WHAT IF (separated from Whispers of North)

[LostnSpace]

Re: Whispers of the North

NOW please check out www.sracompany.com and see what they do now:

"SRA is a service company focused on supporting the maquiladora industry. Having served many maquila plants, we are aware of the "High Quality Requirements" and take pride in meeting the needs of all concerned. SRA is a service company focused on supporting the automotive, electronical, electrical and plastic industries, located through out the U. S., Canada and the maquiladora & manufacturing industries. "

The maquiladoro industry is the method of $2.75 skilled labor with no duties either way. check it out with google.
Why go to China , the Czech Rebublic and all the other ones. At least I can fly my Taylorcraft to Brownsville or Mexico very easily

Looking at wekipedia I see this: A maquiladora or maquila is a factory that imports materials and equipment on a duty-free and tariff-free basis for assembly or manufacturing and then re-exports the assembled product, usually back to the originating country, do I get the sense of the tooling heading South?, gary

[Forrest Barber]

Re: Whispers of the North

It is their tooling. MAYBE! Just keep an eye on the situation. Mike Rice has jumped in and he has great insight along with Hank & many others. I will be issuing report to the Foundation Board and Regional Reps soon. Will share their comments.

[Pearson]

Re: Whispers of the North

[QUOTE... most can't even get an email answered from there, never the less any sort of actual production of parts. It's a nice dream, but the workers of the organization here are too far spread and things go undone too often and .....[/QUOTE]

As a member of this forum, I enjoy hearing all the "inside" poop about what people are doing with their Taylorcrafts. I learn a lot here, and try to repay what I learn by offering suggestions when I can. This is a very interesting thread, but there is some basically flawed thinking going on here.

I meet Taylorcraft owners all the time, who have either never heard of this forum, or have heard of it, tried to get questions answered, and gave up after getting no response. I think the forum needs to take a good look at itself and ask, "are we really the voice of Taylorcraft owners". Sure the forum here represents a large number of owners. And we obviously have a voice; ie, the input offered to the FAA regarding the wings attach fitting AD and now the suggestions to the new factory.

But I think that we as a group need to keep an objective eye toward thinking we are it, as far as speaking for owners of Taylorcraft. I personally find it absolutely amazing that people own a Taylorcraft and have never even heard of this forum. If I were to buy a Fliginthropter Airplane, the first thing I would do before I even bought it would be to Google Fliginthropter. Yet I meet people all the time flying a Taylorcraft that thought the factory went out of business years ago, and haven't even thought of searching for a forum such as this one.

And don't think of this as just the forum helping these owners out. Who knows what untapped talent lies out there, just waiting for an opportunity to share their wealth of knowledge.

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: Whispers of the North

Don't know about the rest of the Tribe, but I leave my card on every Taylorcraft I see. Most of the time it seems like I find out it's a plane of someone here, but occasionally I hit someone who never heard of us. The hard part with those is getting them to understand I DON'T wan to sell them something and I'm not some nut crawling out of the ramp grass (I let them find out I'm nuts slowly, so I don't scare them away).
I am on several aviation groups and believe me, this is the very best one for helpful, knowledgeable people. What some don't understand is NO ONE is getting paid to do this! Most everybody here has a real job to pay the bills (or are putting most of their time and effort into getting THEIR plane flying if they are retired). Our JOB isn't to jump in and answer someones question. That isn't just a problem here, it is in all groups. Newcomers ask a question, go for a cup of coffee, and are blown away that no one has posted an answer when they get back! We all did it at first, and some of us still do. It has taken me YEARS to get some answers, especially on some of the WW-I replica groups. Once you get an answer it seems like everyone comes out of the woodwork fighting over if the first one is right. Go ahead and ask any Sopwith Camel nut if PC-10 paint was green or brown! Those guys will argue for months over which SHADE is closest.
We do REALLY WELL here. New folks (and the rest of us too sometimes) need to remember that people like Forrest are running AIRPORTS and full time businesses! He kind of likes to go flying sometimes too. That's why he prioritizes answering the mail with family first, business next and foundation members third (speaking without knowing for sure but that would be MY priorities). That means a new guy may have to wait till the weekend (if the weather is too bad to fly) or even LONGER for an answer.
It's up to US to track down all of those owners (the FAA registry is a great place to start) and get them to join with us. The more of us there are as a group the better off we all will be.
Get some cards and keep your eyes open. It's really fun to find a new owner!
Hank

