St. Louis Flying Club Newsletter - 23 January 2014

From The President - By Charley

Members:

It looks like mother nature has continued to keep a damper on flying schedules over the past month with not many good weather days to choose from. Although there was not a lot of flying in the month, there was a lot of club activity.

A huge thank you goes out to John and Kip for not only replacing the fuel pump in the Arrow but also for the cool new Aera installation in the Cessna along with a hard wired GDL-39. Some of the pictures of traffic and weather taken by John and Kip during test runs were amazing and the panel pictures look incredible. What a terrific improvement to an already great club aircraft! On his first flight post improvement, Dom looked carefully enough at the W&B to realize that the aircraft actually lost 8lbs during the improvements. It is obvious that many hours of hard work and careful planning went into these improvements, thank a lot guys.

I’m happy to report that Phil Self has decided not to sell his share. This is great news as I know we are all glad to see Phil remain with the club!

T.J. Smyka has come up with a great idea to create a “Flying League” to begin this Spring which will involve some friendly competition to encourage flying to new and exciting places. T.J. will be along in a couple of weeks to give everyone the full details but it looks like a lot of fun and a great way to encourage flying with some new destinations in mind.

For a bit more good news in the month, give Pic’s report a read below. Looking forward to seeing you all and some warmer weather soon!

Charley

Treasurer's Report - by PIC

Members, There is a lot of good news this month from the Treasurer!

1. The full service fuel price is down to $6.00/gal which has lowered the hourly costs to $75 and $99.
2. Since the decision was made to upgrade the planes with ADS-B In (addition of the GDL-39s), we no longer need to accrue to pay for Sirius weather. This lowers the monthly dues to $121. When the decision is made at the May meeting on how often to update the Aera databases this will probably creep back up, but until then......
3. Over the past year that I’ve been in the Treasurer role, I’ve grown concerned with the amount of money in the club’s Escrow accounts (over $32,000 on the Dec bill). Almost 30% of these funds are for normal annual bills (insurance, annuals, Personal Property Taxes and database subscriptions). After discussing with Charley and John, we've decided to change the way we handle the items in the Escrow account.
   1. The escrow account will continue to be used for long-term (non-defined date) expenses: engine/propeller overhauls and improvement funds (currently about $24,000).
   2. The expenses that come due once a year, on specific dates, will be kept in a new account called Annual Bills (insurance, annuals, Personal Property Taxes and database subscriptions). In 2014, the Annual bills are projected to total $13,721 or $1,143/mo. In a perfect world, we could space these bills out evenly across the year. But in reality, in order to pay the PP tax bill in December and the insurance bill in January, we've maintained a large cash reserve in the other months. I thought we could opt for paying our insurance monthly, or at least quarterly, to spread out our costs but the insurance company wanted to charge us ~ 10% interest! We've got a better solution. We're sitting on $24,000 in the escrow account. We can utilize those funds to cover the low months. Over the months, the Annual Bill account will be negative in some and positive in others. At the end of the year, it will average to zero. By making this change, we can move $8,962.10 into the Treasury account. A side benefit of this accounting change is that there will be less volatility in the monthly share value as the monthly charge for annual bills will be the same every month.
4. The Share Value has grown by about $80 this month to $10,720.
5. So in summary, the overhaul accounts are funded to their appropriate level, annual and monthly bills are covered, the improvement fund is at $2,280 and the adjusted treasury is $18,666. The treasury funds are surplus funds. They can be used to for interior/exterior refurbishment, aircraft improvements, as a buffer for unexpected expenses (instead of a special assessment) or even can be refunded to club members (bringing share value below $10,000 to aid in marketing to new members). It will make for a good discussion topic at the May meeting when we hear from the committee on the improvement strategy for the planes.

Fly Safely!

PIC

   Maintenance - by John

N20843

• AERA/GDL-39 Installation - The AERA 550 and GDL-39 were installed and the AERA GPS output connected to the ACK-406 ELT for improved locating accuracy. While we had the panel opened and access to the back of the GNS-430, we also connected the RS-232 interface between the GNS-430 and EDM-730 engine monitor to support additional functions such as "Fuel Required to Destination" and "Fuel Reserve at Destination". Working on the aircraft during the cold weather is problematic as the interior plastic becoming very brittle and easily damaged. The center console cracked in multiple places during the avionics installation and it will be replaced shortly when the weather warms up a little and the new decals arrive.

  

• Battery Minder extension cable - An extension cable was installed from the front cowl opening area to the battery to allow easy charging of the the battery without removing the cowl or battery box lid.

N2242N

• Electric Fuel Pump - The electric fuel pump failed on Dec 28th and was replaced with a new Weldon 8120-G fuel pump on New Years day.
• Battery Minder extension cable - An extension cable was installed from the front cowl opening area to the battery to allow easy charging of the the battery without removing the cowl or battery box lid.

Copyright © 2012, St. Louis Flying Club, All rights reserved. Last updated January 2014.