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St. Louis Flying Club Newsletter - 26 January 2019 |
From The President - By Steve
Greetings Members:
Winter is here and with it comes some pretty rough flying weather. Damian did manage to get in a long trip through Florida over the Christmas period. His flight in the Arrow included several stops through the South over 8 days. During the trip he experienced a vacuum pump failure, fortunately in VMC, as most pilots consider a vacuum pump failure in IMC an emergency situation. He was able to get the pump replaced and complete his trip. This is one less problem to worry about in the Cessna with the addition of the G5's and the elimination of the vacuum system.
Thanks to Geoff Gallaway for taking care of the club insurance. We are seeing a rate increase due to a combination of increasing aircraft valuations and previous claims. The rates on the hangars are also going from $285/month to $300/month.
With the cold weather that is setting in it's important to preheat the engine. It is available in the blue links on the left side of the Home page. I usually try and turn it on the night before for a morning flight or in the morning for an afternoon flight.
If anyone is planning on taking a plane to Oshkosh this year keep in mind the lottery system. Geoff will be requesting applications with the drawing at our club meeting in the Spring. Another opportunity to keep in mind would be the aerobatic contest at Salem (KSLO) on May 18th and 19th. It is an easy flight over with a chance to see some great flying and neat airplanes. Dave Schmitz has been competing there with his RV the past two years…he could probably give us some tips on learning/performing aerobatics in our RV.
Safe Flying,
Steve
Treasurer's Report - by T.J
Fellow Members,
Attached below are our 1/15/19 financial schedules; we’ve gone with the section approach again so please be sure to read all the way down. Great job on the hours!!
Blue Skies
TJ
Billing Statement
The billing statement is attached below, please let me know if you have any questions.
BALANCE SHEET
Notable items on the balance sheet include:
- We paid our insurance premiums for 2019, as follows:
Changes from the prior year are attributable to the fact that the overall market increased 17% across the board, we had a claim, and we are insuring a more valuable aircraft in the RV over the Citabria. Interestingly enough, we are insuring the RV and Arrow for almost exactly the same hull value, so one could glean that the $570 premium in the RV over the Arrow represents the increase for the claim.
- We paid our 2018 personal property taxes of $2,910.52; which is primarily responsible for the decrease in “general”.
- See the maintenance report, but we put a new starter and battery in the RV, thus the decrease.
- We bought a JPI probe and brake pads for the Cessna, but if flew so many hours that the fund still increased.
- We put a new vacuum pump and directional gyro in the Arrow.
Don’t hesitate to send questions.
Maintenance - by John 
N202CR RV-7A
- Starter - The Prestolite Starter on the RV failed on 4 January. Trouble shooting indicated a wire/solder joint failed inside the starter at the coil. Rather than repair the old starter, a new Skytec starter was ordered (same starter that is on Cessna and Arrow) and installed on Jan 14.
- Cylinder No 3 Heater Element - A new engine heater element was ordered for cylinder No. 3 and installed on Jan 14. This cylinder did not previously have a heater element installed as the CHT probe was using the tapped hole that heater element would go into. Tanis has recently developed a different heater element that replaces a cylinder bolt. We should now get even heating on all of the cylinders. When using the engine heater IRIS application, you should see about 260 watts being used when the engine heater is turned on.
N20843 Cessna 172M
- Audio Panel - Our GMA-340 Audio Panel was repaired at Garmin and returned to us last week. In addition to repairing the COM MIC 1 and 2 buttons, Garmin also incorporated all the improvement modifications available for the audio panel.
N2242N Piper Arrow IV
- Directional Gyro - Damian reported that the Directional Gyro Heading Bug worked fine on his trip down to Florida but that it did not work on the return trip. We had previously sent the DG in for repair but they couldn't find anything wrong with it. On the next flight, Geoff reported that the DG Heading bug worked fine with no issues but on the next flight, PIC reported that the heading bug did not work and that the plane would continue to turn past the selected heading bug course. A DG was purchased that had 160 hours on it since overhaul and it was installed on 17 January.
Copyright © 2018, St. Louis Flying Club, All rights reserved. Last updated Jan 2019
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