to meet. I met Bob as he led meetings at Monterra Clubhouse where the chapter rented the facility. Thank you, Bob, for your years of service to our chapter. This highlights our current position as a chapter. We are poised to begin construction on our own meeting place which will solidify our organization as the leading aviation group on the Peninsula. A legacy, if you will. We are making a difference in young peoples lives, and having our own place will only expand our opportunities. I hope to provide you with the building committee’s plan with costs in the near future. We want a first-rate facility which will, I know, cost more money than we currently have; so we’re hoping people will want to donate once everyone sees the future vision. Just a last note to thank all the people that made EAA430 a Gold chapter – the board was recognized at the holiday party for their dedicated volunteer work, but many others helped with Young Eagles and the Flying Start program which Dave Woodcock with Cecilia Aragon put on this year. Many thanks to you all. Fly 4 Fun!

Page 2 EAA 430 Flyer IN THIS ISSUE From the Left Seat (Ray Ballantyne) Calendar of Events Flyout Odyssey Flyout memories Note from your Treasurer Minutes of December 2024 Gathering A Salute to Colleen Miller EAA Triumphs Remembering Bob Hicks Board and Directors PAGE 1 2 2 3 4 4 5 6 7-9 10 JANUARY FLYOUT – submitted by Barry Halsted January’s Fyout was, well, different. With good weather forecast days in advance I picked Tacoma Narrows (TIW) as the unannounced destination. Then, four days before the flyout (when I generally start sending flyout emails), I discovered in a NOTAM that TIW had flight checking aircraft scheduled in the area around our arrival time. So rather than have hordes of us interfering with their activities I decided on Bremerton (PWT) instead. Weather would be the same, we haven’t been to the restaurant there (Amelia’s Hangar) for some time. Sounded perfect. The first email was sent. Monday’s weather check was good. Tuesday’s weather check, however, now showed PWT would be IFR early Wednesday morning but VFR by 11:00. That’s an alert to me, and Tuesday’s email advised that. Normally I provide a GO/NO GO email just after the 9:00 METARS become available day of departure but this time I announced a 10:00 confirming email would be coming on Wednesday and asked all flyout pilots to check that the flyout was still on. Cross your fingers. Then came Wednesday and both Bremerton and Port Angeles were IFR early in the morning. Bremerton wasn’t forecasting VFR weather until noon. Not good enough. So at 9:00 I changed the destination to Port Townsend, suggesting that drive-ins would be welcomed. At 11:00 I canceled the flyout for any who were not already enroute. Now the good news. By noon the weather in the area was VFR with good visibilities and broken clouds about 1400 ft. I rode over with Ray Ballantyne in his new (to him) Sportsman - YeeHaa!!! What a fun ride! Bud and Laurie Davis and Scott and Karen Brooksby drove in from Sequim. The Spruce Goose enjoyed serving seven of us lunch! Barry Halsted Ballantyne Jeopardy The answer is: -40 What is ? … on page 5

Page 3 EAA 430 Flyer January Flyout - Con’t Then came Wednesday and both Bremerton and Port Angeles were IFR early in the morning. Bremerton wasn’t forecasting VFR weather until noon. Not good enough. So at 9:00 I changed the destination to Port Townsend, suggesting that drive-ins would be welcomed. At 11:00 I canceled the flyout for any who were not already enroute. Now the good news. By noon the weather in the area was VFR with good visibilities and broken clouds about 1400 ft. I rode over with Ray Ballantyne in his new (to him) Sportsman - YeeHaa!!! What a fun ride! Bud and Laurie Davis and Scott and Karen Brooksby drove in from Sequim.The Spruce Goose enjoyed serving seven of us lunch! Barry Halsted

Ballantyne Jeopardy The answer is: 12. What is ? … on page 6 Note from the Treasurer Annual dues are due again, and I will be sending email notices our in early January. If you are already paid up for this year, I’ll send a separate email letting you know you don’t owe anything right now. Dues remain $20 for Individual and $25 for family. You may pay at the January Gathering by cash or check, or by mailing a check to PO Box 13, Carlsborg, WA 98324, or by PayPal to treasurer@eaa430.org Prompt payment makes my job easier. Thank you, Tracy Halsted, Treasurer Minutes from the December 2024 Gathering Page 4 EAA 430 Flyer So I’m working on the newsletter and frantically searching my Email for Richard’s minutes from the gathering….. uh, party … I think I can summarize those (non-existent) notes in one word FUN Thanks so much to our talented Hospitality Planners and their elves for a wonderful Christmas Gathering

