St. Louis Flying Club Newsletter - 22 March 2015

From The President - By Charley

Dear Members:

I’m happy to report that the lockers have all been installed and name tags ordered. Thanks to all who participated, it was truly a team effort to get this done. It sure will be nice to have a place to leave a few flying type items instead of keeping them in the car!

It also looks as if we are going to be assigned hangar B3 (next to our Cessna) for the Citabria as shown in the Club facility drawing below. An unfortunate medical situation with our hangar mate to the south has caused him to sell his 182 and he has graciously made a request to airport management that we be assigned his hangar. We had previously been assigned A5 which is in the hangar row to the east of ours but hangar B3 will be much closer to the office and lockers and more convenient for us.

We were planning to meet the Citabria near Cleveland on 23 March and fly it back to Spirit, but cold, gusty winds in New York have delayed the ferry trip again. We are working to reschedule the ferry date with the NY pilots and are also looking at other options to get the Citabria to St Louis as soon as possible. Steve has requested your list of favorite tail wheel instructors for an upcoming officers meeting. The plan is to add two to three club “authorized” instructors for checkouts in the Citabria. The driving factors for selection beyond significant tail wheel experience, will be high availability and reasonable cost. The Officers will meet and develop a criteria to be used when choosing instructors to add as “club authorized” and communicate the results back to the group. Although Todd and Pic are both tail wheel experienced and available for checkouts, obtaining the 10 hours of training required will likely need to be augmented by paid instructors as we have a large number of people to get qualified. If you have a tail wheel instructor that you have had good experience with or is your favorite, be sure to get their information to Steve so they can be considered in our next round of authorized instructors. Our plan moving forward is to add a permanent “Instructor Review” agenda item to our semi-annual May meeting where we will review the current list of instructors based upon feedback from people using current instructors, suggestions for new instructors etc.

You have probably also have seen that Steve has rescheduled the club meeting for May 9th. The typical process is for the officer group to meet a few weeks before the meeting to put together an agenda and get relevant information out to be considered by members before the meeting. Our Officers meeting is currently scheduled for April 18th. If you have suggestions for meeting topics or improvements to be considered, please get them to Steve before our meeting on April 18th. Also, we are again planning a short BBQ after the meeting as a way to socialize a bit. The event will be funded out of our social fund, created by cash back from our credit card purchases for fuel and other supplies. This is typically a great time of year to be outside at the hangar, if you are interested in coordinating some or all of the BBQ lunch, please let Steve know so he can give you the details.

Looking forward to seeing that beautiful Citabria in the hangar soon and lots of members obtaining additional flying skills! Talk to you next month.

Safe skies,

Charley

Treasurer's Report - by PIC

Members,

A slight reduction in fuel cost brought the C-172 hourly costs down to $71 and Arrow stays at $95. The monthly dues went down to $120/mo with the addition of the 3 new members and the addition of the 3rd hangar. Once the Citabria officially becomes ours, I will add in the insurance costs and any additional members. The share value increased slightly to $11,005. All the Avionics (almost $24K) have now been purchased for the Arrow upgrade to be performed during the annual. The old Avionics will be sold to recoup some of the costs (estimated recovery of over $10K). The lockers have increased the Hangar Improvements asset worth to $6,000. The Engine overhaul escrows are being used to help fund the upfront costs of both the Avionics and the purchase of the Citabria. I finished the club taxes and mailed in the 990-EZ forms on March 2nd. Since we are a 501(c)(7) corporation, we don't pay taxes but we do need to file annually. A summary of the Clubs Finances used on the tax forms for 2013 and 2014 is shown below:

   Synthetic Vision - by John

On a recent flight in Kevin's Cessna 182, I had a chance to evaluate the Garmin Pilot Synthetic Vision capability on my IPad. In Kevin's plane, the attitude information is provided by a Garmin GDL-39 3D. In our Cessna (and shortly in the Piper), the synthetic vision attitude information is provided by the Garmin Flight Stream 210. The IPad screen shots that follow show our approach to KSUS from the East. The first photo is from 6.8 nm from the airport and you can see a box containing KSUS that points to where the airport is. We were cruising at 140 mph (ground speed) and descending through 2100 ft (GPS based altitude) at 200 fpm. You can see the blue Missouri river to the upper right. The two yellow arrows or "chevrons" are the "aircraft symbol" and if you continue on the the flight path you are on, you will hit the ground where the chevrons point.

In the photo below, we are now 3.8 NM from the airport and the airport is now depicted by the synthetic views of the airport runways. Your can see white outlines of RWY 26L and 26R in the proper perspective from your position.

In the photo below, we are now .8 NM from the airport GPS location and you can clearly see the RWY 26L and centerline markings.

In the final photo below, we are now over the runway, slightly right of the centerline, and leveling out for landing.

Overall, I thought synthetic vision was great and can help you visualize where an unfamiliar airport is and how its runways are aligned. Once on the approach, all you would have to do is keep the yellow chevron arrows at the end of the runway and your flight path will intercept that point on the runway.

   Maintenance - by John

N20843 Cessna 172M

  • No maintenance actions this month

N2242N Piper Arrow IV

  • Nose Wheel Tire The Nose wheel tire and tube were changed on 9 March.


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