| St Louis Flying Club |
I authorized Marlin to go-ahead and increase the hourly rate and monthly cost to compensate for the increased fuel price and insurance rates. A special assessment is also needed to cover the annual inspection shortfall and the higher insurance cost. He will be addressing that in his report.
Thanks to Randy for his info on the Special Airworthiness Bulletin regarding the new fuel grade. From my interpretation it sounds like our Auto Fuel STC will cover us for this new fuel grade. Thanks also to Randy, John and Marlin for their work on annual on Friday and Saturday. Their efforts helped keep the assessment from going much higher.
Be aware that the main runway at Spirit will be shutting down for a couple months for resurfacing. The congestion and delays will probably be pretty bad! For the latest runway shutdown schedule and associated flight pattern/taxi changes, see the Spirit Tower
website shown here or on the Aviation Links page
Happy Landings, PIC
From The Treasurer - From Marlin Sipe
Because of the increase in fuel prices, we are raising the hourly cost for the plane to $34. The plan is to adjust the hourly rate as fuel prices change, so that we will have a surplus of about $15/hour after fuel, which is about what we had a year or so ago and came close to covering the maintenance. I am basing this on a typical 7.5 gph cruise setting, and then rounding to the nearest dollar. Hopefully fuel prices will start to come down, and we can lower our hourly rate again.
We came up short on money for the Annual, mainly because of the muffler, so we are assessing everyone their share of the shortage. Based on my guess of what the cost of the Annual will be, it comes to $50/person. Since we won't know the final cost of the Annual for at least a few days yet, it will be shown on the bill next month. When I get the final itemized bill for the Annual, I will put a link to it on the Billing web page.
We just got the numbers on the insurance. I had been reading in magazines that aviation insurance has been going way up, and ours is no exception. Our current insurance for $40,000 airframe coverage was $2314 last year. The same coverage is going up to $2546 this year. Because the the estimated value of the plane has increased to $44,500, we are insuring it for that amount, and the new insurance bill is $2746. This increase comes to about $61/person.
The bill this month shows an assessment of $110/person to cover both of those items. Since the assessment won't show up in the checking account until we all pay next month, I paid some extra this month to keep the checking account above the minimum balance so that we can avoid paying any service charges. I will also pay the Annual with my credit card. Some of this extra credit I will use to cover future flying, but I may also write a club check to myself (shown as a negative payment from me) for some of it as money is paid into the checking account.
Because of the increase in insurance, the total monthly cost of insurance, personal property tax, and tie-down now comes to about $58.50/person. The monthly dues are being raised to $60/month to cover the increase.
I added up the flight times for each member for the past year, and here's what I came up with. A large part of my time was made up of 3 trips that I took. Randy was the only person who fly every month of the year.
| Name | |
|---|---|
| Ganahl | |
| Graklanoff | Heilmann | Michal | Piccirilli | Russell | Sipe | Skyles | Maintenance | Total |
Maintenance Corner - From Marlin Sipe
The yoke-mounted push-to-talk switch has been repaired. It works much better than the old arrangement and shouldn't give us any more trouble
The annual inspection was completed at C-D Aircraft on Saturday with the right main tire, beacon light bulb, oil filter, air filter and Fuel filler cap gaskets needing replacement. The compression check was in the 70's so the engine is still looking good. We thought we were getting through the annual with minimum expense until Curt looked up the exhaust stack and did not see any baffles left inside the muffler. This muffler was installed in 1989 and it lasted longer than can normally be expected. C-D sent in our muffler for repair and we hope to have it back by 21 April so we can install it over the weekend. As soon as it is installed, the paperwork can be signed off and the airplane returned to service. Check the online schedule to see the latest status of the aircraft.
I enjoyed working on the annual over the weekend and am even more anxious now to get back in the air.
Airtex fabricates aircraft interior kits you can install yourself for a reasonable price. For our plane, the cost is $796 for the seats, $516 for the wall panels and $253 for the carpet. This totals $1565 for a new interior. With Delux materials, this price increases by 25%. Airtex sent a catalog with fabric, vinyl and carpet samples to choose from. This is probably the best way to go if we decide to upgrade the interior. Check the following article written by a pilot who installed a new Airtex interior on his Cardinal. He even had the same interior colors we have to work with.
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February 2000