November 2002

• November 27, 2002: Our site is growing. With such a large amount of information, navigation can be confusing. A site map has been added under the home page to guide you through the maze. It will be updated when major changes or additions are made.
  The newly revised article about Seawind Gross Weight is especially good. When coupled with the blue text about aux tank fuel caps in the incident summary report table, and the incident report about N94WB, some interesting analysis about your own building options can be made. Both of these articles were hatched by concerned ISPA members. You will want to study them closely. Thanks guys.
  We have been notified that ISPA member Steve Wightman passed his FAA check ride on November 26, 2002, and has received his instrument rating. Congratulations Steve.
  Many of you are renewing your memberships. Thank you all for your continuing support and participation. Best wishes for a warm, safe, and enjoyable Thanksgiving Holiday with your loved ones, families, friends, and Seawinds. Enjoy the site. Fly Safe.

• November 26, 2002: Thanks to input from our knowledgeable base of experienced members, some of the information on this site may someday save a life. We may never know. A good example is the latest text sent in by one of our members, and now added to the table in the incident log summary table. It is a good example because it addresses just about every aspect of Seawind ownership, i.e., design complexity, building decisions, piloting, emergency procedures, etc. This input together with a new article about gross weight in the builder tips section is causing me to take a hard look at whether or not it makes sense to add the necessary effort, system complexity, weight, pilot load, and expense for auxiliary tanks in my bird. We all have to decide for ourselves, but man, it sure is nice to have the resources and input to make an informed decision. Thank you all for your participation and contribution.
  By training and aptitude, I am an engineer, not a salesman. The addition of the banners and notices on the site for our upcoming membership renewal annoys me. It is a necessary evil in my opinion. It is the best and perhaps only way that we can maintain the site. Please bear with us. Thank you for your patience and willing renewals. Enjoy the site, and above all, fly safe.

• November 25, 2002: We would like to welcome Scott Clark from Sebring Florida to our membership. If you haven't noticed our all new "Aviation Humor" page, you will want to take a look. Send me your additions, yes, they should be Seawind or aviation related. The calendar page has been updated with an agenda for the 2003 splash-in. Please submit corrections and ideas.

• November 24, 2003: ISPA members Perry & Viv Taylor are the proud new owners of Seawind VH-SWN (formerly N711AT). Congratulations. Perry has promised some new photos of VH-SWN, which is now being packaged for shipping to the Great Barrier Reef area of Australia. The Tanzman report has been moved into the incident log in the members only section. I'd like to thank Perry for his recent email and praise of our site.
  We would like to welcome Dean Rickerson from Anchorage to our membership. Memberships must be renewed before January, 2003. It's easy. If your contact information hasn't changed, all you need to do is send a check for $21 to Brent Carlson, 3941 Airport Road #493, Ogden, UT 84405, or pay on line via Pay Pal to carlsonb@webpipe.net. Details on the membership info page. Please note that memberships are not renewed until payment is received. There are some members for whom I do not have a current email address. Please email me or let me know if there are changes. In an effort to notify everyone who might be interested, I have also mailed a postcard to our former printed newsletter mailing list. If any of you have friends or acquaintances who might be interested, please let them know about our site, or send me their contact information.
  I have added some more interesting historical documents from the Creelman archives to the "A Test for You" page. Take a look. I will continue to add this fascinating material to this page as I begin setting up some archive pages dedicated to the Creelmans. As you know, my goals include collecting, documenting, and preserving this important history before it is entirely hidden or lost. Many of you have sent, and continue to send me this early material. Thank you. Keep it coming.

• November 22, 2002: ISPA member and friend Gene Ott, his son Vince, and friend Bob Taylor died in the crash of their Wheeler Express on Tuesday afternoon. Their loss is tragic. Our condolences go out to their families and friends.
  Several pages on our site are "living pages" in that they are constantly being updated and changed. Check out the revisions on the Seawind Incident Log page. An article about N94WB has also been posted there.
  I think there are members in the ISPA who do not get the SNA newsletter. I know that there are folks who get the SNA newsletter who do not even know that the ISPA exists. Anyway, whenever our members send information into to SNA, I am requesting that you please also send me a copy so I can publish it on our site. A good example is Tony Irwin's latest letter about his flight testing at the European builder center. It is now posted on Tony's letter page.

