So the morning came early (which is ’cause we were in Eastern, not Central time….I get up with the sun most of the time, so for me it was early.

Got cleaned up, did the morning routines, we ate breakfast, checked out, put the bags in the car,  I did a briefing (1-800 WXBrief) and off to the airport.

We tried to turn the Beemer in at the car rental lot, but they didn’t want it as they had no way to get us back to the FBO where the plane was, so they inspected the car, and told us to leave it at the FBO, just leave the keys at the FBO desk.

So we arrived back at the FBO where this whole odyssey began, met the maintenance manager, talked about the plane and the repair, he pulled it out of the hangar and we loaded the bags. Went back inside, filed a flight plan through ForeFlight (IFR ’cause we were gonna be above 17,999 ft) and got the flight plan acknowledged via Email.

Oddly, I got “As Filed” which is unusual , but hey, it happens)

I did a really thorough preflight inspection (the plane had been out of my control for days, and one never knows,  so best to check), checked the fuel levels, checked the oil, sumped the fuel, pulled the chocks and hung them up.

Got in, closed the door, turned on the battery, started the right engine, turned on the alternator, then let it charge and then started the left engine (Cold procedure: mags off, throttle 1/2, turn 6 blades, then throttle full, mixtures rich, prime for 20 sec or ’til the fuel flow shows 20 GPH, set throttles to 1/3,  mags on, start, pull throttle to idle, check oil pressure,  and other guages, then alternator on)

Turned on the avionics buss,  let the radios boot, listened to the ATIS, called Clearance and got my CRAFT then called Ground: “Ready to taxi”. Got my taxi instructions.

Taxiied to the line and did a runup, then called Tower: “Ready for departure”.

Waited for a landing 172 (student pilot, but he did a decent job) and then a jet that had taxiied behind me, but was gonna do an intersection takeoff (He wanted out first and Tower accommodated him even though I was technically first in line…smart move, he’s faster and was gone and out of my way before I had pulled onto the runway

Got the call “Cleared for takeoff, fly runway heading” and pushed up the throttles. Engine instruments good, fuel flows good, making full power, airspeed and a bit of right rudder to stay on centerline. Airspeed alive in three places, all agreeing, 85 knots and it got light on the wheels, rotate at 90, positive rate, gear up, gear in motion light and then all the gear lights go out. Pitch for blue line and climb at about a thousand feet per minute, pull the prop rpm back to 2500 (from 2600) and do the After Takeoff check (gear, flaps, lights, etc), pitch for 140knots for cruise climb.

Tower says “contact Departure” and Departure immediately told me to turn on course (we were not yet 1000FT AGL! ) Climb instructions were “Climb and maintain 5000ft  on course”  we passed through a layer of bumpy clouds (I reported the cloud tops and they said “thank you”) and then “Climb and maintain 10,000 ft” and then 20K and then my filed altitude of 22K. Did the Climb checklist along the way, and then settled into our cruise altitude, and did the Cruise Checklist…and set the props for 2350 RPM and a fuel flow of 17 GPH which gave us 214-ish knots true at that altitude.

The winds were NOT as forecast. Different direction (a near headwind) and much stronger….near 70 knots instead of 30,  at altitude which had an adverse effect on groundspeed. We were indicating 224 knots airspeed (true)  at 22K but only 160 knots ground speed. I called ATC (Cleveland Center) and asked for lower, and explained why…she said that it was actually worse lower for a while, but that it would fade as we moved west….

She was right, but then it was a direct crosswind at the same speed, enough that the autopilot couldn’t adjust, and I hand to hand fly for most of an hour…

Soon enough though, we were over Lake Erie,

Photo by MC 

and then we crossed into Canadian airspace and then just south of Aaron (just north of the Detroit airport ) It was in and out of IFR, but smooth as silk at cruise. The best part of this airplane is that there is seldom anyone at our altitude….Jets are much higher, and small, unpressurised general aviation is much lower.  Only us and some turboprops fly at that altitude, so it is uncrowded. We did pass some jets climbing or descending, but the ATC folks did a great job of keeping us far enough away from each other.

photo by MC

3 hours later we were descending to home. Down though clouds after clouds, but it was pretty and smooth.

photo by MC

ATC did a really nice job on the descents, never making me level off, just a perfect straight in descent right down to the GPS approach, one turn to the Final Approach Fix and we were landing. I did the GPS just for practice, could have done it visual though

All told it was an expensive odyssey. but that’s sometimes the fun of General Aviation. Shit happens in life: be an adult and just step over it and keep walking. Could have been worse, had it happened at the tiny airport I dropped the kids off at it would have been worse, no service, no car rental, nothing. Nearest mechanic 2 hours drive away, and I have no idea where I might have ended up.

