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The PIPE -> And NOW the whole situation is REALLY getting SERIOUS... (10/10/2004 5:29:35 PM)
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Dear Fellow ORA Fans:
The PIPE Here yet AGAIN...and, despite apparently UNcaring "trolls" like "airbatic" here at RCU, there's now an ENTIRE WEBSITE dedicated to the SERIOUS situation at Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome...
at http://www.saveoldrhinebeck.org/ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Make SURE to read the ENTIRE set of pages at that above linked site to TRULY understand the SAD situation at ORA these days...I've been, and will CONTINUE to do, MY part to save a place I've always considered "my SECOND home"...OLD RHINEBECK AERODROME...
...and my efforts to support the people trying to SAVE Old Rhinebeck will NOT stop until the MIS-trustees named Daly (only a MIS-trustee "in training for now" ), Ryder, Richards, Kick and McClinch ARE OUT OF THERE...and THIS list of OVER FIVE DOZEN volunteers are able to return (IF they feel comfortable in doing so...my guess is that the MAJORITY of them WILL gladly return to ORA when the MIS-trustees are GONE)...
1. Ken Cassens
2. Scott Mackenzie
3. Jim Hare
4. Dave King
5. Nicole Scheff
6. Dick King
7. Scott Brewster
8. Anna Kirschner
9. Steve Cunningham
10. Tom Polapink
11. Charles Day
12. Carle Kopecky
13. Joellyn Kopecky
14. Peter Truesdell
15. Sheldon Tieder
16. Shannon Rabbet
17. John Barker
18. Pam Barker
19. Mike Reagan
20. Bob Greene
21. Ryan Cassens
22. Gary Mackenzie
23. Bob Mackenzie
24. Helga Mackenzie
25. Chris Rogine
26. Joan Moore
27. Denise Tator
28. Kurt Muller
29. John Stover
30. Sarah Ulfik
31. Nick Ulfik
32. Bob Johnston
33. Joanne Johnston
34. Glenn Guilfoyle
35. Gwen Ackley
36. Parker Ackley
37. John Nenadic
38. Janet Nenadic
39. Michael Maniatis
40. Mary Ellen Maniatis
41. Stewart Sommerville
42. Bill Barr
43. George Dragone
44. Penny Havard
45. Shaun Pritchard
46. Lynn Pritchard
47. Ashly Burachowski
48. Christine Litke
49. Todd Scheff
50. Regina Scheff
51. Karl Erickson
52. George Yantz
53. Ed Hammerle
54. Larry Potter
55. Ben Potter
56. Alexander Fasolilli
57. George Beaver
58. Mary Louise Beaver
59. Chuck Bauman
60. Connie Bauman
61. Dave Gifford...
...and this WHOLE list of former ORA volunteers have had ALL the details mentioned, about what each one of them used to do for Old Rhinebeck, at the page named "The Damage So Far" AT the SaveOldRhinebeck.org website!
The "catalyzing" occurrence that has resulted in the SERIOUSness of the situation at this stage can be read about at the "Help Dick King" page there...the LETTER I wrote in support of Mr. King's efforts to prevent the MIS-trustees from STEALING Mr. King's ORIGINAL Ercoupe light plane "right out from UNDER him" had the following text in there...
"Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome (also abbreviated as "ORA" ) has been especially valuable for many people as a place to teach the history of aviation's first 35 years of existence, the technology that made it possible, and actual FLYABLE examples...be they restored originals or accurate reproduction aircraft with original, or similar modern, powerplants...of aircraft extending back in time to only a few years after Orville and Wilbur Wright flew their "Wright Flyer I" aircraft at Kitty Hawk, NC near the end of 1903.
Since the passing of Cole Palen's widow Rita Palen at the end of the summer of 2003, the currently installed "Board of Trustees" operating the ORA facility and airshow has been acting in a totally arrogant and ILLOGICAL manner, for ANY sort of museum to have allowed to happen, in senselessly FIRING the entire dedicated group of volunteers that had been helping, from the work they performed on their own time at ORA, to keep ORA in operation in much the same manner as Cole Palen himself would have wanted it to remain, when his own time among us had ended.
The members of this currently presiding "board of MIS-trustees" at ORA, as I prefer to call them (from their hostile and secretive behavior about ORA's purpose, current operations and ESPECIALLY its future). named Tom Daly, James Kick and Terry McClinch, seem to have NO regard for this unique history of ORA, and the people that have made it what it has been for over 40 years now....the ONE place on our continent to best experience LIVING antique aviation, "just as it was" in its early deacdes...and want to basically DESTROY all the hard work that Cole Palen, Richard King, and COUNTLESS others have been able to gladly contribute to making ORA the great place it HAS been over its first four decades of existence.
