 |
St. Louis Flying Club Newsletter - 30 September 2017 |
From The President - By Charley
Dear Members:
Congratulations to John Housley who completed his checkout in the Arrow this month! Many people are working on checkouts or ratings of all sorts which is great to see. There is plenty of good weather left this year and I highly encourage everyone to take advantage of our varied aircraft type and add a new skill to you flying toolkit!
As evidence that anyone can learn to fly the Citabria, John just recently checked me out in the airplane! It sure is a fun plane to fly and helped me identify lots of opportunities for improvement of my flying technique. John is a great instructor and the Citabria is a terrific platform upon which to learn to fly a conventional gear aircraft. If you have not jumped into learning the Citabria yet, I highly recommend it for a lot of fun and a great way to challenge your flying skills.
No checkout would be complete without a few lessons learned. I had one upon returning that I thought I would share as others may experience the same thing. After my solo in the Citabria on the north runway and picking up John on the ramp, I decided to taxi back to the hangar via taxiway D and A. After traveling a bit on taxiway A the steering began to feel mushy. We came to a stop to investigate and found that the culprit was a flat right main! After calling tower and giving them the bad news, they authorized a shut-down, we exited the plane and immediately called John and Larry! We immediately found a tire stem that had separated a few feet before where we came to a stop, emptying all of the air in that tire in less than a minute.
The crash cart responded with a dolly and two maintenance guys. We were able to push the stricken tire up onto a dolly and pull the airplane back into intersection A10 to get us off of taxiway A. Thankfully, John and Larry were already at the airport that day and responded quickly with a replacement tube and tire and I was able to taxi back to the hangar with a parade in tow but no further incident.
I share this story to not only say a huge thanks to John and Larry for their very quick response to this situation but also to get everyone thinking about what you would do it you were faced with the same situation. Thankfully I had John Housley, a highly experienced instructor to confer with during the situation, which may not always be the case. John and I agreed that there was really not anything that would have turned up this issue on pre-flight inspection or upon beginning our taxi back to the hangar. In addition to other factors such as FOD on airport movement areas, tire tubes that don’t last as long as others etc. etc. this type of occurrence can happen to anyone, anywhere at any time. I asked John for some pointers regarding what to do if you find yourself with a flat tire and here were his thoughts:
- Always ensure the safety of yourself and your passengers first, limit the amount of walking around an aircraft movement area etc. until help arrives.
- If the tire is still partially inflated, move the aircraft to a safe area out of a movement area, preferably by hand.
- Always recognize you may need to move the aircraft by hand when at another airport, always bring along an aircraft tow bar if the aircraft is equipped and secure it in the aircraft.
- Call John immediately for advice or a plan for resolution and to work out the details for a repair.
- Remember that in the event that you cannot find a way to resolve the issue with John or yourself, members are authorized to engage mechanics at remote airports for emergency maintenance and will be reimbursed by the club. Repairs should always be coordinated with John whenever possible please to minimize expense and ensure a proper repair.
Again thanks to John and Larry for all you do to maintain our aircraft in tip top shape and for responding to anything that comes your way!
As a reminder, our club meeting will be in the club hangar on Saturday, October 14th, and we will have food afterwards so please plan to stick around for a bit to socialize. If you have not already done so, please respond to Tim Volk with your plans to attend sometime this week. If you do not plan on attending, it would be great if you could please send your vote on club officers or any other topic for vote via proxy either with another member or to one of the Officers. We plan on having an agenda with votes required sometime this week.
I’m looking forward to seeing everyone at our meeting.
Safe skies,
Charley
Treasurer's Report - by T.J
Fellow Members,
Members,
All is well with the finances and I look forward to discussing each point below at our October 14 meeting!
- Fuel – The rate charged by TacAir remains steady at $6.45 per gallon, while fuel around the area continues to slowly decrease. This makes is all the more advantageous for club members to self-fuel the aircraft and submit receipts.
- Aircraft Market Valuations – Pic has completed the semi-annual aircraft market valuations and overall we adjusted the values of the aircraft down approximately $2,000. These valuations are a function of the specific equipment we have on each plane as well as the actual hours flown.
- Cessna Upgrade – At the meeting in May the club voted to upgrade the avionics in the Cessna to a Garmin GTN-750! During the current billing period, we have purchased the actual 750 panel unit and so you will see a sizable decrease in cash. The offset to this is currently held in the liabilities section of the balance sheet under the caption “Major Work – Work in Progress”. Note that we store it here as to not impact the share valuation during the upgrade progress. Upon completion of the project, the new avionics package will be incorporated into the value of the Cessna and the overall share value will be adjusted accordingly. As a reminder, we expect that overall this project will increase the per share value of the club by several hundred dollars per member. However, we won’t have specifics until the final costs of the upgrade are incurred.
- Rate per Hour – Beginning in February of 2017 the aircraft rates were set with the intent to review the cost per hour periodically. The officers have recently reviewed these rates and determined that they continue to be healthy, but reasonable. Given a recent good run in the maintenance area, all of the funds continue to build.
- Assessment – Just a friendly reminder that there will be a $207 per member assessment in the October 15 billing statement.
As always, don’t hesitate to let me know if you have any questions. I look forward to seeing everyone soon.
Blue Skies
TJ
Maintenance - by John 
N8746V Citabria 7ECA
No maintenance issues to report
N20843 Cessna 172M
No maintenance issues to report -
N2242N Piper Arrow IV
Oil analysis Results - The oil analysis results from the oil change were received and everything looks normal for an engine with 100 hours SMOH.
Copyright © 2017, St. Louis Flying Club, All rights reserved. Last updated Oct 2017
.