As it was, I treated it as an adventure, and MC had the same attitude, so it became fun.

Funny, innit:

So this dude went around and sprayed people with high power water guns, and is now charged with assault.

For spraying them with water.  Lots of water, apparently. Yes, if you stretch it, it is assault. He was charged and should end up doing some time.

And yet, Federal officers in Immigrations and Customs Enforcement went around last year and shot innocent people with Pepperballs, and got away with it. Not  harmless (if irritating) water, but pepper balls and pepper spray. They did it in Chicago, they did it in Dallas.. Minneapolis and Philadelphia….shot protesters at their detention facilities, and they shot at innocents in fully half of the raids they did across the country, where they shot pepperballs and pepper spray at anyone who happened to be near the person they were arresting, interfering or not. and they did it with impunity. There’s lots of video proof, yet nothing happened to them. No ICE or CBP officer got charged with assault or anything else.

Not relatively harmless water, but Pepperballs. You know: pepper based paintballs.

Why did they get away with it?

Double standards for Federal officers leads to Bad Things.

what it really mean to rely on “Renewables” and how much money they have wasted on windmills and other “green” power sources

As they look at rolling blackouts and other methods to save power because the wind is not blowing, the windmills are not turning and the rest of the conventional (Coal, Natural Gas, Nuclear and “imported” power) , supply sources are maxxed out:

The energy grid operator has warned that the “extreme temperatures” from this week’s heatwave could hit power supplies on Thursday night, as households’ use of fans and air conditioner place a record strain on our electricity system. 

It is Neso’s second warning in as many months. The group was forced to call for more power during June’s heatwave, which saw temperatures saw to a record 37.7C.

You’d think they’d learn, but they don’t. And the British people just keep electing idiots that push for more “renewables” that fail when they are needed most and that cannot be relied upon, unlike conventional generation plants….

You gotta wonder what happened to the British people, they once had a country that effectively ruled half the world, and now they can’t even keep their own lights on. Once they were a fierce formidable nation of hardworking self supporting people, now they hide in the dark and let their country be overtaken by idiots with a poorly thought out agenda

When no one got worried about the whole “HantaVirus” thing, it just………died away.

Strange, innit?

So we were on our way!!

The Beemer (a 740i ) is a nice car for a road trip….While I preferred the Honda Accord, I can see the allure.

It drives like a 1970’s Lincoln Continental….a real land yacht. Lots of power (the model I had was a hybrid, and the combination of gas engine and electric motor made for a fairly powerful car): decent, if not great handling…Lots of technology….too much, really. It took some getting used to, and honestly, the adaptive cruise was better on the Honda. The sound system was good, the seats comfortable and the thing would easily do twice the speed limit (I am told that it will….I, of course, a law abiding citizen, would never drive that fast)….

Lots of room, but the tech (all screens, no buttons, no knobs) was hard to deal with and the thing was blinged out: lots of crystal and other flash….I am not the target demographic for this car.  More for the demographic that likes gold teeth and such…..

Anyway, we dropped off my car at the hangar we expected to arrive at later (my hangar) and made our way to I-90 with my EZ-Pass on the windshield and headed East at speed.

7 hours or so later, having made one stop, we had arrived:

The car:

This car, while not a “performance” BMW, did have decent power and speed. It was a pretty nice car for a road trip. Comfy and smooth, even if the handling was lacking.

Kinda like driving your moms living room couch across the country.

I do have to say that I was impressed with the mileage out on the highway though: 33 mpg at highway (+)  speeds with the air on.

We arrived that evening just in time for thunderstorms to hit, so we stayed in and ate snacks before turning in.

So they called Tuesday afternoon and said that the starter had arrived (and it was, surprisingly, the CORRECT starter, which isn’t always the case when it comes to parts procurement these days, be it auto, agricultural, or aviation…..)

