St. Louis Flying Club Newsletter - 30 September 2012

From The President - By Pic

Dear Members,

The photo below is from Mike Landgraf's trip last week to Dury Estates Airport (IL71) in Southern Illinois where one of his friends lives. It is a 2500 ft grass strip with four lots available.

Arrow maintenance was at the fore-front this month. After last month's episode of metal in the oil filter, John found an expert to review the oil analysis and analyze the filter material. With his "good to fly" diagnosis, and John and Bob's borescope of the cylinders, we made the decision to fly the Arrow for 10 hrs and analyze the oil and filter once more. The Arrow reached that about mid-Sept and John changed the oil and sent out the oil and filter in for analysis. Hopefully he gets those back soon so he can detail the results in his section of the newsletter. The Arrow also had issues with the alternator (off-line) and starter (would not engage, just clicked, intermittent). John replaced the alternator and was troubleshooting the starter root cause (intermittent issues are so much harder to resolve).

The hangars are looking pretty organized and the new ceiling lights are now installed and operational in the Cessna Hangar. There is a switch next to the entry door in Cessna hangar to turn on a single 8 ft flourescent light in the front center of the hangar. If you need additional light (at night or for inspection/maintenance), you can turn on the 3 additional overhead lights with a switch under the circuit breaker boxes in each hangar. Thanks to Dom, John, and Jerry Rettinger for helping with the light installation and Mike Landgraf for reinstalling the Cessna nose wheel chock and metal plate. Next week they will start the light installations in the Arrow hangar.

John's been very busy between the planes, the hangars and his "real" job. It's obvious from last month's Saturday hangar move, and start of the C-172 annual, that our members are motivated and willing to help out when needed. What I think we need is a member to help us organize this labor force. The 1st step would be to document a hangar "to do" list (mostly by interviewing John and get his ideas and priorities written down). Some of the items would be painting the hangars (the new tenant of B-23, the old C-172 hangar, painted the walls and hangar floor a light gray and it looks great), and designing, planning and building the office area in the C-172 hangar.

The 2nd step would be to share the list with the membership to find members who would take the lead on each project. Being the lead wouldn't require them to do the job themselves, but they would find other members, an/or get bids, to have the work done. I believe this would be the best way to make use of the talents and motivation within our members to make the club, and/our assets, the best they can be! Please let me know if you'd be willing to take on the 1st step and, as always, I'm very interested in your opinions.

Happy Landings!

Pic

Treasurer's Report - by Mike McBride

Fuel prices at TACAir rose slightly for the month, resulting in a $1 increase in the Arrow hourly rate; the C172 rate remained stable for the month. Flight rates for the C172 and Arrow are $81 and $107, respectively. Flight hours were relatively low (10.2 hours for N20843, 15 hours for N2242N). Treasury, adjusted treasury, and overall checking account balances remain strong. Monthly expenditures were as expected, and escrow balances are on plan.

Fuel consumption on the C172 continues to rise. Over the past 30 days, the hourly fuel burn for the C172 has been 9.5 GPH; our current hourly flight rate is based upon 9.0 GPH consumption rate. Fuel is the dominant component of the hourly rate, so increases in consumption need to be factored into the rate in order to keep recoveries in line with costs (an increase of 0.5 GPH would result in a $4.00 hourly rate increase on the C172.) Please follow good practices in leaning when you fly, as it saves money for everyone who flies during the month.

Mike

   Maintenance - by John

N20843

The Cessna annual inspection was completed on 26 August and the aircraft returned to service. The compression results were very good with readings at 75/80, 79/80, 78/80 and 78/80. In addition to the inspections, the following maintenance items were accomplished:

  • Replaced Air Inlet filter with BA-6108 filter
  • Serviced battery and touched up battery box with acid proof paint
  • Installed new baggage door seal
  • Installed new RAB3-5-1 Vacuum regulator filter
  • Replaced 3 cracked engine baffles with new baffles
  • Replaced 2 cowl to fuselage shock mounts with new SK2003-14A mounts.
  • Cleaned, gapped, and rotated spark plugs
  • Changed oil, filter added 8 qts oil and camguard.
The oil analysis results from the annual inspection are shown below. The values were normalized to reflect the oil change time of 34 hours vs the normal 50 hour change interval. The iron values are reduced and back in the normal range.

N2242N

  • Oil Change - A Mike mentioned, the oil and filter were changed again on 22 September and sent in for analysis. I will email the results as soon as I receive them. I am suspecting that the cause of the higher iron readings in both the 172 and the Arrow is due to leaving the engine heaters on for extended time periods during the winter months. I am looking into internet operated switches we can put on our website that will turn on and off the engine heaters on the aircraft. This way if you are flying the next day, you can turn on the heater the night before or when you get up in the morning using your computer or smart phone and it will be warm for you when you get there.
  • Alternator - Dale reported the alternator dropped off line during his taxi out for takeoff. The alternator light came on and the amp readings went to zero. Dale tried to reset the alternator by cycling the alternator switch but it did not come back on line. Troubleshooting indicated the alternator field coil had shorted to ground and the alternator was replaced by a new Plane Power alternator on 5 September.
  • Starter - When trying to start the Arrow on my trip to South Bend a few weeks ago, the starter solenoid would just click with no rotation of the starter when turning the key to start. After turning the key a few times, it finally started normally. I cleaned the battery to airframe ground terminal and we haven't had this issue occur since then.


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