St. Louis Flying Club Newsletter - 4 July 2011

From The President - By Todd Michal

Dear Members,

Please join me in welcoming Steve Heidenreich to the club. He purchased Jim Oshea's share and joined the club on 1 July.

The Garmin Aera 560 was installed on June 12th and it is great to have on board weather capability for the cross country trips. The photo below is from Shiv's trip on 3 July and shows the storms to the west as he travels from Waterloo Regional Airport in Iowa back to Spirit airport.

While the internal GPS antenna in the Aera works most of the time, we have had some reports of lost signals or it taking a long time to capture the satellite signals. John ordered an external GPS antenna for the Aera that will sit on top of the glareshield similar to the XM antenna.

Thanks to Mike Warakomski for making the new nylon bushings for the tug. These work much better and will not damage the nose wheel axel during installation and removal.

Happy Takeoffs!

Todd

Treasurer's Report - by Mike McBride

Fuel prices at TACAir rose another $0.25 this month, raising the flight rates to $72 and $96 per hour for the C172 and Arrow. Flight hours were around 12 for each airplane this past month.

The statement reflects charges for the acquisition of and installation hardware for the Aera 560 GPS in the Arrow. The charges were covered by the Arrow improvement fund. Overall treasury balance is strong at just under $4,000, and adjusted treasury is slightly positive.

Mike

   Maintenance - by John

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• Installed new Vacuum pump gasket and sealed engine baffle openings and gaps with RTV sealant on 5 June.

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• Oil Analysis Results - The oil analysis results from the May 31 oil change were received and all readings were less than the previous sample in February.
  

• Aera 560 Installation - The Garmin Aera 560 was installed on 11 June and XM weather capability activated on 13 June. An external Aera GPS antenna was ordered and will be installed to improve GPS signal reception. The Aera 560 Pilot manual is linked on the website "Arrow Manual" page and a hardcopy is in the Arrow. A bag containing the Aera battery chargers and auto mount is in the baggage compartment.