Great meeting today president over by our President David Roscoe. I happened to get seated at the back of the room and had some difficulty hearing a couple of the speakers including our President. Everyone, please speak into the mic.
Guests Four guests were with us today: Joe Chalklin, guest of Anthony Ford-Jones and a prospective new member of our club; Frank Baillie, guest of Catherine Brady; Rajeev Wijesinge, guest speaker and Yahel Stein, our exchange student from Switzerland.
Report from Yahel Yahel is hosting her gaming night next Friday (18th) at 6:30 PM at the Burlington G & CC. Sheila has since sent out an email on this providing more information. Yahel went out with Rob Sybersma and picked apples and even baked an apple pie. She also baked a pie with Sherry Police. She went out with Owen to a pumpkin patch which she described as incredible. No baking of pumpkin pies was mentioned though. She mentioned that her mom always displayed a lot of decorations and she misses this so far in her stay with us. Next Thursday Yahel is making her presentation to the Club on her life and growing up in Switzerland.
Announcements Mae Radford reported that the Friday Night Community 1
st Annual Gift of Giving Fundraising Dinner would be held Thursday Nov 28
th at 6 PM at the Wellington Square United Church featuring a four course gourmet meal from Chef Olaf Merten. There will also be a silent auction and “Giving Tree” as well as a chance to learn more about the Friday Night Community Dinner and Programming. Tickets are $125 or $850 per table of 8 with a $85 tax receipt. Tickets may be obtained from the church between 9-4, Monday-Friday or
www.wsquare.ca/outreach/friday-community .
Catherine Brady talked about the Camelot Centre Support Day and said she would be sending out an email on this shortly.
Peter Thoem reported that he had helped Rod Collard last year recruit restaurants for Lakeside and in 2020 he would be continuing this endeavour but he needed a strong partner to help him out. If anyone is interested, let Peter know.
Rene spoke about the 4 Club Meeting coming up on October 30th at the Holiday Inn. Tickets are $30. He was looking for volunteers to help out and also help with the speakers. See President Dave if you can assist. Also get your ticket for this. There is no meeting Thursday morning - Oct 31st.
David reported that at the meeting on the 24th there would be a repeat planning session using interactive electronic remote devices to vote on screen. As this is an important meeting regarding the future direction of the club he asked that everyone attend if possible.
Karmel was our Sergeant at Arms today and I had no difficulty hearing him and he didn’t use the mic. He did a great job of fining club members – even the speaker and collecting happy dollars. Susan Jasper personally thanked all the volunteers at the Telling Tales Festival and reported that there were 5000 attendees at the main event and 2000 at the later one held at the RBG.
Guest Speaker – Rajeev Wijesinge Our speaker today was recruited by Sheila Welham as Rajeev is on the Youth Exchange Committee with her. He is a Rotarian in the Mississauga Rotary Club and he manages compliance in Customs Brokerage and Consulting as his job but is a transportation enthusiast which is a hobby he is immersed in. He started flying when he was 14 years old and had his pilot’s licence before he had his driver’s licence.
He spoke on the failings of the Boeing 737 Max 8 and stated that the issues were only with the Max 8 and Max 9 aircraft of the 737 family of planes which are otherwise really quite proven and reliable. He stated that Boeing was not the first aircraft manufacturer to have this software problem. Airbus had the exact same problem with the A320 years ago in its development. Fortunately, for them, they discovered the issue and fixed it before passengers died.
The problem related to the position of the engines both in relation to the forward location on the plane itself and to the wings of the plane. When the plane was taking off under full power and retracting the flaps, the nose of the plane wanted to go up and the software was developed to make the nose go down. Coupled with this was the fact that there were two sensors on either side of the Boeing cockpit but only one sensor was tied into this software. A problem was encountered with the sensor in one of the 2 plane crashes. When the 737 was originally developed (1967-8) , stairs were used to gain access to the plane at airports. The fuselage was lower than on other newly developed planes today. The engines were smaller on the early editions of the 737 and fit under the wings. As they made bigger and bigger 737s the size of the engines were larger and they positioned them higher and slightly ahead of the wings. With the Max 8 and 9 the engines were mounted not only forward but in front of the wing causing this imbalance on takeoff.
The reason Boeing kept modifying the 737 is due to training costs of pilots. When a completely new airplane is developed the costs of training pilots is huge. To save airlines on this cost it is simpler and easier to modify a plane slightly and then the pilots need only minimal training to fly them. Coupled with this was the fact that large aircraft were becoming less in demand. Many airlines use the hub and spoke system where several routes fed into a common center. Smaller planes are used on the feeder routes and larger planes might be used from the center out to large destinations or in many cases, smaller aircraft were used to go to smaller centres. The other system airlines used is point to point (direct flights). Again smaller aircraft are used in these situations, especially to increase frequency between routes. The 737 Max offered the advantage of using a common platform, low training costs, lower fuel costs and longer range resulting in a lower cost per seat mile.
After Rajeev finished his presentation, he was asked if there was a problem letting the planes sit as many are sitting all over the world. He said yes as critters and other foreign objects can work their ways into planes and cause future issues. Also pitot tubes (measure velocity) and other sensors can become plugged or disabled by sitting without maintenance.
Rick Howarth thanked Rajeev for his excellent presentation.
