Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
F l i g h t l i n e s J a n u a r y 2 0 1 8
Te x i n s F l y i n g C l u b 1
FLIGHTLINES
CLUB NOTES February 2018
Greetings,
We have some excellent developments in the evolution of our club and its offerings. Our fleet starts the year notably different than last year. Our 150’s have been retired and with an additional leased plane, we now have a stable of 172’s for training. N737TY has evolved into a Super Hawk with more useful load and power to get us through those hot summer days. Our processes for managing costs and utilization have allowed us to drive down rental rates. Club leadership continues to implement new ideas to promote safety and fellowship. Lastly, the club’s “New and Renew” initiative is moving ahead on multiple fronts that we are excited to share with you.
In short, we are looking forward to a great year for our club in 2018. With your help the club will continue to grow and offer more opportunities for our members to reach their goals and explore their passion for aviation.
In this edition of the newsletter we’ll cover details about recent changes and events in the club. As always the board welcomes member feedback and we would love to hear what else we can do to make this club the best flying club around.
Charles GallesTFC Communications Officer
Texins Flying Club Newsletter
Club Notes Page 1
New and Renew: Inside N737TY Page 2
New and Renew: Club Presentation Page 4
Guest Speaker: Adam Baker, Acrobatic flying Page 6
Safety: Winter checks Page 7
TFC Fleet Notes Prices, Usage, maintenance notes, events, places Page 8-9
Board Notes board mtg. notes Page 10
F l i g h t l i n e s J a n u a r y 2 0 1 8
Te x i n s F l y i n g C l u b 2
The club invested about $55,000 of our unencumbered funds in N737TY in 2017
New and Renew: Inside N737TYby Charles Galles
N737TY has always been somewhat the “junior” 172 in the club. Its useful load and top speed were lower than N733NB and the panel and interior had been showing their age lately. A flying club needs to make a good first impression on new members and while airworthiness and safety has always been our top priority, the interior of the plane is what new and old members feel and experience. Our current upgrade initiative has two prongs: getting “new” planes into the club and “renewing” our existing planes. In 2017, we made a major investment in 7TY to make this plane look and feel like a first class asset. Here are some of the details about our investment and the results.
Avionics Stack:
We paralleled our 2016 upgrade of 3NB to provide an integrated Garmin ADS-B avionics solution. With the existing GNS-430W our upgrade was a little less costly than 3NB. Having the same avionics stack in both of our 172’s gives us the advantage of consistency for our members as well as benefits in knowledge for maintaining and repairing problems in these systems. Having the benefits of ADS-B in/out traffic and weather data and the FlightStream syncing with Foreflight gives our members advanced capabilities for maintaining situational awareness. As always though, it’s important to remember to focus on flying the plane rather than fixating on any one or more navigation gadgets.
Interior Updates:
The interior of N737TY was looking worn and dated. It had shiny slippery maroon vinyl seats, grayish white pillars, and old gray flooring. The panel was a plastic template, that felt like it was out of style decades ago. We sent the seats out to an interior shop in Arizona to get them rebuilt with extra padding and a nice two-tone leather design. At the same time we arranged to have a custom metal panel created for the standard instruments.
F l i g h t l i n e s J a n u a r y 2 0 1 8
Te x i n s F l y i n g C l u b 3
Engine Upgrade:
As mentioned before, 7TY only had a 160hp engine, and 3NB was clearly the club workhorse when it came to useful load and performance in high density altitude conditions. 7TY had a prop-strike incident in July that forced our hand regarding the engine. It was almost time to overhaul the engine and we decided to combine the insurance proceeds with our engine reserve to update 7TY with a Pen Yan SuperHawk modification. Our previous engine was an old O-320-H2AD - the case was no longer accepted for overhaul due to its age. This engine also had a dual magneto unit giving us limited options for periodic overhauls or upgrades to the magnetos. The new engine is a Lycoming O-360-A4M with 180HP. The Pen Yan modification includes a new propeller and the flaps travel is now limited as well.
Be sure to use the correct checklist when flying 7TY and make sure you have the latest STC updates to the POH and the CGR-30P engine monitor available on board.