• November 20, 2002: November has been some great month for the Seawind community, and it's only a little more than half over! Three Seawinds (that we know of) have been sold. Two complete and flying, and one partially competed kit. We in the ISPA want to extend a special welcome to the Proud New Owners. We invite you to join our group and share your knowledge and experiences with us.
  Folks, I have a lot of material to post on the site over the next few weeks, but things keep coming in that I just get too anxious to share. Just take a look above at the stunning photo that Keith Walljasper sent us. The shades of blue are striking. Are those flaps at full extension (40 degrees)? Thank you Keith, this is what keeps our site interesting.
  OK folks, I've made a stab at putting all of the information several of you have sent me about Seawind incidents in a summary table. It can be found at the bottom of the "Seawind Incident Log." The quickest way to get there is to take the members shortcut at the top of the page, and then click on Seawind incident log. This is far and away the information most requested from the request form on our home page. It is controversial. I have tried to list it in an objective way. You will see that I haven't listed all of the individual occurrences in all cases. Some categories have several occurrences and it is not practical to list them all, but our members need to know the pitfalls. If you have comments or additions, please let me know ASAP. I am certainly open to improving this page in any way possible.

• November 19, 2002: We would like to extend a special welcome to all of our members who are radio controlled model (R/C) and ¼ Scale R/C model enthusiasts. In the mid 1980s, the Seawind took the modeling scene by storm when, in October 1985, the Creelmans commissioned the Byron Model Company to produce their ¼ scale Seawind R/C model. Like our pilot community, Seawind’s appearance and performance stunned the R/C community. In fact, the first owner-built Seawinds to fly were R/C scale models. In fact, many of the current Seawind owners and enthusiasts first learned of the Seawind through exposure to the modeling community. Welcome aboard folks, feel free to share your experience, insight, ideas, and comments with us. While the ISPA’s focus will remain primarily on owners, builders, and fliers of the full-scale version, we hope you enjoy the site and look forward to your participation. We would especially appreciate photos and stories that can be posted on our site. If enough interest is expressed, we will prepare a special section of our site devoted specifically to Seawind R/C modeling. While the Byron Model company no longer exists, it appears that the 1/4 scale R/C model of the Seawind is still available in the aircraft kit section of the Iron Bay Model Company.
  Please note, in order to make this News page load a little faster, I have set-up a "News Page Archive" in the library section of members only. All of your favorite old news can be found there. I will keep only the news from the current month here. Thank you for your participation. Enjoy the site.

• November 18, 2002: Good things continue in the ISPA. Feedback and input during this last weekend has been fantastic. John and Noeleen Borman, Tony Irwin, and others have sent in several pictures that will be displayed on the home page during the next few weeks. John and Noeleen sent some of their Seawind pictures. They can now be seen on their "letters" page. Don't miss them, they are some great pictures of John, Noreleen, their beautiful Seawind, and that gorgeous New Zealand countryside. They also sent several Creelman newsletters from as early as 1984. In addition, they sent a list of the first 50 original Seawind purchasers as published in the early newsletters. This list has now been included in the Seawind Registry.
  The photos shown below are from the January 1986 Creelman newsletter sent in by the Bormans. These are the first photos of the production C-WIND as we know it. You can click on these photos for a larger version, then use your browser back button to return here. The newsletter says this about the photos:
  "MODEL OF PRODUCTION SEAWIND" "On the back of the newsletter, we have printed photos of three different views of the production of a sixth scale model of the production aircraft. These views are very representative of how your finished airplane will appear, except that junctions will be much less obvious on the real plane."

Folks, you just have to admit that this is some pretty fascinating stuff.

Then, read Tony Irwin's letter for some more history that you're bound to find interesting. Tony also includes some great photos you won't want to miss. Thank you John, Noeleen, Tony, and everyone for the great contributions.

(All contents of this web site, including photos, text, graphics, and statements, (i.e., ALL CONTENTS) are the express property of the International Seawind Pilots Association and/or its members. All rights reserved. No portion of this site may be copied, or reproduced in any way without express written permission and consent.)

• November 16, 2002: There are two recent additions to our site that are high in popularity and drawing grundles of positive feedback and input. As you know, they are the "Seawind Registry" and what is now called the "Seawind Incident Log" that was originally suggested by Dave Nery. To make it a little easier to get to, I have moved the Seawind Incident log from the library to the members index page. If you have not yet sent me your kit numbers and data, please do so. If you haven't been to the registry in a while, I'd suggest you take a look.
  I realize that the incident log is far from complete. Our members are requesting that I complete this section ASAP. I also seem to get many requests from non-members and potential Seawind buyers for this particular data. This data is probably the most vital data on our site. It demonstrates what a robust airplane the Seawind is, and it informs us, as builders, of the dangers and pitfalls. I consider this to be "safety data," and of Life and Death importance. As soon as I get some more of the data and get it posted, I will make part of the incident log available to everyone for a short time (probably 30 days) in an effort to satisfy some of the demand, and stimulate some new membership.
  I am trying to locate a Seawind enthusiast named Mark Townsend. Mark is the person who was planning a dive trip on the Seawind prototype at the bottom of Lake Halliburton last summer. If anyone knows Mark, or, if Mark is reading this, please send me an email address, phone number, or other contact information. I would like to obtain a report on the dive and some photos if possible.
  The same goes for Dick Moore, who has (or had) the original fiberglass Creelman Seawind prototype for sale. If Dick is out there, or any of our members know his contact information, please let me know. Thank you all for contributing. Enjoy the site.