The LATEST blow from the Mis-trustees has been aimed straight AT Richard King, who has been allowed, through a verbal agreement with the late Cole Palen back in the mid-1980s (while he was still with us) to "base" a classic 1940s era "Ercoupe" lightplane at ORA in a hangar he and Cole had built together at that time the verbal agreement...which COULD qualify, in some respects I would suppose, as a verbal CONTRACT... was made, which allowed Mr, King to keep his Ercoupe based on the ORA property as long as Mr, King lived, even AFTER Cole's own passing,
What the "mis-trustees" are doing these days is trying to extract HANGAR RENT from Mr. King, to allow him to continue to base his Ercoupe at ORA, which goes strictly AGAINST the verbal agreement between Mr. Palen and Mr. King...and these "mis-trustees" are even going to the extreme measure of SEIZING Mr. King's classic Ercoupe aircraft, and SELLING IT at AUCTION on October 8th, 2004, to "finally extract" their "blood money" from Mr, King...and remove the LAST person from ORA's past, that has been protesting against the "mis-trustees" current and apparent FUTURE policies, regarding ORA's continued existence.
Richard King has been an INTEGRAL personage in the history of ORA, flying a reproduction Sopwith Pup WW I British design aircraft, pwoered with an original 80 horsepower rotary style radial engine of 1918 vintage, in the weekend airshows at ORA from the 1960s through to the early 1980s, as well as a goodly number of the many original AND reproduction aircraft that have flown at ORA over those four decades...he also helped Cole Palen with the construction of MANY of the buildings at ORA over its early years, and contributed in MANY other intangible ways to ORA's great public success over its four decades of operation.
One of Mr. King's own statements in the prologue of his book "The Skies Over Rhinebeck", co-authored with Stephan Wilkinson in 1997, illustrates his feelings for ORA, along with his own concerns for its future existence after Cole's passing...I quote...
"Just as the early pulp magazines and books of the 1920s, '30s and '40s are part of the mystique of aviation progress, the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome is their living counterpart for the 1960s through much of the '90s. Now Cole Palen is gone, and I am not sure the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome will continue to exist as we knew it. This is why I want to document my life there, to help preserve the unique events that have graced this little corner of the aviation world."
Can ANYONE, or any GROUP of people, who wants to so totally UNDO all the good things Cole Palen AND Richard King did with the founding and operation of such a place as ORA, be actually ALLOWED to do so? With their latest action, against Mr, King, these "mis-trustees" have done absolutely NOTHING to dispel the angering doubts of their "mysteriously un-stated" intentions for such a wondrous place that ORA HAS been over its four decades of existence...and NOW have shown, to most everyone who HAS cared about ORA for such a long time now, that they have few OTHER intentions than the eventual DISMANTLING of the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome facility, selling off its aircraft, and very possibly "making off with thier tainted gains"...all for NO other reason, that to show HOW powerful they are, and that NO one can oppose them.
Please, Mr. Kave, do what you can to help Mr. King fight this vengeful and shady auctioning-off of his classic Ercoupe...and possibly even help, even in a small way, the much-admired ORA to return to the way things USED to be there...BEFORE the "Mis-trustees" showed up to start RUINING everything Richard King and Cole Palen did to bring Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome into existence in the first place!
The "Mr. Kave" I've mentioned in this letter is the lawyer in charge of PROSECUTING the MIS-trustees, on Mr. King's behalf for the attempt of a fraudulent auction to "steal" Mr. King's Ercoupe...thankfully Mr. King's lawyer WILL get the MIS-trustees INTO COURT in New York State on October 27th of this year, to begin to answer for not ONLY the attempted fraudulent auction, but ALSO for misappropiation of donations to ORA, both public AND private, harassment of MANY of the good people in that LONG list of volunteers I've mentioned here...the list of offenses that they COULD get in trouble for is just TOO LONG to mention here!
But CHECK THAT SaveOldRhinebeck site out for YOURSELF...there's ALREADY links to it at two German antique aviaiton websites, at http://www.biplanes.de/news.shtml (from my German Email buddy JENS KLANK) and at http://www.german-historic-flight.de/bericht.php?id=128&typ=1 ...the International Fleet Club website at http://users.ntplx.net/~flyboy/ AND Fred Sgrosso's Old Rhinebeck and vintage aviaiton photo site at http://home.comcast.net/~fredhome/air_.htm have ALSO been informed about the SAD situation at Old Rhinebeck as of this weekend!!!
Just as I am making the SERIOUS effort to elect ANDY ARGENIO as the NEW AMA District I Vice President this autumn, I am making a "just AS serious" effort in helping OLD RHINEBECK AERODROME in SHEDDING itself of its SELF-DESTRUCTIVE board of MIS-trustees...and I WILL NOT STOP in that effort, UNTIL THEY ARE GONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yours Sincerely,
The PIPE!
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