A little help from my friend

On Tuesday I dropped the plan off for an upgrade.  When I was looking for the plane I wanted new engines, props and avionics.  Good paint and interior were also important and I wanted Air-conditioning.  Well the plane had everything but the last.  It actually had an old electric system but after fiddling with it it did not work well and my research told me it would never handle Florida in the summer.

Since a good part of my flying is lower level in the summer, I opted to do an upgrade.  I am having the current factory system installed that should keep me nice and cool even in the Southern heat.

So why did I wait?  When I looked at booking a slot for an install, the soonest was late September.  Some of the best flying weather in right about then so I decided to book January/February as they were not as busy and could hopefully get me done faster. I figured it was a good time to take the plane down as I had other projects to finish.

I had scheduled to start Monday January 10 months ago.  Looking at the weather on Sunday, it looked pretty crummy.  We would have low ceilings the first 100 miles and really strong winds.  I had waited over 6 months so what's an extra day.  I wrote them and said, I'll come Tuesday.  Tuesday was much better.  Still had some headwinds but it was clear and smooth.

The flight was 458 nm and programmed at 2:40 with the winds.  That worked out to 170 knots ground speed even though the plane was chugging along at 190+.  Fuel burn was 77 gallons vs. a prediction of 76.5, close enough for me, I landed with half tanks.

My arrival was smooth and the shop marshalled me into position and right after shut down I was pushed into the heated hangar.  Mine was the only plane currently in for modification.  There was another they had finished Monday that was headed out later that day.  They usually have several in at once so fingers crossed, it will go faster than the 4-5 week estimate.

I had made it to Selmer TN pretty easily but now I needed to get home.  I took it to this shop because they were the ones that created the system and are the experts.  The only downside is they are 70 miles from Memphis, have no car rentals and are basically in the middle of nowhere.  On the plus side they are the experts and were friendly.

Luckily a friend gave me a lift.  He had departed a bit after me so as I wrapped up checking in the plane, I saw him approaching the airport on Flightaware.  It was pretty cool to head out and watch the arrival.  After a quick stop we were soon heading home.  Of course the headwinds we fought on the way up had subsided and we only got a bit of a tailwind.  His Bonanza it turbo normalized and it scooted along close to 190 knots at 11,000 sipping gas compared to the Baron.  Basically 60% of the fuel burn for the same speed.

The trip back was straightforward with a minor detour for a military operations area that was now active and getting sequenced behind a jet on the way into home base.   I'll be planeless for a few weeks now so I guess that gives me an excuse to clean and organize the hangar a bit.