St Louis Flying Club Newsletter - 17 April 1999

From The President - By Mike Piccirilli

Dear Members,

Spring has arrived. I am writing this on April 7th and the C-172 should be going over to C&D Aviation, at Smartt Field, for it's annual inspection this coming weekend. Hopefully it will go smoothly. The results of the annual will probably be included elsewhere in the newsletter. Much thanks to the members that are helping with the annual.

I was contacted by our insurance broker, NationAir, regarding the insurance renewal. The good news is that two insurance companies offered quotes for our insurance, unfortunately both are more than last year's. We paid $2,165 last year and our current insurance provider's quote was for $2,314 and another company was $2,380. We'll stay with our current company. I am told that most insurance companies are not interested in insuring flying clubs (partnerships greater than 4 individuals) and that is why only 2 companies offered quotes.

With the increase in insurance and personal property tax we need to talk about increasing the monthly dues. I set up the annual meeting for Wednesday April 28th, at the JetCorp terminal building conference room, 7:30 P.M. Please provide feedback if this time won't work for you. Besides talking about the dues and annual inspection results, we will need to vote for new officers. As I discussed last year, I'd like someone to take over the President responsibilities. Towards making this happen, I nominate Marlin to be President.

Included with the newsletter this month is an application for membership from John Heilmann. John is a good friend of mine who recently returned from an overseas assignment and is interested in joining a club rather than renting. John realizes we don't currently have a spot open but if someone wants to sell their share in the future please contact him. John does have an A&P license.

I wasn't sure where we stood with the directional gyro problem but John Heilmann has a new directional gyro, which he had purchased for his homebuilt, which is available to be purchased, at a very reasonable price. Let me know if we want to replace it.

Happy Landings,

Mike Piccirilli

Treasurer's Report - by Marlin Sipe

To avoid running below tne minimum balance on the checking account, I paid the Annual Inspection myself and just show it as a credit for me here. Todd and John also paid some extra on their accounts. This is enough to avoid the minimum balance servõce fees on the checking account. Thanks. Otherwise, we would have still had the money to pay the bills, but the bank would have charged us a few bucks too.

I added a new line to the Balance Sheet, an "Adjusted Treasury". It's the same as the "Current Treasury" (Checking account minus Escrow), except that it is adjusted for the "Balance Due" column. It ignores any credit carried over from the previous month (money the club should not have received yet), and assumes full payment of the bill from the previous month (money the club should have received this month but didn't). This gives a more realistic picture of the Treasury, especially when a large credit is shown (for example, members paying extra, and my payment of the Annual this month).

The Annual cost less than we budgeted for, but the increase in insurance ate up most of the surplus. That leaves us with about a $58 start on the Treasury for the coming year.

When the dues were last changed, we set the dues to cover the insurance, property tax, and shade-port. Since then, the insurance and tax have gone up, and it now comes to $54.xx per person per month. I would recommend raising the monthly dues to $55. This will be discussed at the meeting.

   Maintenance Corner - from Marlin Sipe

We had a decent turnout for help with the Annual this year. I was there all day Saturday. Todd and his father-in-law Al were there for several hours Saturday morning, and Jerry was there for several hours Saturday afternoon, and Randy was there most of the day also. Thanks guys. Then on Sunday I was there most of the day. I took a friend along to help (thanks Gary), and Randy was there most of the day again.

The plane made it through the Annual with no major problems. The nose-wheel was getting really worn; so we decided to replace it. We expected to be able to re-use the tube, but when we pulled it out, we found that it was pinched when it was originally put in, so the tube was replaced too.

I noticed there was some extra play in the left aileron. A washer was put in where the pushrod attaches to the aileron, taking up some of the play.

I can't think of any other sign)ficant problems that were found. Everything else was ok.

Engine compression is down a little from last year, but not a lot. We changed the oil while we were at it, and took a sample for analysis. I'll include the results of the oil analysis in the next newsletter when we receive it.

Todd went to fly the plane back to Spirit Tuesday, and found that the mechanic left the Master on, and the battery was almost dead, so it had to be left there to charge the battery before it could be flown back.

We saved about $200 by going out and doing some of the work ourselves. They take 5 hours off the labor, plus we were able to do some things ourselves instead of paying them to do it. You can see on the final report/bill that a lot of things that were done do not have any labor with them. We did those. The final price on the annual was $614.28.

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