….;

St. Louis Flying Club Newsletter - 31 March 2020

From The President - By Steve

Dear Members,

Due to the COVID19 emergency, the officers met via conference call to set an agenda for our Spring meeting. We discussed ways to deal with the rising cost of airplane insurance and decided that, for the time being, we could fund the insurance increase without raising the dues. The 2 biggest changes were no more allocations to the interior/exterior improvement funds. TJ shows the details below in Treasurers section. We are going to wait until the end of April to make a decision on how to proceed with our full club meeting, whether the club hangar or by videoconference. As of this moment, Oshkosh is still on so Geoff will proceed with the scheduling lottery.

I want to thank John Heilmann and Larry Wehrman for the great job they are doing on the RV. The panel looks incredible and what you can't see is all the work that went on behind the panel, under the cowling, and in the wings and fuselage to make it all come together. Also, I know the instructors will appreciate the addition of the toe brakes on the right side. The list of RV manuals has been updated on the website to reflect the new avionics in the RV. It would be good to go over the G3X and GNC-355 Pilots manuals if you get a chance to get familiar with their operation.

Update 3 April - The RV flew its first test flight after the installation of the G3X and autopilot.

As pilots, we are used to checklists and we now have one to use before leaving the hangar after a flight. It is on the office table in a plastic stand and the few seconds it takes to run through it before locking up is time well spent. I am afraid I may have been the inspiration behind this idea.

These are indeed strange times, Stay Safe.

Safe flying!

Steve

Treasurer's Report - by T.J

Fellow Members,

Attached below are our March financial schedules; don’t hesitate to call with questions.

Blue Skies

TJ

BILLING STATEMENT

BALANCE SHEET

Notable Items:

• See the discussion about the dues and how we are allocating to the improvement funds
• Larry and John plan to put the RV back in Service around April 15th and the Major Work Line Item will become part of the RV.

RATE PER HOUR and DUES

• As a reminder to the membership, we reimburse ourselves for our club as follows:
  • Improvements - Monthly/Annual Fixed charges – non-aircraft expense = Dues and Assessments
  • Aircraft Operation and Maintenance = Rate per Hour
• As disclosed in previous month this year, we incurred a rather significant increase in insurance premiums. The officers have met and discussed and given a desire to not increase the dues, we have elected to change some allocations until circumstances no longer warrant.
• The new allocation of funds is effective as of 3/31/20.

See the schedules attached below:

   Maintenance - by John

N202CR RV-7A

• Condition Inspection/Avionics Upgrade - The RV is essentially all back together and we are just finishing up with the calibration and ground testing. During the ground testing, we found a few things that are not operating as we would like and we are addressing them. We used the existing flap switch but are finding that it is working intermittently. We ordered a new switch and will install it when it arrives.

  April 3 Update - We did the first test flight today and most everything worked as desired except for ADS-B out and a few adjustments needed for the COM 2 sidetone. Larry flew an autopilot approach into KFYG and then a missed approach using the Take OFF/Go Around switch which took us up and to the holding pattern. The engine monitor is working and shows the fuel pressure is in the middle of the green. We suspected that the old fuel pressure gage or sender was off as it was showing the fuel pressure as being too low. Now that we have cylinder head temperatures on all cylinders, we will have to keep and eye on them during climb out and full throttle operation, especially during hot weather. During our climb out yesterday, the CHTs got up to 447. The G3X has the ability to take screen shots by holding in the Menu button until you get a message that the screen shot was taken. These screen shots will be great for preparing training material for our specific configuration. Here are a few screen shots from the first test flight:

RNAV approach to RWY 33 at KFYG. Geo referenced Approach chart on the RH side of display. In the synthetic vision, you can see the white outline of the runway in the distance.

Just about to enter holding pattern after missed approach to RWY 33. We were flying level at 2700 feet at 2470 rpm and getting 150 kt true air speed. In this view, you can see that we had a traffic warning in the PFD and a traffic window pops up showing more detail on the traffic location.

This is the weather page with NEXRAD Weather selected. You have multiple options on this page for cloud top forecast, Winds Aloft, lightening, etc.

This is the Engine monitor page that shows more details. You can get to this page quickly by just touching the Condensed engine monitor strip on the RH of the display. The ammeter is showing +2 amps which indicates the battery is being charged by the alternator. If the alternator fails, the ammeter will show a negative number indicating the battery is being drained by that amount and the voltage would drop out out of the green range.

N20843 Cessna 172M

we now plan to remove the panels for painting and to add the markings for the switches and circuit breakers. We will put in the new flap switch and troubleshoot why the ADS-B out is not working.

• No Maintenance Actions this month

N2242N Piper Arrow IV

• Annual Inspection The annual inspection started on March 31st. PIC helped with the compression testing and the results were good: #1-75/80, #2-76/80, #3-75/80 and #4-75/80. Both magnetos are due for the 500 hour inspection and were removed and tested on the magneto tester with good results today . The magneto test bench stress tests the magneto using a 0.200 inch spark gap while the magneto only fires a 0.020 spark plug gap on the aircraft. The magnetos will be taken apart to see how the internal components are doing. We have an AD inspection due to inspect the elevator cable turnbuckles. This inspection is due every 7 years or 2000 hours. We are also looking at the latest Piper Service bulletin SB-1345 that was issued this week requiring an Eddy current inspection of 4 wing attach bolt holes for Arrows with over 5000 hours flight time. Service Bulletins are not mandatory but we are looking into getting it done to alleviate any concerns the members may have on the issue. We received quotes of $770 and $895 for the Eddy current inspection.

  
  Copyright © 2018, St. Louis Flying Club, All rights reserved. Last updated February 2020 .