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St. Louis Flying Club Newsletter - 31 November 2020

From The President - By Steve

Dear Members,

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. With another year in the books for the St. Louis Flying Club I thought I would take this opportunity to recap 2020. Our total membership stayed at 24 throughout the year but we added 2 new names to the member list as John Addy and John Housley moved on to be replaced by Rob Jenner and Bill Carrier. At this moment our waiting list has 3 solid applicants. There are currently 18 members checked out in the Arrow and 14 in the RV. In 2020 we completed avionics upgrades on the RV and the Arrow and even with the down time for those upgrades the flight time for all 3 planes was around 500 hours. We go into the new year with all the airplanes equipped with top of the line Garmin equipment including autopilots. I am looking forward to a great flying year. We saw a huge increase in insurance last year and there is not much reason to think 2021 will be any better. We will know more when the insurance quotes come back in a couple of weeks.

The officer group remains intact with the exception of Mike Piccirilli filling the Chief Pilot position. I appreciate all of the officers who give up their time and energy to make the club successful. Thanks go in no particular order to John Heilmann for his work on the airplanes, TJ Smyka for the finances, Mike Piccirilli for his work as Chief Pilot, Mike Landgraf for meeting scheduling/setup/recording and Geoff Gallaway for handling insurance, member status and IT work.

Best wishes for safe flying in the new year!

Safe flying!

Steve

Treasurer's Report - by T.J

Happy New Year!

The Arrow is back in service and looks great! Thanks to John and Larry! Please note that there is significant activity in the current month with the Arrow, insurance, and the end of the year. Don’t hesitate to let me know if there are any questions.

Blue Skies

TJ

BILLING STATEMENT

BALANCE SHEET

Significant Discussions

• Insurance - Our 2020 insurance has been fully amortized, thus the $0 balance. Our next premium will be due on 1/22 and we’ll pay it by 1/15; so you’ll see the new premium, less one month of amortization, in the next balance sheet.
• Aircraft Improvement - Avionics - We are done with the Arrow upgrade so this balance should stop going down and increase each month with the sale of the old avionics and by the $312.50 that we are currently allocating to it. Assuming we didn’t spend any funds out of this bucket going forward, and assuming our current due allocation, we will repay this in 7-8 years. The officers will be discussing the appropriate dues amount and allocation when we receive the new insurance premium.
• Other Improvement Funds - See the line above for further clarification. We are no longer funding these lines as we experienced a significant increase in insurance in 2020 and elected to not raise dues. At the officers meeting, we decided to hold dues flat and see what happens to insurance in January. Ultimately, we will likely combine the interior and exterior improvement funds.
• Maintenance Funds - Maintenance Funds are all at a healthy level.
• Overall Cash - Cash will be sufficient for needed payments into the foreseeable future.
• Major Work - This line represents all the funds we spent on the Arrow as we improved the airplane and has now been collapsed into the Arrow line item. As a reminder, we will revalue all the aircraft at March 15 and appropriately write the aircraft up or down as the market dictates.

   Maintenance - by John

N202CR RV-7A

• No Maintenance Items for this month

N20843 Cessna 172

• Oil Cooler Winterizaton Plate - The oil cooler winterization plate was installed on Dec 15th to reduce cold airflow to the oil cooler. This helps the oil warm up quicker and get to the correct oil temperature during flight to boil off any moisture in the oil during the winter months.
• Annual Inspection - The Cessna was downed for the annual inspection on January 1st. In addition to the normal annual inspection items, we plan to replace the fuel drain cable and replace the O-rings in the gascolater to help make it easier to check for water in the fuel during preflight.

N2242N Piper Arrow IV

• Avionics Upgrade/Autopilot Install - The Avionics Upgrade/Autopilot upgrade was completed on 18 December. In addition to the Avionics and autopilot upgrade, new trim plastic was installed around the windshield and the lower cracked air vent ducts were replaced. The Throttle, Mixture, and windshield defrost control cables were replaced to make their operation much smoother. The cracked wing walk support was repaired with added angle supports.

Copyright © 2018, St. Louis Flying Club, All rights reserved. Last updated December 2020 .