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St. Louis Flying Club Newsletter - 31 December 2016

From The President - By Charley

Dear Members:

Happy New Year and I hope everyone had a restful holiday season and was able to spend some time with family and friends!

Progress continues on the Arrow, a huge thanks to all who have endured the cold weather and lots of work to get us to where we are with this huge project. Barring any setbacks, the aircraft is expected to be back in service soon. As John outlined at our last club meeting, the first 50 hours really needs to be cross country flying to properly break in the new engine. I am sure John will provide us the specifics around what is required but suffice to say that we will need to be thinking about taking the aircraft cross country instead of pattern or approach work once the installation is complete.

The fire that occurred in the “A” hangar complex has temporarily interrupted our internet service to the hangars. There is a whole team of people working on ways to get us internet access in the meantime until construction on the hangars is complete or we decide to find another source. The office computer currently accesses the internet if you accept the "Terms and Conditions" page that comes up the first time you try to enter the internet. This internet access times out so it is not sufficient to work the engine heaters by remote control. In the meantime, we are keeping the Cessna and Citabria heaters on full time. Thanks to everyone working to restore internet access to the hangar!

Our new slate of Officers have jumped right in to take over their duties without missing a beat. T.J. has a firm grasp on our financial situation and has now fully taken over billing, Tim has made the necessary changes to our filing with the Secretary of State to enable access to bank accounts and Steve has already obtained and bound our quote for insurance for 2017. Thanks to you all for your willingness to jump in and take on the business of the club!

Our insurance will be renewed with AIG with some slightly increased hull values to more accurately represent aircraft values after avionics upgrades and the engine replacement. Our rates have actually gone down ever so slightly year over year due to this being our second year after the landing gear claim, we hope to see a further reduction next year if we continue without incident. Our policy details will be posted to the members only section of the website once it is finalized.

I’m happy to report that Dom Bausano is on the road to recovery and has continued to work on club organization items while he recovers! Dom is assisting with efforts to obtain internet at the hangars and is also working on re-instating our club discount at the Spirit Pilot Shop that is now under new ownership.

Safe skies,

Charley

Treasurer's Report - by T.J

Members,

It’s my first month without any large swing items. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions.

Aircraft Rates - Fuel stayed flat again at $6.08 per gallon. Given there were no other changes in the month, December rates are $64, $78 and $104 for the Citabria, Cessna and Piper, respectively.

Aircraft Improvement Fund – The aircraft improvement fund decreased as the A&P’s installed our nifty new ADS-B compliant transponder in the Citabria. The cost of $2,846 was offset by a $500 rebate received from the FAA.

New Engine for the Arrow – See John’s write-up for all the details, but we are getting close to being final. We experienced another unexpected expense in the form of our prop not having proper thickness and as such, we did not receive full core credit. This will result in an additional $750 of expense and so we have priced in an additional $1,000 in total to complete the project; on top of the $6,000 increase last month. Thus, we now expect the total cost for the new engine to approximate $49,500. Ouch! Of course it will be great when it is done and definitely worth the great improvements in the engine compartment.

Credit Card Cash Back – The balance in the credit card cash back was approaching $800, so I moved $725 into the checking account. Note that this amount is generally viewed as funds for the enjoyment of the members so please don’t hesitate to offer a social outing for the club. It may be the cold of winter, but there is always something fun to talk about regarding airplanes.

Share Value – The share value went to $10,292 for the month. The $121 decrease per member represents a total decrease of $3,000 which is attributable to the $2,100 decrease in the aircraft improvement fund as well as the $1,000 change for the Arrow engine estimate.

Fly safe and I look forward to seeing you at the hangar.

   Maintenance - by John

N8746V Citabria 7ECA

No maintenance issues to report this month

N20843 Cessna 172M

Engine Monitor - The JPI EDM-730 Engine monitor was removed from the Cessna and sent to JPI in California for repair. The EDM-730 was no longer recording data and the display format was unreadable. JPI repaired the engine monitor and returned it to us. Due to its low position on the instrument panel, the screen viewing angle is not optimal and it is sometimes difficult to view, especially for the taller pilots. We are planning to install the engine monitor at an angle so it is easier to see. We will reinstall the engine monitor when we complete the Arrow Engine installation.

N2242N Piper Arrow IV

Engine - We received the engine on December 12th and had it mounted on the airframe that afternoon.



Since that time, we have been working to install the many systems that interact with the engine and landing gear. Here are a few photos of the installation progress.

Copyright © 2016, St. Louis Flying Club, All rights reserved. Last updated December 2016 .