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: Whispers of the North

I wasn't paying that much attention and this has become one of the worst hijacks of a thread we have done here! We drifted off on post 5 and it was actually a really good thread on flying in Alaska! Anyone know how to split the conversations apart and build a new thread for each? Might actually be easier to rename this one and restart the Alaska one at this point!
Hank

[Guest]

Re: Whispers of the North

I wasn't paying that much attention and this has become one of the worst hijacks of a thread we have done here! We drifted off on post 5 and it was actually a really good thread on flying in Alaska! Anyone know how to split the conversations apart and build a new thread for each? Might actually be easier to rename this one and restart the Alaska one at this point!
Hank

LOL

yes you are exactly correct Hank!

apologies to all, I did my part here too !

Dave

[Pearson]

Re: Whispers of the North

Hey Hank,

I thought I was the only one that did that. I have met some great people from leaving a card on their airplane.

[N96337]

WHAT IF from Whispers of North

We do REALLY WELL here. New folks (and the rest of us too sometimes) need to remember that people like Forrest are running AIRPORTS and full time businesses! He kind of likes to go flying sometimes too. That's why he prioritizes answering the mail with family first, business next and foundation members third (speaking without knowing for sure but that would be MY priorities). That means a new guy may have to wait till the weekend (if the weather is too bad to fly) or even LONGER for an answer.

Hank

Exactly, Hank....that's why I said that the "foundation" doesn't need to try to get into the parts business.... it isn't gonna work. All that would do is tie up some more stuff and keep it from someone that might actually do something with it. Everyone already has enough to do and are scattered from one end of the earth to the other....that's not good logistics.
JH

[Guest]

Re: Whispers of the North

Actually, I am getting discouraged with my Foundation membership (not the forum discussion). I am doubting the purpose of being a member. I am just not seeing the value added benefit of being a Foundation member.

It's just too hard or impossible to get and email response from you Forrest.

Direct phone calls sometimes get thru but even then I don't get the drawings that I need.

I did compile the data from the "what parts do you want buy in the next 24 months" thread into a spreadsheet. As I looked at it I realized that there are about 67 requests for about 48 parts and of that 48 I believe that 22 of them are readily available from 3rd party sources. I considered making a list of the sources by part number or description. However, I got to thinking, isn't that part of the foundation's charter to do such things?

Additionally I am not very interested in the reasons why it is this way, frankly I don't care. Every task has its troubles.

I just wish it would be fixed and were different.

Dave

[Pearson]

Re: Whispers of the North

When I joined the Taylorcraft Foundation in 2001?? I had an expectation of something more like most Type Clubs. I had friends who had short wing Pipers and Stinsons, so I would regularly visit those websites and attend their gatherings. After joining, I realized, the Taylorcraft Foundation isn't really a "type club" as I think of most others being. I get a kick out of owning a little piece of history. And it gives me a great feeling to be able to spread the word of how C.G. designed the Piper Cub and then went off to start his own company. Seems like everyone knows about the "Piper" Cub, but few have heard of the "Taylor" Cub.

Maybe instead of berating Forrest for not answering emails or for having a life outside of the Foundation, the solution would be to start a type club more like what other airplane types have. Possibly some sort of symbiotic relationship could be created where the two entities support each other and grow stronger. I would love to have a club where chapters are scattered throughout the country so there would be more fly-ins to attend.

I for one would be willing to pay a higher annual dues to support paying for a website where 337s, STCs, ADs, and other important information could be downloaded. Maybe have a basic annual membership fee and then charge $10 to download a copy of an STC. Or $3 for a copy of a factory drawing.

I think the Foundation is a great organization and needs to continue in it's crusade to preserve the history of the type and the lore that surrounds it. But I think that owners are seeking more on a day to day basis regarding maintaining, restoring, and improving our aircraft. Having one person responsible for disseminating all this information is an obvious choke point. Unless this info is some sort of proprietary info that is not supposed to be shared, it would make more sense, to me at least, to put it on a website where it can be downloaded at the user's leisure.

