This event has ended. Thanks to everyone who stopped by our table. It was great to meet you, learn what your needs are, and hear your suggestions for product improvement. Reuben and April Zook look forward to seeing you again next year.

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Welcome to a new year of IA Refresher Seminars!  For 2020, we kick off with our first event in sunny Daytona, Florida!

Meet us, Reuben and April Zook, at the Zook Aviation table:

Hosted by Concorde Battery and Sponsored by the Orlando FSDO FAAST Team, we hope you will join us there.

Seats are limited, so please Register Online as soon as possible, to reserve your spot.

The Seminar will be held at: 

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
600 S. Clyde Morris Blvd.
Henderson Welcome Center
Daytona Beach, FL 32114

Click HERE for a MAP & Directions

Date and Time:

Saturday, January 18th, 2020
Sign In begins at 7 AM.
Classes start promptly at 8 AM.
Two classes per hour to choose from. Full-day, 8 hour event. Attendees earn certificate for 8 credit hours.

Cost:

The event is FREE to all Attendees.

Further Details to the event can be viewed here, on the FAA’s event page:

IA Refresher – Daytona, FL

If you plan to attend, please let us know!

Sales Tax laws and rules vary by state and locality, by the item being sold, and to whom.

On the Service Invoice, you can change the Tax status for each individual line item (including Labor, Parts and Misc), but you can also change it for the entire Invoice, at one time.

To quickly turn the Sales Tax OFF or ON for the entire Invoice:  Click “Edit Invoice”.  Either select, or deselect the check box next to “Calculate Sales Tax Based on Rate and Taxable Items”, and click the Save button:

1. Click Edit Invoice:

2. Either select, or deselect the check box next to “Calculate Sales Tax Based on Rate and Taxable Items”, and click the Save button:

If you want to leave the Sales Tax active for the entire Invoice, but want to modify individual items, just click Edit on the line item, check or uncheck the Taxable box, and click the Save button:

1. Click Edit on the individual line item, one at a time, for Labor, Parts or Misc:

2. Check or uncheck the Taxable box, and click the Save button:

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Have more questions? Contact Us:

https://zookaviation.com/blog/contact-us/

Monday thru Thursday: Open from 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Friday/IA Seminars, Saturday & Sunday:  The office is Closed. Calls, voicemails and emails will be responded to within a reasonable amount of time.

Do you need to copy and modify an existing AD line in your AD Report?

It’s easy!  Here’s how:

1. Click the checkbox under Select AD:

2. Scroll back up to the top of the Report and click the Duplicate button:

3. Click Confirm:

4. Type to modify the AD Title and to create Notes.  Remember to click SAVE!

5. Print to see the duplicated AD, with changes:

 

If you need to delete a single AD within an AD Report, it’s easy as 1, 2, 3. Here’s how:

1. Select the AD by clicking the checkbox to the right of the AD.

2. Next, click the red button at the top right, that says “Delete Selected AD”.

3. Confirm Delete.

You’re done.

Have more questions? Contact Us:

https://zookaviation.com/blog/contact-us/

Tuskegee Airman donates prized plane to aviation museum on Veterans Day

Frank Macon in a flight suit during primary training at Tuskegee. Courtesy Franklin Macon person collection.

By the time Frank Macon turned 21, he’d already defied a lifetime’s worth of odds, making it from Colorado Springs to Alabama to join the nation’s first group of African American fighter pilots, the Tuskegee Airmen.

He was in the final weeks before graduation and looking forward to service overseas, his officer’s uniform tailored and hanging in the closet, when — despite a “terrible” head cold — he went up to train on that fateful day 75 years ago.

“We were up there having a blast. We loved practicing our dogfighting,” says Macon, in “I Wanted to be a Pilot,” his 2019 autobiography aimed at young readers. “Looking back, I should have gone to the dispensary. That’s the doctor. Being stubborn, I didn’t.”

World War II veteran and Tuskegee Airman, Frank Macon, will donate his prized 1944 Stinson Vultee V-77 “Gullwing” aircraft to the National Museum of World War II Aviation in Colorado Springs at a public ceremony, 11 a.m. Mon. at the museum’s Kaija Raven Shook Aeronautical Pavilion, 775 Aviation Way.

Frank Macon poses for a portrait in his home on Monday, Nov. 4, 2019. Macon was one of the original Tuskegee Airmen, the nation’s first group of African American fighter pilots. Just weeks before graduation, he went up for a flight in a T-6, despite having a severe head cold, and ruptured both of his eardrums. He missed graduation and spent almost a year recovering. By the time he’d healed, World War II was over.

As he pulled his T-6 out of a power-dive, Macon felt an excruciating “pop.” The drastic pressure change of the maneuver had ruptured both his eardrums. He missed graduation and spent almost a year recovering. By the time he’d healed, World War II was over.

“When my class graduated, I was in the hospital,” he said. “I’ve thought about a lot of that … and it just seems like fate.”

Frank Macon’s pilot portrait from Tuskegee. Courtesy Franklin Macon personal collection.

Like he was meant to do something else.

