St Louis Flying Club Newsletter - 18 April 2001

From The President - By Mike Piccirilli

Hi Members!

Despite our effort to perform the annual ourselves, it won't work out this year! Randy's schedule will not allow him to commit to doing the Inspection responsibilities. We will be going to C-D Aviation at St. Charles County airport for the annual, same as the past couple years. Your help is still requested as there is a cost savings for us doing a lot of the manual effort (besides it's interesting to stick your head in the Skyhawk's nooks and cranny's every so often). See the maintenance section for more specifics on the annual.

We received two quotes on the insurance and as expected, they are much higher than last year. We are checking to see what options we have (increase deductables, etc), but in any case, our monthly dues will be going up.

Happy Landings!
Pic

Treasurer's Report - by Marlin Sipe

The cost of insurance has gone way up. A quote had not been finalized as I write this, but the same coverage as last year will cost about $1000 more than before. This means 2 things. One, montly dues will have to go up about $15 per member to cover that for next year. Two, the extra $1000 to pay for insurance this month will leave us with about $200 for the Annual, meaning we will need an extra assessment to cover the cost of the Annual. Both of these will probably appear on the May bill, to wait for the final insurance quote and Annual cost. Well, things were looking great until the insurance quote came in.

In an effort to make the handling of payments and money a little easier, we (John Heilmann and I) have been trying a free online payment service called PayPal. It allows you to directly send money to individuals, such as paying your flight bill each month online, by transferring money from your checking account to the club. PayPal is very popular with online auctions, and I have been using it for auctions myself. Using PayPal will allow you to pay the bill easily online, instead of mailing a check. It will help me as the treasurer by eliminating the handling of the paper checks and a trip to the bank. There will also be a history on the PayPal account which will help clear up an occasional incorrect amount or misplaced check (I did both in the last few years). Hopefully we can all start using PayPal. Any objections? I will send out email with more detailed info on how to use it. It takes at least a few days to get your account set up and verified, because of the deposits that PayPal makes to verify your account, so you may want to sign up soon.

Aircraft flight times for the past 12 months and previous 12 months is shown below. Flight time has increased by 11.4 hours per year or a little less than one hour a month.

   Maintenance - by John Heilmann

Annual Inspection - The annual will be conducted at C&D Aviation at St Charles County (Smartt) airport. We are making arrangements to get the plane over to C&D early Friday afternoon (April 20th). We will then start to prepare the aircraft for inspection by removing covers, seats, etc. On Saturday, we will do the inspection/maintenance and if everything is OK, we should finish up by Saturday evening. If not, we will finish up Sunday afternoon. Updates on exact times will be sent by email as the details are finalized. Anybody coming out to help with the annual on Saturday can have lunch at Kilroy's on the Flying club. Thanks for your help!

   Flight Planning Website

For a great flight planning site, check out Aeroplanner.com. This site is very easy to use and you can print out 5"x7" sheets of your route on either sectional or WAC charts in color for your kneeboard. By clicking the "lightning bolt" next to a selected airport or waypoint, you can overlay a weather map over your course. You can also overlay the precipitation radar map. If you register with Aeroplanner.com, which is FREE, you can store your routes and then quickly update them before your trip to get the latest weather data and winds aloft. See an example of the online charts below:

FAA Private and Instrument Test Questions

See how much you remember from your FAA Private Pilot or Instrument Rating Written Test by taking a quick 10 question test. Submit your answers and you will receive the correct answers and your score. (Don't worry, only you see the test results and your score.) This is a quick and easy way to keep familiar with the FARs. Use the links below and try to get a 100% on either the Private or Instrument Rating questions:

• Private Pilot Questions
• FAA Instrument Test Questions

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