St. Louis Flying Club Newsletter - 22 Jan 2009

From The President - By Todd Michal

Dear Members,

Happy New Year!

Winter is upon us. It's hard to brave the cold weather to go flying, but it is well worth it. With the hangar and engine heater it is much easier than in the past, so don't let the cold discourage you.

This is the time of year we usually hold our annual meeting, however, it's only been three months since we last met to discuss aircraft improvements. I propose that this year we hold the annual meeting in the Spring. By then, the extra $20 per month improvement fee will end and we can discuss our next move.

Get out and enjoy the crisp clear air.

Happy Takeoffs!

Todd

Treasurer's Report - by Mike McBride

Fuel costs continue to remain at very reasonable levels at JetDirect, and our flight rate remains at $60 per hour. Flying hours were low during the past month, at just under 7 hours. Our hangar rental with FlySpirit has increased by $20 effective 1 Jan 2009, but we were able to absorb that increase in the current monthly dues.

From a treasury and adjusted treasury perspective, we continue to replenish funds through the $10 per month, per member fee. We did not make headway on the treasury this month, due to the $900 expense for the new magneto. The current treasury balance is ($540), and adjusted treasury is ($1,500); the target treasury for annual at this point is $675, so we are $1,200 below the level that we would ideally want. At this point our best bet is to keep our fingers crossed that we can get the annual done for less than the budgeted $900; we will reassess our financial position following the annual. I will also perform an analysis of our treasury to identify any trends, and include that in next month's report.

Finally, I am looking for a way to capture flight time through the web, just to facilitate collection of the flight log information for statement preparation. I would like feedback from you on the feasibility of having members post flight log information in the online calendar entries following flights. This would involve simply providing the flight start and stop tach times, and an indication of whether fuel was requested before/after the flight in the calendar text. We would still maintain the hardcopy log in the plane, but this would provide me with a way to spread the usage logging for the billing statements through the month. Send me an email with your thoughts on this approach when you have a chance.

Fly safely!

Mike

Maintenance - by John

Oil Analysis - We received the oil analysis results from the oil change on 2 December shown as sample 26 below. There was a decrease in most readings but all the values are well within normal ranges. The affect of using Avblend is shown starting with sample 11 below.

Oil Contaminants

Sample Date Hours Alum Iron Copper Nickel Chrome Silicon

1 9-Aug-96 50 18 47 4 4 156 6

2 30-Oct-97 54 16 52 4 4 204 3

3 19-Jun-98 47 18 51 1 4 160 10

4 23-Oct-98 45 12 39 4 5 219 5

5 15-Apr-99 31 11 39 3 5 145 8

6 15-Aug-99 60 12 45 3 8 287 8

7 15-Apr-00 52 13 45 4 8 207 8

8 19-Aug-00 50 13 45 5 6 207 6

9 10-Feb-01 54 14 46 5 5 116 7

10 7-July-01 56 13 57 3 6 124 13

11 26-Oct-01 45 10 44 3 4 83 14

12 28-Apr-02 57 14 56 3 8 165 4

13 15-Mar-03 55 12 56 3 7 108 6

14 23-Jul-03 50 12 56 3 6 112 3

15 31-Dec-03 58 16 28 3 3 57 10
16 25-Jul-04 49 12 31.6 3.2 2 54 5

17 20-Feb-05 41 12 26.9 6.2 9 36 8

18 6-Aug-05 54 10 22 4.4 4 32 7

19 13-May-06 40 10 35 3.9 5 46 5

20 6-Aug-06 37 7 33.5 3.1 4 31 8

21 28-Oct-06 44 8 42.3 2.9 6 39 7

22 21-Mar-07 53 8 24.6 2.2 3 25 7

23 19-Nov-07 45 14 36.6 3.2 3 34 7

24 4-May-08 44 8 17.6 2.7 2 21 10

25 22-Jul-08 51 6 19.3 2.5 3 21 10

26 2-Dec-08 42 5 17.9 1.8 3 24 7

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