·:[ Darryl's Coot Building Journal ]:·
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Here are some photos from the Coot-builders meeting in Arlington, WA. Richard Steeves will write a summary for the next newsletter, so I’ll just post the photos (click each photo for a larger version):

Saturday, July 14th at Arlington will be a Coot builder’s meeting. We meet at noon this year in Forum Tent C. The host is Sean Wiens.

Russ Milham and I co-hosted the annual gathering of Coot builders/enthusiasts yesterday at the Arlington airport Fly-in and Airshow. About 20 folks showed up at Taildraggers for the meeting and luncheon. The bar was ours for a couple of hours.

Richard Steeves was at the meeting and will likely provide a full report in the next Coot Builder’s Newsletter.

In short, we heard a report from John Kuehl on the ill-fated test flight of Jim West’s Coot (NTSB synopsis). John was present during the test flight, and offered some suggestions about building, listening to peers, and test flying a Coot.

Richard Steeves then gave a presentation on the Coot. (Unfortunately, I left the computer projection system at Russ’ house on the way to Arlington, so we had to huddle around Richard’s computer).

Andy Adams then discussed the new aluminum main gear leg and a “hydraulics in a can” gear retraction component.

Just as we started a round-robin introductions, the food arrived and we stopped to eat lunch. After lunch, many of the meeting participants gathered around Russ’ car to inspected his hull and other parts.

It was terrific hanging out with the region’s Coot enthusiasts again. My complete set of photos from the event can be found here.

Russ and I thank Karen, the enthusiastic and accommodating new owner of Taildraggers for providing us with a great meeting space!