Page 5 EAA 430 Flyer Shout-out to Colette Miller - submitted by Tracy Halsted Last fall, Barry and I attended a fundraiser at the Port Townsend Aero Museum. Looking for something to Live Bid on, I saw a donation by Colette Miller for an unspecified portrait. I decided that was what I wanted and proceeded to bid until I won it. I wanted a portrait of our two sibling cats, Shadow and Smokey. Could have done one of Barry’s airplanes, but the cats won out. Colette came over and met the cats, and I sent her some photos of them as well. The resulting portrait exceeded my expectation so much! Colette is SO talented and versatile. And she’s even a pilot! So just want to say, “Thank you, Colette, for giving us such a wonderful portrait for our wall”. -Tracy and Barry Halsted Ballantyne Jeopardy When is the temperature of Celsius and Fahrenheit the same?

Page 6 EAA 430 Flyer Ballantyne Jeopardy What is the number of spark plugs in a 6 cylinder reciprocating aviation engine ? January and February Events VMC/IMC Club Meeting 2nd Wednesday of the month Jan 8 and Feb 12 7-8 pm Mariner Cafe EAA 430 Chapter Board Meeting Jan 17 and Feb 14 9:00 am Mariner Café EAA Chapter Gathering Last Saturday of the month Jan 25 9:30 AM KCLM Feb 22 Northwest Aviation Conference and Trade Show Puyallup Fair Grounds

Page 7 EAA 430 Flyer Bob has been fascinated by airplanes since he was a young lad in England. During WWII, he learned to identify the planes flying overhead. His mother was English and his father, an officer in the Foreign Service, working in Europe for the State Department, was from Tennessee. When his father had to return to the United States, his mother was pregnant with Bob and didn’t want to make the sea journey until after his birth. Bob never got to meet his father because he died from heart problems when he was in his 40s. He remembers traveling around England with his mother, a dancer with the French Loie Fuller Ballet. She had traveled the world with the troupe, including San Francisco, before the Golden Gate Bridge was built A SALUTE TO ROBERT (ROB/BOB) HICKS 1934-2025 Recently, I was told by an EAA member, that Bob was the first person who greeted him at an EAA meeting. Bob was the Membership Director from 2015-2019. He was also the President of 430 in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2012, 2013 and 2014. He passed away on January 3, 2025. This is the bio that was in our June 2019 newsletter. - Skip Brown In 1939, he and his mother moved to Sussex. Because of air raids along the south coast of England, they moved to Somerset in the west of England the following year. He was six years old. Anticipating a German invasion, a small boarding school in Sussex (run by two women) was relocating to America. When a space became available, Bob and two cousins traveled with the other children in the school to America from Glasgow to Halifax aboard the “Empress of Australia.” The voyage took ten days, and he remembers the ship zig-zagging to avoid submarines. They were among about 30,000 children who immigrated to Canada and the U.S. in 1940. After another boat was torpedoed and sunk, the program was canceled. By then, the Battle of Britain had been won and the invasion threat had ended. The school was sponsored by Eugene Meyer, owner & publisher of the Washington Post. The children were housed in a mansion at Clovercroft Estate in Warrington, Virginia, where they were treated like celebrities. Eleanor Roosevelt invited them to the White House for an Easter party in 1941.