• November 15, 2002: I have several photos that I will be posting on the home page in the future. In the mean time, I just had to put this one from John & Noeleen Borman below.

• Since the "Tanzman Report" is so good in so many ways, I am going to leave the home page pretty much as-is for a while in order to provide as much exposure as possible.
  The "Wings" section of builder tips was added this morning. Thank you Scott Devlin, Mike Bowes, Dick Wolf, and others for the great content. The builder tips section is going to be a work-in-progress forever. As each of you work through the building process, in addition to your excellent posts in the hangar, it would be extremely helpful if you would write up special instructions in MS Word (like those of Roger Isackson in the library) and email them to me, so we can get as much content as possible into the builder tips section.
  BTW, I do not have the correct email address for Roger Isackson, if you have it, please send it to me.
  Several of you have sent in answers to the questions on the "Test" page. I thought I would include the consensus of answers here for your interest:
  Who signed the original newsletters? Ans: Len Creelman
  Have all Seawinds been made of fiberglass? Ans: no, wood was used to make the first one
  What date did the first Seawind fly? Ans: 1984
  Where are the Creelman Brother's prototypes now? Ans: one is in the bottom of Lake Haliburton, (a seawind enthusiast was diving on it this past summer) [man, I'd love to get a report and some underwater photos for our site!] another is destroyed, and the one built in 87 (fiberglass) has been for sale by Dick Moore for years. (maybe sold) [Dick? how about a report?]
  Who was the first test pilot? Ans: Elton Townsend
  What was the first year that Seawind appeared at Oshkosh? Ans: in completion 1987
  What is the date of the first Seawind promotional sales brochure? Ans: 1984 (?)
  How many kits were sold by the Creelmans? Ans: Not exactly known. Some say 85 were sold, but the real figure was closer to 50. At least that was the supposed figure when SNA [acquired] all of the tooling, molds, records, and original documents from Canada.

• November 14, 2002: Hello friends. I've been out of my office for the last four days winterizing my home, and doing some long overdue maintenance in Idaho. When I returned, I was overwhelmed with a huge amount of terrific information for the ISPA site. John & Noeleen Borman sent some early historical photos you won't want to miss. They are in the letters & biographies section. Will & Mary Frost sent some pictures of Larry Sapp's Seawind in the Bowes shop. These photos are on Will's letter page. Larry's paint scheme may not be for everyone, but it is striking, and guaranteed to grow on you. John Ricciotti sent photos of his MLG fixtures that he will loan to builders. These are on John's letter page. We have two new members and several others who have filled out the membership application. Please note that I will set up new memberships as soon as the fee payment is received. Fees can be paid either by regular mail, or by Pay Pal. Details are available on the membership info link. Membership renewal is coming up at year end. I will be sending out an email to our membership as a reminder.
  Also please note the following. While browsing the site, you may note that labels on buttons are sometimes missing. This site has been created with, and is maintained with Microsoft Front Page software. Sometimes when I publish the site, the labels fail to load in the buttons on some pages. You can still see what the button does (in most browsers) by placing the cursor over the button with your mouse and looking at either your status bar, or at the text message that appears. To correct this problem, I have to edit the page, replace the buttons, and then republish the page. This is driving me crazy. If any of you Front Page users can tell me how to avoid this problem please email me ASAP. Thank you all for your patience, and for contributing. Enjoy the site.

• November 8, 2002: Information for the Seawind Registry continues to build. Take a look at the new entries, including some nice photos from Will & Mary Frost that are also posted in the letters section. Remember, most of the photos on the entire site can be enlarged by clicking on them.
  Good things are happening in the ISPA. Our membership is steadily growing. The amount of positive feedback indicates that our core group is enthusiastic and, in spite of the many frustrations that come with building a highly complex kit airplane (that also happens to be an ultra high performance boat) people are enjoying themselves and having a tremendous learning experience along the way.
  Remember, if any of you have the early Creelman newsletters or other early Seawind material from before 1987, please contact me so I can arrange to get copies for our site. The Seawind is going to have its 30 year anniversary sometime about right now. I don't know the exact date, but the information I have indicates that Len and Roger Creelman started their revolutionary design in the early 1970s. Thank you all for contributing. Enjoy the site.

