"St Louis Flying Club Newsletter"

St. Louis Flying Club Newsletter - 20 Aug 2009

From The President - By Todd Michal

Dear Members,

The ramp resurfacing was completed quickly and the plane is back in the hangar. I flew last week and everything is working great. The new tachometer gives a much better indication of the true engine RPM. We have been running at a higher RPM than the old tach indicated. Our fuel burn rates (and the cooresponding hourly rate) may go down as a result. The new alternator seems to have fixed the low voltage warnings we were getting from the traffic monitor.

Happy Takeoffs!

Todd

Treasurer's Report - by Mike McBride

Fuel prices at TacAir rose slightly to about $5.30 per gallon, which puts our flight rate at $60.00 per tach hour. Flight hours were fairly strong at 13.7 for the month. Maintenance expenses settled down for the month, at slightly over $100; fuel expenses were just over $525 (reflective of the flight hours in July).

Both the treasury and the adjusted treasury are in good shape; the current treasury balance is just over $750, and the adjusted treasury is just under $725.

In last month's newsletter, I mentioned the increased hourly fuel consumption that we saw on the monthly flight log, and I suggested that it should be reasonable to fly at a fuel consumption rate under 7 gallons per hour. Well, if you have been able to accomplish that, please let me know how you did so ... I intended to suggest that we should be able to keep the hourly fuel consumption under 8 gallons per hour! I have not gotten statements from TacAir to calculate fuel consumption for this latest statement period, but will try to have that information for the next billing statement.

Fly safely!

Mike

Maintenance - by John

Oil Change - The oil and filter were changed on 4 Aug and an oil sample was sent in for analysis. The spark plugs were cleaned, gapped and rotated and are good for another 50 hours.

Landing Light - The new halogen landing light is working great. It doesn't use much power and can be left on for traffic avoidance as needed. It provides plenty of light for night operations and should last much longer than the previous bulbs.

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