Join us Monday, June 1st for our monthly membership meeting. We have a special guest speaker for you tonight.
We’ll gather at the chapter hangar around 6pm for hangar flying, with the main meeting starting at 7pm. We’ll spend a few minutes on chapter business, followed by the main presentation.
Dan Wells is a Senior Test Pilot for Leonardo Helicopters. He has been involved in the development of the AW609 and will discuss with us the challenges of flying a tiltrotor, with an emphasis on Vortex Ring State and Aeroelasticity and the way they were approached during flight testing.
We hope to see you Monday evening. Visitors and guests are always welcome! This is our last membership meeting before the summer break.
Join us Monday, May 4th, starting at 6pm, for our May Membership Meeting.
Getting a bit of a jump start on Memorial Day, we’ll be grilling hot dogs and hamburgers, enjoying what’s forecast to be a very nice and sunny day. Are you a Star Wars fan? Then May the Fourth be with you! Bring your favorite shirt or any other memorabilia and show it off!
We’ll enjoy the food and hangar talk until around 7pm, then head upstairs to the meeting room for a quick update on chapter business. before handing it over to our guest speaker for the evening.
John Warrington built his Sonex in 2007, and he and his airplane have been a regular presence at chapter fly-outs and other events.
John will go through his build experience, sharing his lessons learned moments and what it took to get from the first rivet to the first flight. He’ll then go over the Phase 1 flight testing and follow up with how the plane has been operating in the years since. A great learning opportunity for any current or future builders, please join us and John for Monday’s presentation!
As usual, visitors and member guests are always welcome! We’ll plan on being done no later than 8:30pm.
We started with a bit of practice cooking in preparation for our upcoming pancake breakfast events, where we tried a few new ideas. As you can see, it didn’t take long for our first tasters to show up.
We tried some new sausage, new style of potatoes, added some grilled veggies to the mix and we made it easier to eat by turning it (for the willing participants) into a pancake sandwich. We even asked our judges if they wanted cheese with that!
Following our food event, we gathered upstairs for our actual April meeting. Following a brief update on the chapter status and upcoming projects presented by our chapter president, Dan Gutierrez, he handed over the controls to our guest speaker for the night.
Octavian picked up from where he left in October, showing us how to turn our design dreams into reality! We had a proper show and tell, with an actual 3D printer turning the demonstration design into reality as the presentation was going on. While this was happening, we learned about the process and knowledge required to create a part from a 3D model, discussed the pros and cons of different 3D printing materials and what are some of the practical applications of 3D printing for the experimental (and sometimes certified) aviation environment. While the conversation was going on, many 3D printed parts made their way around the meeting room, each teaching the audience about another key aspect of 3D printing. We wrapped up just in time to see the demo part finish printing – talk about a plan well executed! Plenty of questions and contributions from the public made the presentation even more interesting.
Thank you all for joining us. See you at our next meeting, scheduled for Monday, May 4th.
Join us Monday, April 6th for our monthly membership meeting. We have a full evening for you. First, join us at 5:30 (or a bit earlier, if you’d like to give us a hand setting-up) for a pancake breakfast trial run, where we’ll experiment a bit in preparation for this year’s pancake breakfasts. We’ll try a couple new menu options and recipe tweaks, so be prepared to try and score things.
We’ll wrap that up and around 6:30pm, with the meeting officially starting at 7pm.
We have a great topic for the evening. After a brief chapter update, we’ll have a sequel to our October 2025 meeting, where we discussed the tools and process for designing your own parts. This time we’ll turn the dream and 3D model into reality!
We’ll go over the thought process and tools required to go from a 3D model, like the one above (designed live during the October meeting), to an actual part that you can hold in your hand. Not only that, but we’ll have a 3D printer there, so you can watch an actual part being built.
We’ll go over different materials and their pros and cons, especially for aviation use, before wrapping up (hopefully) just in time for our part to finish printing.
So bring your curiosity along and we’ll see you Monday evening. As usual, guests and visitors are always welcome!
Remembering D-Day and WWII through the Experiences of a Glider Pilot
Join us Monday, March 2nd for our first regular-schedule membership meeting of 2026. We’ll gather downstairs for snacks and hangar flying around 6:30pm, with the meeting officially starting at 7pm.
Following a brief chapter business report, our guest speaker for the evening, David Ripsom, will present our topic for the evening.
D-Day led to the Allied victory in WWII in Europe. 2,876,000 Allied troops were then amassed in southern England. The largest armada in history, made up of more than 4,000 American, British, and Canadian ships, lay in wait. More than 13,000 planes stood ready to deliver 23,000 seasoned airborne troops behind enemy lines and dominate the skies.
Over 1,000 gliders of mostly wood and canvas with only metal frames departed for Normandy with thousands of the airborne troops. Like the varied outcomes for troops coming by sea or parachute, gliders had a mixture of both high casualties and successful attacks on D-Day. Gliders were then prominent in several major battles over the next months, including Operation Market Garden.
This presentation gives an overview of the role of gliders in WWII and shares the story and pictures of Flight Officer Theodore B. Ripsom from D-Day and other battles. David also recounts his own visits, with pictures, to the very same locations where his father and other glider pilots landed and fought.
