The weather Gods obliged...so the party took place on Saturday at Lancaster Airport. The party was arranged to allow Kurt Wenderoth (a soon-to-be Cozy builder from Germany) to look at canards close-up.
I arrived just after noon to find that Kurt, his German colleague Christian and Bob Sudderth were already holding a pre-party outside my hangar (I was held up in traffic en route). We opened the hangar, moved in the food and drink, and waited for the rest of the folks to arrive.
The following people flew in with their planes:

Bob Sudderth (from Minneola)
Ron Gowan (from Denton)
Doug Bryan (from Denton)
Scott Christensen (from Denton)
Scott Carter (from Addison)
James Redmon (from McKinney)
Jesse Huerta (from Cleburne)

This was the line-up at around 14.30 CST outside my hangar:

Gerhard Deffner and Ron Handley showed up rather later, due to delays en route. As usual, we forgave Gerhard for showing up in a Cessna 172. A local guy named Ian Jaeger also came along to look at the planes, since he is also considering building one. As is normal, the line-up attacted a lot of folks from elsewhere on the airport.
James Redmon has his own report of the event on his web site.

After Jesse had spent (by his own estimates) 18 hours working on installing a new FlightTech intercom, we reached the point last Saturday where all but one feature of the intercom worked.
Unfortunately the non-working feature was a rather fundamental one; namely, that when you talked into the mikes, the sound did not get transmitted into the headset speakers. Pressing the PTT to transmit did transmit the sound into the speakers.
Essentially, the major part of the intercom was not working.
Jesse and I met in the hangar on Monday, reviewed the status and decided that we could make no further progress without assistance. Jesse had done everything "by the book" in installing and testing the intercom, and we were completely out of ideas.
We phoned FlightTech in Illinois and spoke to them. Their response, based on the information that we had given them, was that the only sensible course of action was to send the unit to them for testing.
Accordingly, I packaged up the intercom box and Fedexed it to FlightTech.
Today they called me back. Their examination of the unit showed 2 things:

- This was an old unit, with an inventory number that showed it had been shipped to the supplier (Aircraft Spruce) as long ago as July 2005. I purchased the unit in January 2006
- The board was damaged, with evidence of short-circuits on the board caused by solder

When we were working on the installation, the board and unit were out of the plane, since the only time you would need to put the unit in the plane was to plug it in for testing purposes. We were not responsible for the board damage. This was most likely a returned unit that had been sent to us by Spruce without enough examination being conducted on its fitness for re-sale.
FlightTech is sending the unit back to me, and I will be contacting Aircraft Spruce for an RMA number. I wil not be able to return all of the components because some of them are now installed in the plane. I just hope that this does not cause an issue.

...is set for Saturday 25th March from 12.00 CST onwards, with Saturday 1st April as the "rain check" day.

I have staw-polled all of the locals. Any other canardians reading this blog who can make it to Lancaster, TX (LNC) on any of the above dates, please get in touch with me via comments on this blog entry, or through the Canard Aviators newsgroup. I will be providing the drinks and munchies in my hangar.

...telling me that they are attempting to have this ordinance repealed, and reminding me that everybody is welcome in Kane County.
I am showing their email, with my response.

Graham,

Thanks for your note and I understand your frustration with the Natural Family proclamation.
Many in the town agree with you and are trying to reverse this action.

I hope you will reconsider your plans to skip a visit here next year.
A number of people work hard to make Kane County a nice place to visit and I hope you won't hold them responsible for the City's decision.

The world is officially welcome in Kane County,
CT

Cowboy Ted Hallisey
Executive Director
Kane County Office of Tourism
P.O. Box 209
Kanab, Utah 84741
435-899-1102

Here is my response:

Thanks for the honest and positive response. I do appreciate the efforts that are going on to unwind this attempt to move the local value system back beyond the 19th Century. I think some folks need to go back and read the Declaration of Independence and the preamble to the US Constitution, and fully absorb the meanings of phrases such as "all men are created equal", and "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness".
It is up to local people to remember the famous quote "for evil to triumph it is only necessary for good men to do nothing". A beautiful part of the USA is in danger of being converted to a backwaters laughing-stock zone by the actions of mean-spirited theocrats.


Regards,

Graham Shevlin

...partly because, after many years of organizing a R.A.C.E. event there each year, Shirl Dickey has been forced to stop running races because of insurance and liability concerns. I thank Shirl for all of the work he has done for the R.A.C.E. events over the years. The 2000 Kanab R.A.C.E. event was my first canard fly-in, and I have learned a lot at those events and met some great people.
However, even if the Kanab events continue in some form, I will not be attending them, unless the City of Kanab rescinds an ordinance, passed in January 2006 that implicitly disapproves of any form of living arrangement that does not conform to its idea of "family values". Yes, folks, bigotry and theocratically-based attempts to turn the clock back have apparently taken root in Kanab. All I can say is that if the citizens of Kanab want to turn the clock back to the start of the 19th Century, then they will have to get used to living without much in the way of tourism, which wasn't big in the 19th Century either. Certainly I won't be spending a cent in that part of the world until they understand that theocratic bigotry is not a family value.
I signed the petition at whatsupwithkanab.com and also sent an email to the Kane County Tourist office informing them that I do not intend to visit the area again until the citizens of Kanab can collectively demonstrate that they understand the meaning of some of the fundamental principles on which the United States was founded.