St. Louis Flying Club Newsletter - 21 November 2006

From The President - By Todd Michal

Dear Members,

I received our annual personal property tax bill from the county last week. As you can see in the treasury report, this is a big portion of our fixed costs each year. In the recent elections, a state wide proposition was passed to make non-profit organizations exempt from paying personal property tax. I think we should check into this to see if our club qualifies for the exemption. If anyone has information on this recent tax change, please bring it to our club meeting for discussion.

Speaking of the club meeting, I hope to see you all there on the evening of Thursday, November 30th. I paln to send out an agenda through email before the meeting.

Happy Takeoffs!

Todd

Treasurer's Report - by Marlin Sipe

The Adjusted Treasury had a nice increase again, from $790 to $1251. Fuel price is holding steady at $4.60. Nothing really significant to report.

Maintenance - by John

Oil Analysis - We received the oil analysis results from the oil change on 28 Oct shown as sample 21 below. There was an increase in some readings but all the values are well within normal ranges. The affect of using Avblend is shown starting with sample 11 below.

Oil Contaminants

Sample Date Hours Alum Iron Copper Nickel Chrome Silicon

1 9-Aug-96 50 18 47 4 4 156 6

2 30-Oct-97 54 16 52 4 4 204 3

3 19-Jun-98 47 18 51 1 4 160 10

4 23-Oct-98 45 12 39 4 5 219 5

5 15-Apr-99 31 11 39 3 5 145 8

6 15-Aug-99 60 12 45 3 8 287 8

7 15-Apr-00 52 13 45 4 8 207 8

8 19-Aug-00 50 13 45 5 6 207 6

9 10-Feb-01 54 14 46 5 5 116 7

10 7-July-01 56 13 57 3 6 124 13

11 26-Oct-01 45 10 44 3 4 83 14

12 28-Apr-02 57 14 56 3 8 165 4

13 15-Mar-03 55 12 56 3 7 108 6

14 23-Jul-03 50 12 56 3 6 112 3

15 31-Dec-03 58 16 28 3 3 57 10
16 25-Jul-04 49 12 31.6 3.2 2 54 5

17 20-Feb-05 41 12 26.9 6.2 9 36 8

18 6-Aug-05 54 10 22 4.4 4 32 7

19 13-May-06 40 10 35 3.9 5 46 5

20 6-Aug-06 37 7 33.5 3.1 4 31 8

21 28-Oct-06 44 8 42.3 2.9 6 39 7

The following maintenance/upgrade items will be discussed at the annual meeting on November 30th.

Exterior Paint - The exterior paint is deteriorating, especially underneath the aircraft. Take a look the next time you go flying. We need to get the aircraft repainted next year to prevent future corrosion. The cost will be roughly $6,500 to $7,000. I recommend taking it to get painted at Executive Wings in Bolivar TN. We purchased our interior upgrades from this company and they did an excellent job and provided great service.
Engine Heater - With three to four months of the year having temperatures under 30 deg, we should have an engine heater to prolong our engine life, especially since we have an outlet right next to the plane. We have about 500 hours to go (5 years) until major overhaul and an engine heater will help us get there without having to replace any more cylinders. Cold engine starting causes the most damage to engine. The cost for an oil pan heater alone is $169. To heat each of the cylinders cost $316 or for both the oil pan and cylinders heater together cost $385.
WAAS Upgrade - Garmin announced a WAAS upgrade will be available next spring for the Garmin 430. The cost for the upgrade is $1,500.00. The upgrade greatly improves the accuracy and processing speed of the unit. The main benefit with the upgrade is that the Garmin 430 will now drive the glideslope needle on the CDI for vertical guidance on GPS approaches which will provide ILS type minimums and accuracy. Presently the Garmin GNS430 in our aircraft is certified to TSO C-129a for IFR enroute, terminal and approach. The GNS 430 (GPS portion of the unit) can currently only be used as a "Secondary" piece of equipment, meaning you still need to have VOR's in the cockpit. For example, you file an IFR flight going from VOR to VOR in your flight plan and during the flight, one of the VOR's within your flight plan goes out of service. "Legally" you could not use that VOR which is in your flight plan even though the GPS could easily take you to the spot where that VOR is located. The pilot would have to amend the flight plan by selecting another VOR in the area or get a heading vector from ATC. Another issue is that without the WAAS upgrade, your alternate airport MUST have an approach other than GPS. With the WAAS upgrade, the GPS navigator can be used as Primary Navigation, meaning if all the VOR's in the USA are down, you can still fly using those VORÕs as waypoints via the GPS receiver. Your alternate IFR airport may only have a GPS approach. With the WAAS upgrade, you get an additional 1 year warranty on the Garmin 430.

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