Welcome new member William Kumley to the Chapter:

[President Phil Pirrotta]

His PA22-108 Colt was recently stationed in Bremerton WA.

N5754Z is based out of 0s9 (Jefferson County Airport, Port Townsend, WA.)

[William Kumley]

Hello everyone. I'm in the Navy and recently got stationed the Bremerton, Washington area. I was stationed here from 2018-2021 and learned to fly out of Bremerton airport at Avian Flight Center. From there the Navy moved my family and I down to Ventura County, California and we got to explore southern California and the LAX Airspace. After enjoying the trials and tribulations of renting aircraft we decided to purchase a plane and found 5754Z, a 1963 Piper Colt that was completely restored in 2003 and had flown off and on over the years for about 350 hours, This was the only thing that concerned us as the plane itself looked great, flew great, and had great records. We flew it all over southern California and upgraded the panel so I could start my IFR training in it. I got lucky as I was an avionics tech in my younger days in the Navy and found a shop that was willing to let me do the bulk of the avionics upgrade under their supervision. 54Z now sports a Garmin GNX 375 navigator/transponder combo with ADS-B in and out and a Trig Nav/Com radio connected to an Aspen Pro PFD making it a somewhat capable IFR platform. It's still a shortwing so I'll never take it in icing conditions. We just completed the second annual on it and all reports are good, although we fought with a leaking fuel sump under the copilot seat pretty bad which added time and cost to the annual. Overall, we love this little plane and plan to explore the crap out of the Pacific Northwest as long as the Navy will have us here. A dream would be to fly my wife and I to Oshkosh next year but thats a big trip over some high mountains so the route will take some time to figure out. 

As for the IFR rating, all requirements are met, I've had my checkride rescheduled twice now due to weather so I'm hopeful that I'll have a good day on her schedule with good enough weather in the next month as her availability can be a struggle sometimes. 

Thats me and mostly our little Colt. Let me know if you've got any must attend events or airports to explore while we are up here.