1st Annual AHA Midwest Regional Hatz Fly-in Report

During the winter of 1998, Dale and I had been sitting in the Wee Beastie Biplane Works for most of an evening sipping our favorite golden beverage and talking about our favorite biplanes.

"You know what would be cool?" I offered. "What if we got all the local Hatz guys together so we could all meet each other?"

"Mmph-mph..." Dale was in mid-sip and could temporarily offer no further words on the subject. I continued.

"I mean, we got a slew of Hatz Nutz around the area, you , me, Rick, Walt, Mike. Jeez, we had a dozen aircraft at Merrill for the Homecoming, not to mention all the folks who came."

"Yup, that would be cool," Dale approved as he set down the empty can. "

"Just a get together, informal, maybe a cookout here at the house or something." I was thinking out loud by now as I stood to get a couple of full cans of beverage from the upstairs fridge. "Ya know, nuthin' big."

"Yeah," agreed Dale again, "but when?"

Facing a very active spring and summer of EAA Chapter activities to organize as President of the Chapter, I could only shrug.

Well, I thought, it was an idea anyway.

The first annual Midwest Regional Hatz Fly-in happened at Poplar Grove Airport (C77) on Saturday, October 2, 1999. Well, there’s more to say about it than just that. Here goes.

Everyone began to arrive on Friday, flying in from as far away as Connecticut, Georgia, Oklahoma, Texas, Minnesota, and other states. What had been thought of as a local fly-in soon showed that it was really a national event.

We certainly had a large crew to help set up in the open hangar that Steve and Tina Thomas, owners of the airport, had provided for this Gathering of the Gaggle. Mark and Sandra Marino came down from Duluth and pitched in, even bringing out greatly needed donuts on Saturday morning. Mary Jones, from Oklahoma, beat me to the airport and was already hard at work clearing the hangar with Bill Rusk. Bill’s an old fighter jock and he still moves so fast sometimes you can hear a boom as he passes by. Soon, others arrived to pitch in and within a few hours, everything was ready. The crowd of nearly twenty finally called it a day and headed off to Rockford for our first dinner together.

It was great to see old Hatz friends and to meet new ones. This, after all, was the whole point of having the MR. After the great Hatz Homecoming at Merrill, Wisconsin in 1998, it was obvious that there were a lot of Hatz Nutz in the Midwest and that a national fly-in for the Hatz could be well attended and supported by the Hatz community. Little did we realize how well.

While at the dinner, Crazy Mike Devroy and his family came into the restaurant to join us. He and his son had just flown in to Poplar Grove in his latest Hatzy acquisition, s/n 100. Mike was officially the first Hatz arrival at the MR, but not the last.

On Saturday morning, the weather had turned very cold and windy, the sky low and gray. The hangar was a miserable place to be, but I didn’t hear a bit of complaining... teeth chattering, but no complaints. Finally, Tina Thomas took pity on us all and offered a heated hangar for our use. Instantly, everything that had taken hours to set up only took minutes to haul away to the heated hangar space. Talk about enthusiasm! Or was it the cold? Whatever. We moved rapidly, shuttling tableloads of material by hand across the ramp.

That move made all the difference. Now comfortably settled into the corporate hangar, everyone got into the event. Mike Devroy’s old Kelly-D, now flown by its new owner, arrived, so we dubbed the ramp “Crazy Mike’s Used Aircraft Emporium”. Dale Severs had driven out to the MR, but soon returned home to get his Grand Champion Hatz. Then there were three.

A wonderful surprise at the MR was the arrival of Charlie Becker and Norm Petersen from EAA. Charlie is the Executive Director of Information Services at EAA and Norm, well, after thirty years, if you don’t know who Norm Petersen is, you had better brush up on your Sport Aviation and Experimenter reading. It was a great honor to have both of these gentlemen attend the MR, giving us all the impression that maybe this whole idea wasn’t so crazy after all.

Another nice surprise was seeing Lyman Hatz and AHA Director Tiny Hotzfeld make it down from Merrill. Lyman wasn’t sure whether he could make it due to a hectic work schedule, but he does have a way to make things happen when it comes to Hatz biplanes. Unfortunately, the cold weather prevented Lyman from flying down in the original Hatz, Happiness. We’re going to fix the weather just so he can do that next year. Airplane or not, it sure was great to see the Gang from Merrill make it to the MR.