Anyway, they said they would put the starter on, start both engines, charge the battery, check everything out and I could have the plane back by Wed at noon…which, sadly I could not do. Instead I arranged to pick it up Thursday morning.

I called Enterprise and attempted to get the main reservations desk to set up a one way to where the plane was….Nope.

My choices of rental car places is limited in NW Indiana. There isn’t all that many places or companies that do rentals, and none of them wanted to do one way on a holiday weekend. …or at least the national call centers didn’t.

I called my local Enterprise place (where I had returned the one-way Honda Accord a few days prior) and the manager there said he could indeed find a car for me for a one way trip.

He finagled the paperwork, worked the system, lied to the computers….and I soon got an email that said that I was good for a one week rental, but that I could drop it off anywhere….Which was his way of making it a one way to satisfy the system and get me what I wanted.

So Wed noon I showed up to pick up the rental.  MC wanted to go with me so it worked out. As we pulled up I saw the gray BMW in the parking lot waiting, and jokingly said “I bet that’s the one” (hoping it wasn’t….)

I was wrong…It was the car.

It was a BMW 740i. The manager of the rental place wanted it off his inventory and so it worked out for both of us. Same price as a smaller car, so it didn’t matter to me.

We did the paperwork, fired up the Beemer (really weird controls for that), dropped my car off at my hangar, and were on the road!

Basically it is I-90 going east for 625 miles until you take the exit for the airport….

and that’s what we did. I had snacks, drinks in a cooler, an overnight bag, an IPhone with a 20 hour playlist set on Shuffle…..

and off we went!

“Common sense is not so common”

“No” is a complete sentence. Nothing needs to be added to it.

“No one who makes you feel small is worth listening to”

“Always assume that Murphy’s Law is a fundamental force in this universe”

“Listen to the silence before making big decisions”

“Listen not only to a person’s words, but to their silences also”

“Try before you quit”

“The capacity to learn is a gift, the will to do so, a choice”

“No one will care how you bleed”

So I was moving though my Monday, dealing with the lack of sleep (although I wasn’t that tired, honestly) getting back in the groove after being gone for 4 days.

And that afternoon, I got a call:  they had found a reman starter for the TSIO520 on the plane.

(You’d think that it would be easy, but I called around also and no one had one in stock). Aircraft Spruce listed new and reman Skytech starters, but had no stock and could not get one for a week. They also listed the Hartzell (Teledyne) version (that came with the engine from the factory), but not available for a week either.

Everyone else had rebuilt ones at about $2k and new for about $2800 plus shipping.

These guys got me a rebuilt starter with a warranty for $2075 including overnight shipping.

I bit the bullet and told ’em to order it.

(A side note: Many airplane parts are expensive, and some perhaps can be justified to need to be, After all, if the magneto craps out, you have no spark, and that’s why there is redundancy built into the engines and other airplane systems,,,but sometimes they just charge way too much for parts that are not significantly different that what we have on automobiles (or even tractors) ….I mean, if the starter fails on an airplane, it isn’t like the plane falls out of the sky, after all… The engine just doesn’t start)  But the parts are still 5X more expensive that the nearly identical non-aviation part…..

Anyway, it isn’t like I had a choice, so I sucked it up and told them to procure the starter.

At the end of it, it could have been worse…..The starter could  failed at the super secret point where I dropped the kids off, where there was no mechanic, nearest one 2 hours drive time away….and where the are no rental cars……In fact, no services at all….Just a runway and a few buildings…..

Instead it failed where there was a mechanic, and where there were other services.

It isn’t, after all, a question of if a starter is gonna fail, but WHEN the starter will fail….

I kinda look at it as it could have been a lot worse time-and-money wise. After all, if I didn’t want to spend money I should have taken up a hobby like bowling or archery or badminton or wild women or something less expensive… (Hookers and Blow are a bargain compared to aviation)

More later….

I mean, they use code words like “Teens” and “Youths”  and “Feral” to tell us all what kinds of people they are reporting on….

“Blonde female cop beaten by group of Feral Teens”

But the media never says “Black”, or “African”

Why won’t the media face the truth and say it? What are they afraid of?

Unless, and Until we start telling it like it is, that the behvior of certain groups (especially blacks), is bad, and unacceptable, we are never gonna have a chance to fix it.

Hiding it in code words is just stupid. So is making excuses for the behavior.

Black activists be damned. They are part of the problem.