yeah, so I hadn’t been flying much, what with the holidays, the clouds and icing conditions and other factors.  I did some pattern work a couple of weeks ago, but no real flying.

And I had bragged to some friends that were complaining that “there is no good chines food around here” that I knew where there was the best chinese food…and it was only about 40 minutes away.

The challenged me to show them.

I did. (I never said that the 40 minutes was by car….)

So Saturday, we met about 11 at the airport and took off and flew at 10,500 ft …..

Over a snow covered landscape

to Champaign, Ill …where we landed and got a crew-car and proceeded to drive north  and got the best chinese food I know in the midwest…at Golden Harbor Chinese restaurant.

We ate a shitload of assorted foods, Gen Tso’s Chicken, Pork Dumplings, Beef With Broccoli, Chicken Mushroom, and some other stuff I simply don’t remember. 5 people ordering several things to share….

I was so hungry, and the food smelled so good, that I forgot to take any photos of the meal though….

The consensus was that it is, indeed, the Best in the Midwest.

The 340A may well have been over gross weight after that when we took off for home, We ate a LOT. Luckily it was cold and smooth, so we got off the ground ok. Wind was 310 at 9 and the runway is 320 and 8000 ft long…..

‘Twas a good time, and I got to burn some avgas, get the plane warmed up and dried out, 1.4 hours and 2 landings…both of which were better than I had been doing lately.

The only downside of the day was that the gasoline powered tug in the hangar shit the bed. When I went to crank it over, it was flooded with gasoline and the crankcase was also flooded with gas. I assume the float stuck in the carburetor. It was hydrolocked and no oil (or at least too much gas) in the crankcase….Luckily I had felt the need to take the truck instead of the car so we had a trailer hitch and I was able to borrow a towbar and use it to pull the plane out.

Putting it back in the hangar using the truck was ….challenging. I haven’t used a towbar to push a plane into a hangar in a long time. Like backing up a pair of hay wagons. ….2 pivots.  With a bunch of derisive comments from my associates, and a bit of spotting to make sure I didn’t run into another plane (or the doorway, for that matter), we got it back in the hangar. I didn’t even need to unhook and rehook.

On the MU-2 front, they smoke-tested the avionics yesterday, will do testing this week, and final calibrations the week after that. I get to train on it on or about the 28th.

Anyone know of someone who is in the market for a really high performance pressurized piston twin? Higher output engines, VG’s and High-lift Roberson flaps too…..200 knots all day long. You can pretty much take off from any paved runway in the US. Land in less than 1800 ft and take off in less than 2500…..At full gross wt too.  (Not that I do that very often, but you can….) I do have to sell this plane as I can’t afford to feed two of them…..