Bill and Pam Rusk fired up the grills and we soon had hamburgers and hot dogs like crazy, not to mention every other kind of picnic fare, including a major staple of my own diet: chocolate chip cookies. The food was terrific and while folks finished eating, we did a couple of quick tech talks.

Bill discussed his fuselage that was on display. It has quite a few interesting features that I’ve been bugging him to write up for the newsletter and website, including some nifty hinged seats. Hope we see something soon or I may have to visit him again just to get the story. That will be my excuse to visit anyway.

After Bill was done, I talked a tad about the High Tech Rib Jig until Dale’s arrival in New Vintage. His timing was perfect since I had run out of things to talk about. I gratefully joined everyone else out on the ramp to watch Dale taxi in.

Dale then took to the mike to discuss his Hatz and field questions from the group.

A very important and proud moment at the MR was the awarding of the plaque for EAA North Central Fly-in Grand Champion to Dale by Galen Johnson. Dale has now accumulated a Bronze Lindy (Champion, Plans-built) at EAA Oshkosh ‘98, Grand Champion at EAA Sun’n’Fun ‘99, and now Grand Champion at EAA North Central. The EAA North Central award is particularly significant because it’s an award based on popular vote by the attendees. It’s also significant in that there’s a cash award that goes with it. Pays for the gas and then some, that’s for sure.

Charlie Becker spoke a bit about what EAA is working on and asked for builders to fill out a sheet that he passed around so that EAA could refer folks who call with questions to Hatz builders within their own areas. Now that’s making use of the building community to help each other out. A very capital idea, Mr. Becker.

The weather was breaking and the sun finally popped out. We all headed out to the ramp for lots of photos and a fly-by of the Hatzes and the Kelly-D in formation. It was amazing to see them fly past in review like that.

The final attendance count was about fifty people and three aircraft on the line. Not bad for a one-day event that was put together in about thirty days and wasn’t even advertised until a few weeks before it happened, not to mention the lousy weather. None of that seemed to matter to the dedicated group that attended this year. It was obvious that everyone wanted very much to make this fly-in happen.

The final event of the MR was a dinner at the Holiday Inn hotel later that evening. I haven’t laughed so much in a long time. Hatz Nutz are a crazy group, that’s for sure.

But before leaving for the dinner, when the hangar had been emptied out, while Bill was hauling the grills away, and while Dale was giving one last ride in the Hatz, I found myself alone on the ramp, enjoying my thoughts about the day. For a moment, I wondered whether in ten or twenty years, I’d be doing the same thing. Maybe I’d think back to the first MR, to this moment. I could tell the folks attending for the first time about the very first MR. I know about fifty other folks who could do the same. There from the beginning. Nice thoughts, but within seconds, those thoughts quickly changed to thinking about next year. Bill, Pam, I, and many others are going to be very busy between now and then. Just wait and see what we do next year!

Hatzdom owes a debt of gratitude to Bill Rusk, the Chairman of the AHA MR, and his wife Pam for putting the MR together at Poplar Grove. They did the hard work that had to be done while trying to complete construction of their new house. At a time when most folks would be overwhelmed with drywall and painting, they gladly took on a fly-in. For me, the MR was simply an idea and a wish. Bill and Pam took that and turned it into reality. For that, I will always be grateful. Thanks, folks, thank you very much.

The MR was airplanes and people, ideas and thoughts, good friends and good food. It was, someone said, a “perfect little fly-in”. They didn’t get an argument from me on that.

We plan to have the MR continue to grow every year and are working hard to make it a nationally recognized, annual Hatz fly-in. The Gathering of the Gaggle in the Land o’ Lincoln, the Ah-hah, Mister Hatz, or just simply, the M.R, however you think of it, come out and join us next year at Poplar Grove and see why Hatz Nutz are the greatest folks in aviation and why the Hatz and Kelly-D biplanes are magic.

Watch for the notices for the Second Annual AHA MR. See you there!

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Email Doug at thayer5@mindspring.com

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