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Andy & Sam Werback's Grand Champion Legacy at AirVenture 2012
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 FROM THE PRESIDENT
by jeff edwards
Happy New Year and welcome! And thanks for reading the January 2014 issue of LOBO eNews. We are kicking off the year with some changes our members asked for, and a few the LOBO Board has been planning for some time.
A New Look
First, you may notice the format of our newsletter has changed. Instead of a pdf document transmitted to you with the look of a published magazine we have elected to go with a more modern ezine-style, web-based design. This is the second edition of LOBO eNews, and the LOBO Board is very happy with the time savings it represents for the volunteers who publish it for you. Now that we've decided to increase our use of the website you won't see entire articles in the newsletter any longer. Instead, you'll see a brief intro, and a link to the full article on the site. This should be a familiar format to anyone who is on an email newsletter list. Please let us know what you think!
There are some advantages to doing things this way. One is that we can publish and post articles as we get them without waiting for a newsletter deadline. Also, we don’t have to invest tons of time formatting the pdf document you are familiar with. Bottom line: same great stuff, lower cost and faster service. I like fast! Thanks to Mark Sletten, our volunteer editor, for his help in this project.
Site Upgrades
Another change we have made is in the membership arena. We are victims of our own success. We are now approaching 400 members. Success is good but it comes with a cost. The cost to us as volunteer Board members is we have to manage the information of some 400 members. When we were smaller it was not a huge time investment; Jennifer Ashley, our Membership VP, was easily able to keep our membership data sorted. But as we've grown, and especially as we began organizing more events like Oshkosh AirVenture and the annual LOBO/Lancair Landings, the workload has increased exponentially. We now must accurately manage hundreds of separate registrations and financial transactions, not only for membership tracking, but also for each event. We simply don’t have the volunteer manpower or other resources to manage things as we have in the past. So, based on recommendations from a few smart people who know what they're doing, we have made some significant upgrades to the website. They include some new features you've asked for that will only be available to members, and an online membership management system.
In addition to making it much easier for you find information about LOBO, our new online tools will significantly reduce the workload on your all-volunteer LOBO Board. The only drawback for you is you must fill out the new online registration form this year when you renew so we can validate our membership database.
We Need Your Help
Please take the time to accurately fill out the registration form in its entirety: aircraft data, hours flown, total time, training, etc. It will only take you fifteen minutes to find your logbooks and fill out the information we need to help all of us make improvements in aviation safety. We use this data to show the FAA, NTSB and insurance industry that we are a better risk than non-member pilots. We will safeguard your flight data—only using aggregate statistical data in our discussions. Our initial look at this over a year ago revealed significant differences with respect to training and hours flown between our members and the pilots involved in accidents.
We have begun to bend the Lancair accident rate downwards, and we were rewarded with better insurance coverage this year as announced at the Greenville Landing. But there is still a lot of room to improve. LOBO members have proven their commitment to safety and professionalism, and we'll need that commitment to further improve. Thank you for your help!
Join or Renew Today!
There is much more information below and on the site about our exciting new membership management system. Please take the time to read through the instructions and join LOBO or renew your membership today. And let us know what you think about the online registration experience. The more you tell us the better we can make it.
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2014 LOBO Membership Registration
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LOBO is converting to a web-based membership management model and we need your help to make it work. The system will save time for everyone: no more paper-based applications, envelopes and snail mail for you, and a largely automated online membership management system for us. Help LOBO join the 21st century today! Click here to read more...
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Find Fellow LOBO Members!
LOBO has a new service--a Google Map Member Locator! The locator is available in the new Member's area of our website and shows the location and basic contact information for members who gave us permission to post it. If you would like to appear on the Member Locator make sure you opt in on the online registration form. To see the Member Locator you must register or renew today!
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Reusing Self-Locking Nuts--Safe or Stupid?
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Do you know when it’s safe to reuse self-locking nuts with nylon or fiber inserts? The answer is you shouldn't. Not unless, that is, you are following procedures in approved maintenance documents for the aircraft in question or other FAA publications. The NTSB has implicated the improper reuse of self-locking nuts in several fatal accidents. Click here to read more...
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Continental Motors Engine Maintenance Clinic Update
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Continental Motors has invited the Lancair Owners and Builders Organization to an engine maintenance clinic and facility tour from 20 to 22 March, 2014. The two-day event will include presentations and hands-on demonstrations of important set-up, maintenance and tuning requirements of Continental aircraft engines at their Fairhope, AL operating area, as well as a tour of their manufacturing facility in Mobile. We need a minimum of 25 pilots/owners to make this feasible. Click here to read more...
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Communication Breakdown
On February 29, 2012, a Cirrus SR22 plunged to the ground just seconds before what would have been a normal landing at Melbourne, Florida. In this video, AOPA reconnects the links of the accident chain, and searches for lessons in the tragedy. Click here to watch...
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Airport Markings for Dummies
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What do the markings in the photo at right mean and what would make two very highly experienced commercial pilots, on two separate occasions, think it was OK to walk across them without asking permission or even talking to anyone? That’s exactly what happened, twice, within three weeks! Click here to read more...
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