[Guest]

Re: Whispers of the North

When I joined the Taylorcraft Foundation in 2001?? I had an expectation of something more like most Type Clubs. I had friends who had short wing Pipers and Stinsons, so I would regularly visit those websites and attend their gatherings. After joining, I realized, the Taylorcraft Foundation isn't really a "type club" as I think of most others being. I get a kick out of owning a little piece of history. And it gives me a great feeling to be able to spread the word of how C.G. designed the Piper Cub and then went off to start his own company. Seems like everyone knows about the "Piper" Cub, but few have heard of the "Taylor" Cub.

Maybe instead of berating Forrest for not answering emails or for having a life outside of the Foundation, the solution would be to start a type club more like what other airplane types have. Possibly some sort of symbiotic relationship could be created where the two entities support each other and grow stronger. I would love to have a club where chapters are scattered throughout the country so there would be more fly-ins to attend.

I for one would be willing to pay a higher annual dues to support paying for a website where 337s, STCs, ADs, and other important information could be downloaded. Maybe have a basic annual membership fee and then charge $10 to download a copy of an STC. Or $3 for a copy of a factory drawing.

I think the Foundation is a great organization and needs to continue in it's crusade to preserve the history of the type and the lore that surrounds it. But I think that owners are seeking more on a day to day basis regarding maintaining, restoring, and improving our aircraft. Having one person responsible for disseminating all this information is an obvious choke point. Unless this info is some sort of proprietary info that is not supposed to be shared, it would make more sense, to me at least, to put it on a website where it can be downloaded at the user's leisure.

Hi Richard,
So I think that you are saying that I am expecting the wrong things from the Foundation. Did I get that correct?

It may well be so that I am expecting the wrong things.

Dave

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: Whispers of the North

I'm a long standing supporter of having local Taylorcraft clubs. We have the Foundation, the Taylorcraft Club (national/international) and it make sense to me to have local or regional groups. We had the Virginia/Carolinas Taylorcraft Club for years but it has gone dormant. I would suggest we do something by region. As I remember I was a member of several local Taylorcraft clubs at one time and really enjoyed hearing from all the groups. If we do it there should be two types of membership, those actually living in a region and a category for those who wish to be "involved" but may not be able to "be there".

I'm up for getting the Mid Atlantic section back together. Anybody else close interested?

Hank

We never could (or wanted to) keep VCTOC to only Virginia and North and South Carolina. We had members as far west as California and as far east as South Africa!

[Pearson]

Re: Whispers of the North

Dave,

I didn't mean to say that you had the wrong expectations. I was just pointing out that the foundation wasn't what I thought it was when I joined.

I was trying to say that I fully appreciate the efforts of the Foundation to preserve the history and technical information of the airplanes. But I was hoping for more. I mentioned in my earlier post about what some of these things are.

I think this forum is the most valuable resource most of us have. I can't imagine owning a Taylorcraft and not being aware of this site.

[Guest]

Re: Whispers of the North

Dave,

I didn't mean to say that you had the wrong expectations. I was just pointing out that the foundation wasn't what I thought it was when I joined.

I was trying to say that I fully appreciate the efforts of the Foundation to preserve the history and technical information of the airplanes. But I was hoping for more. I mentioned in my earlier post about what some of these things are.

I think this forum is the most valuable resource most of us have. I can't imagine owning a Taylorcraft and not being aware of this site.

no offense taken on my end, you made me think

and maybe I do in fact have wrong expectations

[asq]

Re: Whispers of the North

You certainly aren't alone Dave. Larry Huntley, Dundee,NY

Actually, I am getting discouraged with my Foundation membership (not the forum discussion). I am doubting the purpose of being a member. I am just not seeing the value added benefit of being a Foundation member.

It's just too hard or impossible to get and email response from you Forrest.

Direct phone calls sometimes get thru but even then I don't get the drawings that I need.

I did compile the data from the "what parts do you want buy in the next 24 months" thread into a spreadsheet. As I looked at it I realized that there are about 67 requests for about 48 parts and of that 48 I believe that 22 of them are readily available from 3rd party sources. I considered making a list of the sources by part number or description. However, I got to thinking, isn't that part of the foundation's charter to do such things?

Additionally I am not very interested in the reasons why it is this way, frankly I don't care. Every task has its troubles.

I just wish it would be fixed and were different.

Dave