Subject: Chapter Report to the Man Will Never Fly annual gathering
December 16, 2004

Hi to all you ground bounders;
The Frosted Beaver Chapter has been as busy as beavers this year.
First we settled on a name and motto for our Ontario, Canada chapter of MWNF.
"Frosted" comes from our climate; eight months of winter followed by four months of poor skating. The "Beaver" is Canada’s national animal, the highest honor ever bestowed on a bucked-tooth rodent.

Our big project this year has been developing a water-borne recovery system for Canada’s military aircraft. The Canadian Air Force has a fleet of F-18s but does not have any aircraft carriers. The Frosted Beaver Chapter of MWNF was contracted to invent an alternate offshore recovery system in case the air force should ever get its F-18s to fly.

For this project our resourceful members observed two things:
1/ The shores of maritime Canada are littered with unused fishing dories as a result of the Canadian government fish conservation program that pays fishermen not to fish; and,
2/ That beaver fur has a vicious, one-way nap. When you pet a beaver going with the nap, it’s smooth. When you stroke it the other way, your hand gets stuck and your face gets slapped.

The boys scrounged a dory, some plywood and a few old beaver coats. We covered the plywood with fur and fastened it to the dory creating a mini-flattop. This rig was positioned off the end of a long dock with the beaver nap pointing toward shore.
Rather than risk an F-18, we acquired several of the rusting Ford Pintos that dot Canada’s front yards. Next we enlisted an air force pilot to drive the Pinto down the dock at top speed.
Well, that little Pinto launched off the end and landed smack on the flattop. It was astounding. The beaver pelts stopped the 2,000-pound car in half the length of the 24-foot dory.

We have brand named the new rig, "Happy Landings." You can check it out on our chapter Web site: www.happylandings.com.

Now we are working on a couple of snags. When the Pinto stopped, the pilot was ejected out the windshield. He landed halfway across the harbor, which was frozen. The momentum of the speeding Pinto transferred to the flattop, which skidded across the ice, running over the pilot.
The other problem is the shape of dories. They are double ended to compensate for fishermen who don’t know if they’re coming or going. (We blame the government.) It doesn’t matter which way you point a dory until you’re counting on nap to stop an F-18. We’ve lost three Pintos through the ice after they skipped off frosted beaver fur where the nap was laying the wrong way.
The chapter members are busy removing half the pelts and turning them around so it won’t matter which way the boat is pointed. Then we’ll anchor the dory to one of the submerged Pintos, give the pilot a helmet and try landing something as heavy as an F-18. A few of the boys are out collecting rusted Ford Edsels right now.

So we won’t be down for your annual dinner but if the Canadian Air Force gets its aircraft flying, we’ll be ready with offshore recovery dinghies.

Garth Wallace, secretary
MWNF Frosted Beaver Chapter