F l i g h t l i n e s J a n u a r y 2 0 1 8
Te x i n s F l y i n g C l u b 4
New and Renew: Club Presentationfrom Curtis Conrad and Scott Kirkland
On Dec 4, 2017, the club presented our "New and Renew" initiative to the board of our parent organization, the Texins Association. We presented our current status and outlined some of the challenges our club faces as the club grows and the planes age. Lastly we shared our plans for maintaining and growing the club.
We presented our club goals in support of our stated mission of promoting aviation safety and fun in our community:
• Improve the safety of the club’s aircraft fleet.
• Comply with new FAA standards, i.e.; ADS-B, ELT 406mhz.
• Reduce maintenance costs and down time
• Expand our Fleet to meet the aviation needs of our members
• Club growth to about 200 members
Our membership has been growing steadily for a few years now after a relatively flat period. We attribute this growth to economic factors including lower fuel costs and the relatively high growth and job market of the north Texas region. When we started the "new and renew" initiative in 2016 we anticipated problems with sustaining our growth rate without adding new planes. In 2017 we did see a decrease in growth as three of our planes were down for significant periods of time and we temporarily stopped accepting new membership.
We also presented summaries of our financial position and management practices. Over the past few years we have significantly improved our financial health. We have been managing operating costs through strict tracking of maintenance costs per plane. Our rates are reviewed monthly after analysis of our maintenance costs and the current fuel costs.
With guidance from our treasurer, Curtis Conrad, we have made some significant changes that have improved our financial health:
• lowering the rate of our Arrow to encourage more flight hours per month doing so has brought the per hour operating costs down significantly and the plane no longer loses money for the club
• setting aside increased setbacks for engine overhauls (they are more expensive now than past overhauls) and we are setting aside specific funds for avionics upgrades
• transitioning from a paper check payment system to nearly 100% credit cards and as a result our risk of non-payment has been dramatically reduced.
The Texins Association board had some detailed questions regarding our financial position and operation and they were very impressed when we were prepared with the data to provide the answers during the presentation.
Membership growth projections
F l i g h t l i n e s J a n u a r y 2 0 1 8
Te x i n s F l y i n g C l u b 5
Our controller, Scott Kirkland, described the challenges the club now faces in two parts:
1. Aging planes coupled with increasing technology requirements like ADS-B
2. Scheduling capacity for our planes is under high pressure as more of our members try to schedule our three 172’s
We presented our progress so far on our five year plan. We are well on our way with upgrades in 2016 and 2017 to our existing planes. Our club asked for support in securing a loan for adding potentially two new planes to the fleet. We laid out our plans for how we would pay back the loan through direct rental fees, membership dues, and membership growth.
We are happy to report Texins Association has agreed to support us in our initial ask of about $200K and asked us to present funding options to them for review in the first quarter of 2018. In January we researched lending options to find one that would work for our non-proft club status. So the next steps are for us to decide on what kind of planes would be the best fit for the club at this time.
Many thanks go to board members Curtis Conrad, Scott Kirkland, and Robert McLeod as well as our advisor member Keith Gutierrez. This is great news and we are looking forward to great new things for the club.
New and Renew plans and progress
Capacity vs scheduled hours
F l i g h t l i n e s J a n u a r y 2 0 1 8
Te x i n s F l y i n g C l u b 6
Adam Baker: Playful Airshowsby Charles Galles
Aviation as a career takes a lot of endurance and persistence. After graduating from OSU with an aviation degree in 2007, Adam Baker applied all over without luck. Then one day he and a buddy heard about an opening in Phoenix and just drove down there to interview in person. They got hired as instructors and Adam’s career in aviation was underway - sort of - until one day they found the doors chained shut and they were out of a job. It seems there is a saying among career pilots that no aviation career is complete without at least two furloughs. Adam completed his furloughs in the Dallas area and along the way made a few contacts.
Adam has flown charter and for commercial aviation. He has flown everything from jets to helicopters. But when he eventually got a chance to try out acrobatics and participate in airshow competitions he found his true aviation passion. Soon that turned into a truly unique job as chief pilot for a local video game company called “Playful”. He and his wife are both pilots and he flies a flashy Extra 330 with a custom designed wrap promoting the company’s latest video games.