• November 5, 2002: The additional photos of N711AT are now available on a page called the "Tanzman Report" that is linked to our homepage for everyone to see. Later I will move it to our members only pages, but since it contains such crucial information and is a good example of the ISPA, I will leave it accessible for now. Thank you Mike and Jody Bowes for providing this entire article and the accompanying photos. Our best wishes and regards go to Linda Tanzman. Response to the Seawind Registry continues to be highly positive. There are new entries there from George Osborne and Jim Small among others. Also see Jim Small's letter. It contains a tidbit that may be interesting to a few of us who have been lurking in the hangar the last couple of days.

• November 4, 2002: The Seawind is simply an amazing airplane! Just take a close look at the spectacular photo on our home page. Also, John Borman called from New Zealand last night and related stories about a couple of his experiences that bear this out. John also expressed concern about, and offered some help to others who could learn from his experience. He has since posted his good words in the Hanger discussion. Don't miss his post. It is great to talk with others who share our interest in this neat machine.

• November 3, 2002: Have you looked at the "Seawinds For Sale" page lately? My goodness! The opportunity to own a Seawind has never been better. It is amazing. There are several flying Seawinds, and a partially completed kit for sale there. There are also some highly motivated sellers. A Seawind can probably be owned for a fraction of what it is worth. For those of you who have been waiting until the time is right to own a Seawind, you will probably not find a time any better than this, period. Just take a look. It is enough to make us builders wish we would have waited a year or two until now.

• November 3, 2002: Have you looked at the Seawind Registry lately? It's filling up nicely. There are new entries there from John and Noeleen Borman and others. Is your Seawind in there? Is the data about your Seawind up-to-date and correct? If not, please fill out the registry data entry form or just send it along via email. Don't forget to include photos. The new additions to our site are getting rave reviews. Thank you all for contributing, and also for the kind words and feedback. Today, my son Patrick and I are going out on the Great Salt Lake to try and recover what now remains of his Cessna 175 that we crashed there last June. It is about 6:30 AM here in Ogden, and the temperature is well below freezing. When (and if) we get all of the left-overs out of the lake, I will post a page about how it was accomplished, together with some photos. I intend to call it something like "why I want a seaplane!" BTW, I hate misinformation. If you find anything on this site that isn't correct, please email me immediately. Thank you all for looking. Enjoy the site.

• November 2, 2002: Please note that our "Letters" section has been expanded to include "Biographies." I have started by adding a biography that was submitted by Mike Bowes to the newsletter in November, 1995. Take a look. I think you will agree that this is going to add a great deal of interest to our site. The quickest way to get there is to take the "Shortcut" at the top of this page, and then click on "Letters & Biographies," then "Mike Bowes, Bio." During the next few months, we want to include biographies of all the major players in the Seawind endeavor, especially, Len and Roger Creelman, Dick Silva, and others. I have requested a biography from Dick and Millie at SNA, and I will also request them from the Creelmans. If, by any chance, any of you have previous biographies from the Creelmans, please arrange to send them to me. Thank you for looking, and enjoy the site.

• November 2, 2002: ISPA member Steve Wightman sent us another great letter and three excellent photos. They are now included in our "Letters" section under his name. In his letter, Steve talks about some interesting accomplishments associated with his instrument rating. Take a look at his hangar construction, just prior to the arrival of his quick kit. The quickest way to get there is to take the "Member's" shortcut above, and then go to the "Letters" link. Thank you Steve, and congratulations again.

• November 1, 2002: ISPA member, Steve Wightman, CFP®, a long-time Lexington resident, has graduated from Hanscom AFB Flight Training Center for an instrument flight-training course for an Instrument Rating – Airplane. He completed 12 weeks of classroom study, 186 hours of in-flight instruction of which 65 hours were in simulated or actual instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) practicing precision and emergency flight maneuvers, holding patterns, cross country flight, and instrument approach procedures. Steve's press release can be seen in our "letters" section.

• November 1, 2002: As requested by Dave Nery in his recent post, I have compiled a page showing NTSB data. The page is in the "Library" and titled "Seawind Safety Info." If any of you have other similar data that may have not been included in the NTSB reports, but should be added to the page, please email it to me. I know that there are many other similar type reports that I do not have. If Canada has a similar reporting data base, it would be especially helpful if one of our members could extract the information and send it along to me. Thank you.