David is a graduate of Lafayette College and University of Virginia School of Law. After 20 years of private practice in Wilmington, he became General Counsel and then became President & CEO of Nuclear Electric Insurance Limited in Wilmington. He remains active in the community, just completing a two year term as President of the Catholic Charities Appeal for Philadelphia.
Looking forward to seeing you all Monday evening. As always, guests and visitors are welcome!
Winds well above 25 knots and 14 degree temperatures did not stop 30 people from enjoying six different soup recipes. We had a Mexican variety along with guacamole, sour cream and other toppings. A few chicken based entries but the ultimate winner was a hamburger soup! All six were excellent so the competition was difficult this year. The winner was awarded an award winning soup cook book so they can prepare for the competition next year.
Everyone stayed to enjoy and learn from Bob Huxster’s VMC/IMC presentation. Four scenarios were discussed at length with very interesting discussions.
Overall, a great time was had by all on a perfect day for soup! Thank you all for joining us (either as a participant or as a tester) and making this event a fun one.
For our next meeting, we are returning to our regular warm weather (wishful thinking) schedule – see you on Monday, March 2nd, starting at 6:30pm for hangar flying followed by the proper meeting starting at 7pm.
Join us Saturday for a new chapter event – Flying in the Soup!
Bring a pot of your best soup (and an IMC story, if you have it) and join the competition! Or bring your appetite and be one of the tasters/judges. We’ll be ready to serve the food by 12:30 pm, with judging occurring throughout the food service.
We’ll also be hosting a VMC/IMC Club event – join us for a friendly chat on how to get yourself in (and out) of trouble. We’ll try to come up with some soupy scenarios!
Join us for our first event of 2026, on Saturday, January 3rd at 11:00 am (time change) for our Chili and Cornbread Cook-Off competition!
Bring a pot of your best chili or your favorite cornbread, and join the competition! Or bring your appetite and be one of the tasters/judges. We’ll be ready to serve the food by 12:00pm, with judging occurring throughout the food service.
Following the food, we’ll hold a very brief and informal chapter business session, updating members on the new board plans and activities for the new year.
This will be followed by our feature presentation for the afternoon, with the topic being “Attending Oshkosh 2026”. This will cover a variety of topics, including driving/flying there, planning the trip and your stay, how to organize your camping and other ways in which you could get involved at EAA AirVenture. We’ll have a Q&A session after the presentation, wrapping up no later than 3pm.
NOTE: This meeting replaces the regular Monday meeting. We hope you’ll join us for a fun and relaxed event, good food, information sharing, and camaraderie.
The 2025 Holiday season here, so it’s time for the
Annual EAA Chapter 240 Holiday Party
So, join us Saturday, December 6th at 1pm, as we gather to celebrate the Christmas and Holiday season and the start of a whole new year. We’ll be serving up traditional turkey, ham and beef and some desserts along with coffee, tea and sodas. We ask you to bring a traditional main course side-dish please, to add to our table. It’s BYOB too! A donation to the chapter can be made if you can’t bring a side dish.
Please plan on joining with your Chapter buddies and families, and with our friends from the Airport staff, the Flight School and from Brandywine Soaring.
To get a good headcount for food, drinks and more please register here to let us know that you’ll be attending the party.
The party replaces our December Monthly Membership Meeting. No presentations, no guest speakers. But we will have raffle prizes donated by your Board Members.
This should be a fun event and a good kick-off to your holiday season. We look forward to seeing you and yours at the Chapter Hangar, Saturday December 6th, at 1pm. Remember to bring a seasonal dish please!
We’ll need a bit of help setting up the hangar for the party – stop by at 11am to give us a hand, please!
Dan Gutierrez, President, for the Board and Officers
Come join us Monday for some aviation treasure hunting!
For our November Membership Meeting in addition to voting for Board Members for the 2026/28 period we’re holding our Annual Fly Mart, where you can bring along your aviation no-longer-needed-but-someone-else-might-find-a-use-for items and sell them, or donate them to another member. We’ll also have a special presentation by our President, Dan Gutierrez, on the topic of naval aviation and carrier landings.
Want to learn all about what it takes to land a jet aircraft on a moving runway? This presentation will reveal all the details you never learn watching YouTube videos. Strap in and learn what are the sensations, communications and fears involved in trapping aboard a carrier. Come with all your questions and learn the truth behind the most challenging flying in the world!
We’ll have the tables available in the main hangar space for items to be displayed, and where the bartering can happen! No fees but donations to Chapter funds are welcome.
No limits on the items but they must be aviation related, and unsold/donated items must be removed at the end of the meeting. No, we don’t want them either! Search your toolboxes, hangar drawers, lockers and cabinets and bring your once-valued treasures along for reuse.
We’ll have coffee and snacks to give you energy to cart your haul away. Feel free to bring any leftover Halloween candy.
At 7 PM we’ll hold our elections in the meeting room. This is also your LAST CALL to nominate a candidate for the VP, Treasurer or Membership Director positions. Voting will be overseen by Brian Wheeler (Chapter Officer and Nominating Chair), who will tally votes and announce results at the meeting. Please e-mail Brian with your candidate recommendation by Friday, October 31st.
