St. Louis Flying Club Newsletter - 23 December 2008

From The President - By Todd Michal

Dear Members,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Thanks to everyone for attending or calling in to the annual club meeting on 13 December. It was great for everyone to meet Mike Langraf who joined the club in October. It was also nice to see Mike Piccirilli, previous club president, and Chis Tebbe who presented a proposal to expand the club and purchase a 1979 Arrow IV. Based on unanimous club approval of the proposal, we are currently in the negotiation process to procure the Arrow and hope to have the plane available in the January time frame. We plan to do a pre-buy inspection during the scheduled annual inspection the current owner will do sometime in January. If you know of anyone who is interested in joining the club, please have them fill out the online club application form.

Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Todd

Treasurer's Report - by Mike McBride

Fuel prices dropped slightly since the last billing cycle; along with fuel consumption dropping slightly, the flight rate went down to $63 per hour. Flying time in November/December was light, at just over 6 hours. The adjusted treasury and treasury balances are back in positive territory, not quite where we would want them at this point based on expected costs for the annual inspection, but not too far off.

I'll be working over the holiday to build a summary of spending for the past year, similar to what I put together a year ago. I'll also be working on setting up the financials related to club expansion. As soon as the landscape clears a bit on the actual costs of the new aircraft and the new members joining the club, I'll be sending out the specifics. In the meantime, members should be making their decisions on whether they intend to move forward as "Full" vs "Limited" members. I'm expecting we will need individual decisions on that within the next couple of weeks.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season ... Merry Christmas to all of you, and I hope you all get to spend lots of time with your families over the next two weeks. Peace, Mike

Happy flying! Mike

   Maintenance - by John

IFR Checks - Mueller Avionics completed the Altimeter & Altitude Reporter Test per FAR 91.411 and the Transponder Test per FAR 91.413 on 7 December. These tests are required every two years and the next test is due by the end of December 2011.

Oil Change - The oil and filter were changed on Dec 23 as the temperatures was near 50 degrees. With the reduced flying during the late fall and winter months, we did't reach 50 hours on the oil but hit the 4 month time limit. The next oil change will occur at the annual inspection at the end of April.