"St Louis Flying Club Newsletter"

St. Louis Flying Club Newsletter - 22 June 2010

From The President - By Todd Michal

Dear Members,

The engine overhaul was completed and returned to us on Friday, June 18th. Thanks to Mike Landgraf for picking up the engine at the Fedex building and delivering it to the hanger. Thanks to John Heilmann, Mike Warakomski, Chris Tebbe, Mike Piccirilli, and Bob Z for working the installation effort on Saturday. The engine installation is going well and the progress as of Monday, June 21 is shown in the photo below.

John and Jerry Rettinger were able to trouble shoot and fix the alternator issue on Sunday. The intermittent operation that we initially saw when we just got the arrow was traced to a bad splice crimp in the Alternator field circuit. The splice crimp was behind the side wall in a difficult area to access. The wire became loose and would intermittently make contact until the wire finally backed out to the point it didn't make any contact and the alternator stopped working. A new BAT/ALT switch was also installed and the system now works if you start the plane with both ALT/BAT on or BAT on and then turn on the ALT after the engine is running.

Welcome to Philip Self who became the 14th member of the club this month. The two applicants for the final two spots have decided not to join at this time so we are still looking for two additional members.

Happy Takeoffs!

Todd

Treasurer's Report - by Mike McBride

May / June flying hours for the Arrow were strong, with just over 17 flight hours logged. Fuel prices remained steady at $5.45, leaving our flight rate at $87 per hour. Cessna flight rate also stayed steady at $65, with zero hours logged.

Treasury and Adjusted Treasury balances are strong, which is good given the upcoming expenses for the C172 overhaul and annual completion. The engine overhaul charge came in at just over $16k, and the other expenses are anticipated to come in around $3,500. This month's bill includes the second $300 installment of the anticipated $600 assessment. Once all expenses are in, we will determine whether another (much smaller) assessment is needed to bring treasury balances back to desired levels.

We had a fuel charge this past month from Midwest Aviation on the Arrow; we do not have any preferential pricing on the field other than with TACAir, so any fuel purchases from other on-field providers will be handled using the same approach that we use for off-field purchases (with members absorbing costs above fuel price at TACAir). We were not able to determine who authorized the purchase from Midwest, so we've asked Midwest to ensure that they collect directly from the requesting member in the future.

Please remember to note fuel purchases and oil additions on the web when you complete your flights.

Fly safely!

Mike

Maintenance - by John

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Annual Inspection - With the engine return, the rebuild process is in full gear. There will be more detail on the annual/Overhaul after it is completed in the next week or so. While bead blasting the alternator attach bracket to prepare for painting, a crack was found almost half way across the bracket. You can see the crack near the hole on the left side of the bracket in the photo below. A new bracket will be ordered.

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Alternator - As Todd mentioned above, the Alternator problem was traced to a bad splice crimp. The splice was replaced and a new Bat/Alt switch was installed. The system now operates correctly with no issues.
DG - The DG was returned from King Avionics last week. They said they could not find any problem with the DG and tried numerous times to get it to precess. They returned it us and did not charge us anything for their checkout or return shipping. The DG was reinstalled in the plane. Pic flew the plane on Sunday morning and was going to do an ops check on the DG but could not get the knob to set the heading on the DG. The knob was installed too far on the shaft and would bottom out on the panel overlay before engaging the heading selection. This was fixed and the DG ground checks OK. Keep in mind when checking the DG heading that the compass has some large deviations (up to 11 degrees). See deviation chart below. Once we get the Cessna back in the air, we will be installing a new vertical card compass in the Arrow and hopefully have smaller deviations.

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