St. Louis Flying Club Newsletter - 25 June 2012

From The President - By Pic

Dear Members,

The club has received a request from the EAA to help promote their B-17 which will be at Spirit July 3, 4, 6 - 8 for one of 30 tour stops scheduled this year. As part of its 2012 “Salute to Veterans” tour, the B-17 will visit cities throughout the country, offering flights and ground tours to local residents. Since EAA began the tours in 1994, tens of thousands of people have experienced this unique airplane known as “Aluminum Overcast - The Flying Fortress.” The B-17 bomber is considered one of the greatest military airplanes ever built and one of the best-known aircraft types of the World War II era. For promoting flight and ground tours, the EAA is providing us 20 free ground tour passes. Please contact John if you are interested in a ground pass (he will distribute as demand allows). Photo and video of the B-17 “Aluminum Overcast” are available at EAA’s FTP website: http://media.eaa.org Username: eaamedia Password: airventure2012

I flew my wife and daughter to French Lick, IN in the 172 for a short vacation. It's a perfect resort for pilots! KFRH has a 5,500' runway and is 189 nautical miles due East. Free tiedowns, beautiful terminal building (picture below), free resort transportation (not just to the resort but everywhere you would need to go; stables, golf course, restaurants, etc) all you do is ask and give nominal tips to the drivers! French Lick resort is actually 2 tremendous hotels with all the amenities, 3 golf courses, and a casino. Check out the websites: http://www.frenchlickairport.com/ http://www.frenchlick.com/

New member, Dom, had asked about tie-downs and I was surprised I didn't know the answer right away. Well, I found we do have 3 screw-in-the-ground tiedowns and ropes. There are 2 khaki canvas bags, one for the tie-downs screws with a wooden handle to give leverage and a separate bags with the tie-downs. They are in the back of Hangar B23 on top of a shelf in the left corner. If you just need the ropes, just take the rope bag. You will need both bags if you need to use the screw in tiedowns.

I will be on a business trip on Australia July 3 thru 13. Please contact one of the other officers; Chris, Charlie, Mike or John with any issues. Happy Landings,

Happy Landings!

Pic

Treasurer's Report - by Mike McBride

Fuel prices at TACAir dropped slightly this past month, but not enough to result in a change to the hourly flight rate. Our rates remained at $105 and $80 per hour, respectively, for the Arrow and C172; flight time was 27.4 hours for the Arrow and 16.8 hours for the Skyhawk.

Treasury, Adjusted Treasury, and Equity balances were all improved this past month with the addition of Dom Bausano as a new full member. Proceeds from the new share sale to Dom were applied first to the Arrow Equity balance, to return that fund to a zero balance, and which closes out the Equity fund. the remaining funds were left in the Treasury, improving both that balance and the Adjusted Treasury balance. We ended the month with a treasury balance of just over $5,200, and an adjusted treasury balance of just under $2,750.

The only major expenses in the forecast for the club are the GPS subscription renewals. The Cessna renewal is due this month, and the Arrow is due in September. We have about $500 budgeted for each renewal.

Fly safely!

Mike

   Maintenance - by John

N20843

We received the oil analysis results from the oil change on 30 May and the iron levels were higher than normal. AOA (Aviation Oil Analysis) recommends we change the oil at 25 hours and recheck the Iron levels to see if there are any issues.

• Oil Analysis - We received the oil analysis results from the oil change on 4 June and just like the Cessna, the Arrow also had elevated levels of Iron. We will check the oil at 25 hours as recommended by AOA. Since we are seeing elevated iron readings on both engines, I suspect this is due to the hot moist late winter/early spring weather this year that may have caused increased surface rusting and higher than normal iron levels.

  

• No. 1 CDI indicator - Initial troubleshooting indicates we have a problem with the No. 1 Course Deviation Indicator (CDI). The indicator still works correctly for GPS navigation and ILS approaches but is not working for VOR navigation due to the CDI OBS knob not sending the required signal back to the GNS-430W. It started out as an intermittent problem reported by Phil that the OBS heading numbers were flashing on the GPS start up page and then by Charlie as intermittent and then inoperative VOR tracking. I am currently looking at repair options but hear the repair charge for this CDI is a flat rate of approx $600. To avoid removing the CDI and taking away the primary GPS navigation capability while the CDI is being repaired, I am planning to placard the #1 CDI for GPS and ILS use only until the Cessna annual in August. At that time, we can put the Cessna CDI in the Arrow and get the Arrow CDI repaired while the Cessna is down for the annual inspection.

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