The next meeting and fly-in of Illini Skyriders will be held this Saturday, June 17th at the private airstrip of Dale and Loretta Busboom which is 2 miles west of St. Joseph, Illinois on the south side of US Rt. 150.  Pilots should be reminded that overlying controlled airspace begins a couple miles to the southwest.

This will be the 24th year since Illini Skyriders had their first fly-in at the Busboom airstrip.  Many of our members made their first solo flight at this airstrip.  Dale and Loretta have welcomed ultralights at their field for almost a quarter century.

The Busbooms will supply the food and beverages but anyone is welcome to bring a covered dish or dessert to share.  We plan for the food at 4:00PM and a short club meeting about 6:00PM.  Bring your lawn chairs.

June 23-25 is the annual Paul Poberenzy SAA  fly-in at Frasca Field in Urbana.  The organization has recently ceased publication of its quarterly magazine.  It is not known if the SAA will continue or in what form, but thank to Frasca, there is still a fly-in.  It could be the last one.  Plan to pay them visit and show your support for this group.

The May 20th club meeting was held at the airstrip of Curt Shoaf near Crescent City Illinois. There were 14 members present and 7 aircraft flew in for the meeting in spite of some moderate wind.  It was Tom, Mark, Mick, Dan, Raymund, Dave Patrick, and Billy Harrison.  Billy flew in from the farthest distance, about 80 miles.  Club president Richard Davis drove in from the greatest distance.  We had a great time and the food was fabulous.

Curt has several interesting runway options at his place but most of them are somewhat short.  Billy had to leave first as he had the farthest to go. Raymund decided to go with him and took off first towards the south.  The winds were from the west and the entire runway area is in a sheltered area.  During the climb out Raymund hit bad rotors and had a wild ride going through the gap in the trees.  Billy, and all the rest of us elected to takeoff to the east.  It was a downwind takeoff but no with obstacles and a good half mile or more to any trees.  We all made it OK from that 500-600 foot runway but it was tight.

The month of May has brought some interesting and dangerous weather to our area.  Mark and Tom discovered the experience of flying through a passing weather front.  They took off in calm conditions and then suddenly in less than a minute it became very windy and gusty.  It has happen to them twice. Always check the weather reports for approaching fronts.  Listen to NOAA on your aviation handheld.  Sometimes fronts can arrive several hours earlier than expected.  If there isn’t much moisture in the air you can have a dry front or “blue” front which may have no clouds associated with it.

Wind gusts associated with thunderstoms can be even worse than those due to fronts.  One such storm is blamed for recent fatal accident in Indiana.  You can get hammered by gusts from a thunderstorm which is 30 miles away.  It may be hidden by lower clouds.   You could have blue sky overhead.

Curt Shoaf recently experienced severe wind gusts immediately after landing and had his trike overturned by a gust while he was taxiing.  There were no injuries accept to the trike.  Dave Patrick had his Kitfox tied down outside as a storm passed by his airstrip near Milford.  Looking out the window he could see the plane flying completely off the ground, at the end of its ropes.

Strong gusts of wind that witnesses said emerged without much warning as a storm approached Wells County Indiana caused a deadly ultralight airplane crash southwest of Bluffton near Miller Airport Thursday evening.  A gust of wind apparently caught the wing, flipped the ultralight craft and forced it down into a soybean field less than one-half mile from the runway it was supposed to land on.  "The wind all of a sudden picked up," said John Miller, who owns Miller Airport and witnessed the crash.  "There really wasn't any warning. He was up in the air and got caught in that."  Thursday's crash happened around 5:52 p.m. as thunderstorms approached and the wind picked up. The sun was still shining at the time of the crash, but conditions were worsening.   The plane was on top of the pilot when emergency crews arrived and Liberty Center fire-rescue units had to use a cutting apparatus to remove some of the framing to get him out, Powell said.  Emergency crews airlifted 70-year-old Robert Travis of 9147 Wayne Trace in Allen County to Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne in critical condition following the crash, where he died around 7 p.m.