Another memory he has (along with a picture) is meeting the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in 1942. The children spent many hours practicing bowing and curtsying. When the two women who ran the school returned to England in 1942, Bob (along with five other children) transferred to a school in the Bronx, New York, which he attended for the next three years. In 1945, after the war in Europe ended, he boarded a Royal Navy cruiser, HMS Sheffield, in Boston and headed back to Portsmouth, England. He remembers being given the brass shell casings from anti-aircraft aboard the ship…IF he polished the brass, which he spent many hours doing. Arriving back in England, he met his soon-to-be stepfather and enrolled in a private school. When his stepfather got a new job in Somerset, Bob attended the Taunton Boarding and Day School through graduation. He was an apprentice in the Bristol Airplane Company until, at age 18, he was drafted into the Corps of Royal Engineers (Army), spending eleven months of the required two years in Germany. When he left the service, he went to work as a trainee in the sales department of Newman Industries in Bristol, a company that manufactured industrial electrical motors. He was in their two-year training program, which required courses in electrical engineering. Shortly after completing the program, the company sent him to Newark, New Jersey in a Pan Am DC-7, his first ride in an airplane. Early in 1959, he was transferred to Chicago where he had his first ride in a light plane, a 172. He joined a diving club to practice his hobby of scuba diving. The YMCA, his home at the time, was having an Open House and a troupe of theatre actors was presenting a musical review. Bob was in the audience when one of the performers, Sharyn, came to his seat in her costume, sat on his lap, and sang to him. He was smitten. At the end of the year, he was transferred back to Newark as a district manager, but in 1960, they traveled to her hometown in South Dakota and were married. ROBERT (ROB/BOB) HICKS, Con’t Page 8 EAA 430 Flyer

In 1961 he went to work for Electric Machinery Company, a Minneapolis manufacturer of large generators and motors, working as a salesman. He and Sharyn moved to Needham, MA, where their son, Christopher, was born. Two years later, the company moved them to Cincinnati, Ohio, where they lived for eight years. Sarah, an adopted daughter, joined the family while they were in Cincinnati. At age 33, Bob got his private pilot’s license and joined a Cincinnati flying club. Their next home was in Bellevue, Washington, where he worked as the NW District Manager for five years. While living in Washington, he made a memorable six-week business trip to the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran) Spain, and the United Kingdom. While in Egypt, he climbed up inside the Great Pyramid. As it was a day in March, he was the only tourist. The guide went as far as the Queen’s Chamber with him and told him he could climb to the King’s Chamber by himself if he wanted to, which he did. They lived in El Toro, California for the next 23 years. In 1999 he retired from Electric Machinery Company and he and Sharyn moved to Sequim. The RV-6, which he began building in California in 1988, was trailered to a rented hangar in Diamond Point. The airframe, instrument panel, canopy, and wings were completed; however, the engine was not mounted and the wings were not on when it arrived in Washington. He spent the next couple of years finishing the project. Whenever he needed help, there was always another pilot/builder willing to lend a hand. After heart surgery early in 2000, he and Trent Sommers became partners because he wasn’t sure if he would be able to get his medical back. Trent helped him finish the plane, and their first flight was on October 16, 2002. Bob has been active in EAA since living in California, where he served as secretary, membership chair and director in Chapter 92. His beloved wife, Sharyn, passed away in April 2010. ROBERT (ROB/BOB) HICKS, Con’t Page 9 EAA 430 Flyer

Page 10 EAA 430 Flyer 2025 BOARD AND DIRECTORS Name Position Phone Ext. Email Address Ray Ballantyne Rick Vaux Richard Howell Tracy Halsted No Candidate Tracy Halsted Linda Priddle David Miller Bud Davies Harry Cook Rick Stoffel Andy Sallee Richard Howell Eric Peterson Barry Halsted Harry Cook Barry Halsted Ernie Hansen Rick Vaux Mike Niewiarowwicz 1 2 3 4 president@eaa430.org vicepresidenttt@eaa430.org secretary@eaa.org treasurer@eaa430.org programs@eaa430.org membership@eaa430.org newsletter@eaa430.org scholarship@eaa430.org youngeagles@eaa430.org vmc@eaa430.org toolcrib@eaa430.org webeditor@eaa430.org build-n-fly@eaa430.org communications@eaa430.org flyout@eaa430.org techhc@eaa430.org techbh@eaa430.org techeh@eaa430.org techrv@eaa430.org techmn@eaa430.org President Vice-President Secretary Treasurer Class II Directors Programs Membership Newsletter Scholarship Young Eagles VMC/IMC Tool Crib Web Editor Build-n-Fly Communications Fly-Out Tech Advisor Tech Advisor Tech Advisor Tech Advisor Tech Advisor