Lots of somethings else, as it turned out.

Macon earned his wings and returned to the Springs, where he worked for 23 years at Fort Carson, retiring as head of aircraft maintenance. He raised a family, ran a machine shop fabricating electronics, researched aviation accidents professionally, and continues to write, study, invent and work with kids to inspire a love of learning and curiosity.

“I really did things that I wouldn’t have done if I had just been a pilot because that’s all I would have been doing, boring holes in the sky,” said Macon, who turned 96 in August.

Frank Macon with his “beloved” 1944 Stinson.  Courtesy of Franklin Macon

You don’t have to be in a plane to bore holes in the sky and you don’t have to be a fighter pilot to pursue — and achieve — your dreams.

“There are a lot of kids who say, well, ‘They won’t let me do this.’ No. You’re the one that won’t let you do it,” he said. “I had to overcome a lot of obstacles to get to where I was, but for every obstacle I had to overcome I learned something.”

Like an airplane, Macon was built to soar. We all are, is his point.

“Frank is very hands on … not an academic, but he can build an airplane,” said Liz Harper a teacher who met Macon through mutual friends and partnered with him in writing his autobiography. “There’s a lot of kids that way, too. They’re much better at building than maybe studying or memorizing or whatever.

Frank Macon Elizabeth G. Harper at the National World War II Aviation Museum in Colorado Springs. Harper partnered with Macon to co-author his 2019 biography, “I Wanted to be a Pilot — The Making of a Tuskegee Airman,” which is aimed at young adult readers. Courtesy: Deanna Dyekman, Joyful Traditions, LLC

“He really has a heart to help all kids who struggle. I do know at the time (after he burst his eardrums), it was devastating. But just Frank being Frank, he turns everything that’s very hard into something positive.”

Macon grew up a few blocks from the west side home where he lives today. He never knew his father, and though his mom — who’d had him at age 14 — lived just down the street, Macon didn’t know who she was until later life. He was raised by two great aunts. Though he struggled greatly with math and reading in school, due to what later was diagnosed as dyslexia, he was a mechanical whiz who put his skills to work creating devices and pranks that earned swift punishment — including hymn-singing penance at the parlor piano — from the aunts.

“For him, it (the challenge) really is not about the race issue at the time, because his neighborhood was very different and his school was integrated,” Harper said. “Not that he didn’t have experiences with segregation and that sort of thing, but for Frank, his biggest hurdle, he will tell you, is his dyslexia and fact that didn’t know his birth mom and birth father.”

Macon built his first “plane” out of orange crates when he was “eight or 10,” and hauled it down the street for a test run in the Uintah Gardens area.

That “was kind of a low area, kind of a swamp … and there was a hill and guys would try to drive their cars up there … to see how far they could get. Sometimes they’d roll down the hill,” Macon said. “We took it up there and was trying to fly it off, and the wings fell off.”

By the time he was a teen, Macon had found more productive channels for his creative energy.

The Alexander Film Co., which produced advertising shorts for movies, sat on a 26-acre compound that contained its own airstrip and airplane manufacturing plant that, at the time, was the largest of its kind in the world.

“Alexander Aircraft was up in the north end of town and I used to always ride my bicycle up there all the time and go in the factory when they were building the airplanes and watch what they did. And they showed me a lot … taught me a lot before I even got into the air,” Macon said. “Some would take me up flying, and I’d help wash the airplanes down or clean parts and things like that, so I just liked it. And so it was just a part of me.”

Macon spent the rest of his free time at the garage down the street, watching the mechanics work. Eventually, the owner “got tired of running me off and he put me to work, sweeping the floor, cleaning the parts and all like that,” he said. “Finally they started showing me how to disassemble different parts and also how to reassemble them.”

By the time Macon got to Tuskegee, not only could he fly an airplane, he could take it apart and put it back together again.

“Frank learned to fly here with the Civil Air Patrol first, and they told him not to tell when he went to Tuskegee. At the time, it was an experiment and they didn’t think that if you were black you could fly. So mum was the word, and everyone was on an equal plane with everyone else,” said Harper,

She recalls Macon’s response when an airman at a base they visited in Cheyenne, Wyo., asked who he considered to be the best leaders at Tuskegee.

“He paused for a long time and then said, ‘I can’t answer that. We all had to be exceptional,’” Harper said. “If everybody wasn’t exceptional in this experiment, it wouldn’t have happened.”

Retired Air Force Col. James Stewart was stationed in the Springs in the 1970s when he got to know Macon, and realized he was in the presence of a legend. It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that the story of the Tuskegee Airmen reached wider audiences, thanks in large part to an HBO movie celebrating their largely unsung contributions to the war effort. But flight was Stewart’s purview. He knew.

“The movie created the conversation. Then the United States started locating all the Tuskegee Airmen and identifying who they were,” said Stewart, who’s also co-chairman of the Springs’ National Museum of World War II Aviation. “They’re role models for any African American kid or any young kid who wants to go out and fly and go through the experience. But for a long time, the Tuskegee Airmen had no recognition whatsoever.”