In addition to specific company charter flights, Adam does about 12 airshows per year and attends annual meetings of airshow pilots. He is currently inspecting and preparing his plane for the next season - each year the plane gets a new wrap design and Adam carefully inspects each and every weld on the plane. His Extra 330 can pull more than +/- 10 G’s (way more than the pilot could handle). It turns out that airshow pilots have to build up their tolerances each season. We asked him about a little about his show and how many maneuvers he does. He said he always flies the same routine but sometimes he will take things out depending on the flight box and the weather conditions. “I never add things to the routine. What gets an airshow pilot in trouble is when they try to add things in”, he said. Adam flies VFR to his airshows, the Extra is small but it is fast and he doesn’t want to add extra weight or take up space with extra IFR equipment and avionics.
He has some great videos online that you can watch (search for “Adam Baker Airshows YouTube”). One of the videos shows him removing the old wrap before his annual inspection in his hangar at TKI. He is at the airport frequently and he encouraged people to stop by and say “hi” if they see him out there.
Adam Baker
F l i g h t l i n e s J a n u a r y 2 0 1 8
Te x i n s F l y i n g C l u b 7
Safety Tips: Winter Checkscontributions from Hank Eilts and Brian Relin
Winter can be hard on the planes. At the start of the year we had to ground the entire fleet to protect the engines from excessive cold temperatures. Did you know that starting an engine - especially a brand new engine like 7TY - in 20 degree weather can add as much as 500 hours of wear and tear on an engine? For more information check out this article by Mike Busch https://www.avweb.com/news/maint/182846-1.html It almost reads like a horror story and it may make you think twice before cranking that engine without warming it up a bit. We don’t have many options at TKI but if you can arrange to keep the plane in the hangar overnight, you may be able to use a hairdryer (low setting please) to help warm the plane up while you preflight it. Then you can have the line personnel pull the plane out for you and you can start it up.
So what else can go wrong in the winter? Our safety officer, Brian, talked about a problem he had with a flat tire. He also wanted to remind club members about how winter may affect your tires. As the temperatures around here swing wildly from 70’s to 20’s, tires that were properly inflated in the morning may not be correct in the afternoon. The tires on our GA planes are usually held firmly in place by air pressure on the bead seal to the rim. When the tires are under-inflated, they may try to rotate on the wheel during landing. When that happens the valve stem is stressed and may be damaged causing a leak and eventually a flat. To protect against this type of tire failure, check your pressure against the recommended POH values. The board will be adding tire gauges to the planes so that you can check it during pre-flight. The FBO at TKI can air up your tires if you need it. You can find the proper pressure for the tires on the inside of your POH (C172N - section 8, C182 - back cover, section 1 - Arrow).
Lastly we have added CO monitor strips to the planes. These passive monitors will change color when CO gas is detected. You may want to include it in your scan occasionally. We are also pursuing some sensitive active CO monitors. Winter is the time of year when we are most likely to encounter CO leaks as we close up the cabin and use engine heat to warm the cockpit. Review the AIM for warning signs of CO sickness.
