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St. Louis Flying Club Newsletter - 31 July 2016

From The President - By Charley

Dear Members:

Congrats to Tim Volk who participated in the IAC Aerobatic Event in Salem, IL that occurred June 3rd through the 5th. Not only did Tim compete, he took 2nd place in the Primary Category! TJ, John Heilmann and Steve were on hand to witness the success and cheer Tim on! Tim has been working with Bruce Ballew and John Housley and I am sure would be able to give perspective on his aerobatic training for this event to date.

A big thanks to John for replacing the Cessna battery this month! The battery was roughly three years old and although the Battery Minders have greatly reduced battery problems, batteries do still have a useful life and need to be replaced periodically.

Thanks also to Larry Wehrman for replacing the PTT switch on the Citabria this month. Larry has been assisting John with maintenance items on club aircraft for a long time now, but I believe this is his first as an official member of the club. Larry, again welcome to the club and thanks for your willingness to share your knowledge and time to help keep club aircraft in tip top shape!

Triennial filing for all three aircraft as well as the biennial corporate registration filing are all now complete. Thanks to Todd Michal and Steve Heidenreich who allow us to use their home address on these filings. It is important we have addresses which remain relatively consistent as this is where official mailings about aircraft registration and our corporate filing are received. We have aircraft registration and many other items on our “Club Responsibility” list to make sure we do not have things falling through the cracks. We distributed this list as part of our recent club meeting, please be sure to let myself or Steve Heidenreich know if you have items you feel should be added to the list which are not there already.

Lastly, TJ and a few others have created a great organizational system in their hangar lockers that I thought would be worth sharing. TJ simply cut some thin sheets of plywood to 16.75” x 14.75” and then has them supported with some pieces of quarter round to space the shelves as desired. Because TJ is one of the over achievers in our group, he has also painted them the same color as the locker for a “finished” effect! If you did not see them at the club meeting, or have any questions I’m sure TJ would be willing to assist or email you a picture of his system.

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July and I’ll talk to you next month!

Safe skies,

Charley

Treasurer's Report - by PIC

Members,

This past month recorded the highest number of hours flown by our members ever, 79.53 hrs!! Unfortunately, the fuel costs were also the highest ever. The last week TACair was up to $6.00/gal. The average for the entire month was slightly lower at $5.88. The self-serve fuel at $4.20, is now a full $1.80 less per gallon (a 30% savings). Some of you have found even cheaper fuel (Steve is the winner, $3.50/gal at Dexter, MO). It's obvious many of you are taking advantage of the lower cost fuel options, there were 26 credits for fueling this month vs 23 fuel receipts from TACair. Those 26 fuelings saved members over $600.

The increase in fuel has raised the hourly costs to $62, $77 and $101 respectively. Dues stay at $119. Share price dropped to $10,534 (this is mostly caused by the sharp jump in utilization - fuel costs and a/c depreciation hit immediately, while flight income lags by 1 month). It will balance out over time.

   Maintenance - by John

N8746V Citabria 7ECA

• PTT Switch - The Citabria radio was operating intermittently and Larry traced the problem to a bad pilot PTT switch. Larry installed a spare switch and the radio now operates properly.

N20843 Cessna 172M

• NAV Antenna - on 14 June, Dom reported that both NAV receivers were not picking up the VOR stations as they normally do and you almost had to fly over the VOR before you could pick up the signal. Since both NAV units use the same NAV antenna, the NAV antenna was removed on 16 June and the antenna wire terminals were cleaned to provide better contact. The antenna was reinstalled and the subsequent ground VOT and test flight show both NAV receivers are picking up the VOR stations as required.
• Battery - on 18 June, Larry reported that the engine barely started after he stopped for fuel at the Yellow Ramp. A check of the starting system indicated that the battery was bad and it was replaced with a new Concord RG-25XC battery on 20 June.

N2242N Piper Arrow IV

• ELT Battery - On June 3, the ELT battery pack was replaced with a new battery pack and the new battery is good until May 6, 2021.
• Oil Change - The Arrow oil and filter were changed on June 29th. The oil sample was submitted for analysis and the results will be provided in next months newsletter.

Copyright © 2016, St. Louis Flying Club, All rights reserved. Last updated July 2016 .