Even after that big picture recognition came, identifying the individual heroes in a community remained a challenge.

“These guys aren’t braggers and they don’t talk much about things, unless pressed. They’re just very humble guys, and Frank’s no exception,” said Col. Mark Dickerson, president of the Hubert L. “Hooks” Jones Chapter of the Tuskegee Airman Inc. “He’s just a really neat guy. And he’s moving slower these days, and a lot of times he may answer kind of slow, but when he does answer a lot of times you’re just knocked off your chair by what he says.”

Dickerson was introduced to Macon about 25 years ago when both men were members of the High Flights Soaring Club at Peyton’s Meadow Lake Airport, the state’s largest pilot-owned airport, which Macon helped establish in 1967.

“At the time, I didn’t know he was an original Tuskegee Airmen … and the fact that folks like you or me can be hanging around these guys and not even know who they are is a message in and of itself,” Dickerson said. “These guys did what needed to be done and contributed from the heart without looking for a lot of accolades. It’s a message about their humility and just basically their desire to just do good things, make good stuff happen.”

The first plane Macon built fell apart before it got into the air.

The last, a 1944 Stinson Vultee V-77 “Gullwing” aircraft, has a much more indelible story.

Macon and some buddies were flying in the Denver area in the early 1950s when they spotted the plane sitting in an old airfield. They landed and inquired about the vintage aircraft, and learned it had been made in America for the Canadian Air Force, and was a military plane used as a civilian transport during World War II.

“They wanted $1,500 for it and we said we’ll just give you $500, and they said, ‘We’ll take it,’” said Macon. “We took the wings off of it and put the tail section up in the pickup, put the wings on a trailer, and hauled it down to Colorado Springs.

And it took Macon and his partners over three years, working on evenings and weekends, to rebuild it.

On Monday — Veterans Day — Macon will donate that prized aircraft to the National Museum of World War II Aviation at a special ceremony.

“We’ve had other Tuskegee Airmen who’ve made donations to the museum … uniforms and that kind of thing, but Frank’s donation is a major donation in that it sets aside a piece of history that most people don’t even think about,” Stewart said. “This is a piece of American history that talks about the civilian side of what was going on in World War II. And it ties in directly to a Tuskegee Airman — a Tuskegee Airman from Colorado Springs who’s lived here, essentially, his whole life.”

Original Story Source:   https://gazette.com/premium/tuskegee-airman-donates-prized-plane-to-aviation-museum-on-veterans/article_452f7368-ffe7-11e9-bb49-6705503689a5.html

 

What is “My Aircraft”?

If you’re tired of re-typing the same information over and over, and want a better solution, wait no more!

By popular customer demand, we announce the release of “My Aircraft“:  a simple way to see all the information for a single plane, all on one page.

Just click on the link for a quick look at “My Aircraft”!

What Actions You Take:

• • Add a photo of the aircraft
  • Add basic information:  Make, Model, Tail #, Serial Number, Hours
  • Create or link an AD Report
  • Attach a Customer to the plane’s profile
  • Create or link a Logbook Record
  • Create or link Weigh Forms (Weight and Balance)
  • Create or link Form 337
  • Create or link an ICA Form (Instructions for Continued Airworthiness)

What’s Automatically Listed:

• • FAA Registry data
  • Airworthiness Directives
  • Service Documents
  • AMAs (Aviation maintenance Alerts)
  • TCDs

What May Potentially Be Added Later:

• • Accident/Incident Reports
    

It’s easy to create your first record in “My Aircraft”.  Here’s how:

Login to the Member’s Dashboard:  1) click My Aircraft, then 2) click Create New Aircraft:

Next, type in the model number, and click Search:

Choose the specific model from the list, and tap the Select an Airframe button:

From here, you can perform many tasks, but the first one we’d recommend is to set up the Aircraft Profile in the upper left hand corner, and go from there.

“My Airplane” just launched, and may still have a few kinks to work out.  Let us know if you have any questions or suggestions as you explore around.

*New Post Coming Soon:  How to link existing documents (AD Reports, Forms, 337s, Logbook Entries, Work Orders, Invoices, Weight & Balances Sheets, etc).

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Create your own custom Maintenance Releases. It’s easy, here’s how:

Begin by creating a few different Releases that you use most often.   From the Member’s Dashboard, click on the My Maintenance Release button:

That will take you to the list of custom releases. At first, you won’t have any in the list, you have to make one.  It’s simple, just type your words into the box, and click Save:

*Suggestion:  At the bottom of your custom release, you can add a simple line that includes your Signature, Date and IA #.  Here’s an example:

Signature: _________________________  Date: ____________________________ Authorization No.: _____________________

 

You will see your newly created Releases in the list:

 

ADD A RELEASE TO LOGBOOK ENTRIES:

Add your own custom Maintenance Release to Logbook Entries.   Either create a new, or open the Logbook Record you want to add your Maintenance Release to.

Click the blue bubble and either select an existing Release, or add a new one:

You will now see the Release has been added to the bottom of your Logbook remarks.  Be sure to click the Save button!

You will see your Logbook remarks and the Release on your print out:

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