“In less than a minute, a single cold start without proper preheating can produce more wear on your piston aircraft engine than 500 hours of normal cruise operation.” - Mike Busch
https://www.avweb.com/news/maint/182846-1.html
F l i g h t l i n e s J a n u a r y 2 0 1 8
Te x i n s F l y i n g C l u b 8
FLIGHTLINES
EVENT CALENDARFeb 28 - TFC happy hour - TBD.Mar 7 - TFC board meeting - TKI conference roomMar 10 - TFC membership meeting - speaker TBD
MILESTONES
MEMBER DATE EVENT INSTRUCTOR
Landan Fagan 12/23/2017 Private Bob Niedwiecki
3NB - online
08J - back on-line
9TS - new paint job
3QZ - online
7TY - back on-line for restricted usage. engine break-in procedures started
TFC FLEET MAINTENANCE
Elections: At our December meeting the following board members were elected to one-year terms:• President - Robert McLeod• VP Membership - Bob Niedwiecki• Communications - Charles Galles• X-Country Maintenance - Hank Eilts• Controller - Scott Kirkland
F l i g h t l i n e s J a n u a r y 2 0 1 8
Te x i n s F l y i n g C l u b 9
BY THE NUMBERS
Rental Rates - Jan 2018
N737TYN733NB
N739TSN7508J
N3QZ
$155.00$129.99$122.00$122.00$122.00
N737TYN733NBN739TSN7508JN3QZ
Fleet Flying Hours
0
1
2
3
4
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
20182017201620152014
Fuel Price Trends
Pric
e / g
al$2.00
$2.75
$3.50
$4.25
$5.00
$5.75
$6.50
Apr16Jun16
Aug16Oct16
Dec16Feb17
Apr 17Jun 17
Aug 17Oct 17
Dec 18
TKISWIHQZ 4.95
Plane Usage Trends
Hou
rs
0
75
150
225
300
Dec 15Feb 16 Apr 16 Jun 16 Aug 16Nov 16 Jan 17 Mar 17May 17 Jul 17 Sep 17 Nov 17
N737TYN733NBN739TSN7508JN3QZ
F l i g h t l i n e s J a n u a r y 2 0 1 8
Te x i n s F l y i n g C l u b 1 0
FLIGHTLINES
. “... to encourage interest in aviation, to advance the knowledge of the members in aeronautical and navigational subjects, and
to bring to more people the social benefits and pleasure of flying.”http://www.texinsflyingclub.org
Texins Flying Club Board of DirectorsPOSITION OFFICER PHONE E-Mail
President Robert McLeod 214-663-0754 [email protected]
Vice-President of Operations Chris Dennis 903-718-1010 [email protected]
Vice-President of Membership Bob Niedwiecki 214-697-5266 [email protected]
Chief Instructor Dick Stephens 972-270-1769 [email protected]
Treasurer Curtis Conrad 972-998-9898 [email protected]
Controller Scott Kirkland 214-208-1000 [email protected]
Communications Charles Galles 469-222-8203 [email protected]
Safety Brian Relin 214-733-2001 [email protected]
X-Country Maintenance Hank Eilts 972-517-8273 [email protected]
Trainer Maintenance James Ballard 972-271-9728 [email protected]
Operations Report 7TY back on-line, engine break-in
procedures started. CGR-30P manual and checkout for 7TY should be required. We have been urging A&A shop to send core back for our deposit. Core is overdue.
3QZ - HSI is out, old one is being rebuilt.
08J - avionics quote is $9400 - we will shop around
Chief Instructor & Ground Schoolnew bio for instructor, next instructor
meeting in Feb.
Safety Report checking tire pressure in winter. board
approved adding tire gauges to planes. FBO can air tires for us. Brian will pursue CO monitors
Treasurerwe have seen $70k on 7TY, $54K from
our funds. Arrow maintenance costs dropping price can drop to $129.
Paypal option to be removed from member and public facing website. We do
not know who to credit when we get PayPal funds so it just causes confusion.Controller
Scott Curtis and Robert presentation on “new and renew” was Dec 4. T.A. board approved us to get a loan and present aircraft options. Scott has researched options and it seems late model 172’s and 182’s are too expensive ($180K+) and too much in demand. We may be better off with Archer III - same basic load as 172 but low-wing. model years 2000-2003 may be best value - have factory A/C, nice avionics, cost per hour like 172. Cost around $127K to $169K.
Financing difficult for club - no guarantor, 30% down payment. Brian recommended a lender he used and they are more reasonable.
Cross-Country Maintenanceresearching and reviewing engine
monitor data.
Trainer maintenance/GPS updatesGPS db’s updated. Swapping GPS
units from 29U to 3NB. subscription cost $2800 - $440 for G430’s and $450 for Apollo units.
Membership160 members in Jan.
Communicationsno report.
Other BusinessB o a r d d i s c u s s e d l e a s e b a c k
opportunity again for a piper cherokee. Board would like to use standard lease terms.
Texins Flying Club Board Meeting Updates
