St. Louis Flying Club Newsletter - 24 August 2007

From The President - By Todd Michal

Dear Members,

The aircraft is close to completion and we hope to have it back within the next two weeks. With some of the best flying weather coming up, it will be great to get back up in the air again.

Happy Takeoffs!

Todd

Treasurer's Report - by Mike McBride

Our financial position remains essentially as expected this month, with no flight time accruing on the plane and charges/credits for the engine monitor and preheat systems applied. Those charges were covered by the improvement fund, which now shows a negative balance of $785. The adjusted treasury (which will be used to pay for the painting) is at $5,580; any additional funds needed to cover the paint expense will come out of the improvement fund, moving that balance further into the negative. Fuel remains fairly stable, our price at JetCorp fell slightly to $4.50 per gallon for 100LL, and the hourly rate dropped back down to $59 for this month.

I attended an FAA Safety Seminar at Skyline Aviation earlier this month. In the seminar, the FAA representative discussed changes that are being implemented in the Wings program. If you have not seen those changes, it is worth a look. They are moving to a continuous education model, focused on the aspects of flying which are most directly related to accidents, and which has the potential to replace the BFR with an ongoing "currency" status. It is an interesting approach, take a look at the program at their web site, www.faasafety.gov . The WINGS program is one of the options on the side banner, and on the WINGS page there is a link to a 20 minute online video tutorial that describes the new program very well.

Looking forward to getting a shiny N20843 back into the air!!

   Maintenance - by John

• WAAS Upgrade - Everything is ready for the WAAS installation once the aircraft arrives back in St Louis. We have to remove the headliner and replace the current GPS with a new WAAS GPS antenna and add the additional coax to meet the required length. We should be able to complete this effort in less than a day.
• Paint - Shelby sent a message saying the control surfaces are back on. He said he replaced the flap rollers as they were very worn. He is just charging us for the roller kit which runs $250-$275. We were going to have to replace them shortly in any case and now was the best time to do it. Mark Rewhinkel is planning to go down and pick up the plane when it is ready. The picture below was taken on Aug 11 after the first coat of white paint was applied.

  

  
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