This has been so much fun and I’m so happy to have my friend and co-pilot Allan Sargony along for this shake down cruise of Miss Behavin’.

We are finding out lots of interesting facts about Miss Behavin’s performance and mine too.

I’ve been setting the trim (how high or low the nose should be) for takeoff in the wrong position for two years. Now it’s true that I did not fly for over 10 years before this (I started flying in 1973 and have flown over 1500 hours) but this is an amazing mistake. No harm to Miss Behavin’, but quite embarrassing. Allan and I were rushing to takeoff in Charleston so he set the trim while I did something else. I looked at it and said, “Why are you setting it for nose down?” (you either set it to neutral or nose up). Allan said, “You are setting it for nose down, I’m setting it for nose up.” Sure enough Allan was correct and I was wrong. Truly flabbergasting!

No one else, none of my flight instructors nor me ever noticed this quirky setting I was doing on takeoff for the last 2 years (not even Allan who has flown many hours as a flight buddy) . It caused my takeoffs to be jerked off the ground and then I would set the proper nose pitch as I flew the takeoff climb. Thanks Allan it’s really nice to have another skilled pilot along…what took you so long.

BTW, Allan had warned me on my final approach into Amarillo where I had that little landing problem (huge landing problem) not to put in the maximum setting of flaps I had set. It was too late to change them as we were on short final. No doubt, I will never make that mistake again.

The meeting with Don Ratliff yesterday was terrific! We bonded a mite. He talked of our flight across the pond and I shared some of my new found survival and ditching techniques that I had learned from Doug Ritter’s lecture on Survival and Ditching. Don was impressed with some new gear I had obtained for the trip that he was not yet familiar with, like a green laser signal flare that can be seen at night for 30 miles…and my Celox powder that gets poured into a bad bleeder (even arterial bleeding) and with pressure will stop the bleeding in about 3 minutes. It was nice to get Don’s nod of approval for my additions to our flight. He also liked my new PLB (personal locator beacon) that transmits distress on 406 MHz and has a locator GPS beacon on 121.5 that the SAR (sea air rescue) teams track you on. Don liked its small portable size and decided we would use it instead of his trusty portable (but not so small) ELT.

It was positive to meet Don face to face prior to our flight. I was a little disappointed to find that there is a chance our flight to Europe might have to get pushed back a couple of days…we’ll know more in the immediate future.

I haven’t seen Kirby Schall my friend here next to Fort Meyers in Cape Coral for maybe 10 years…so this will be a real treat. However, we do talk on the phone regularly.

Tomorrow Allan and I will deal with Customs and Homeland Security for the first time as we sojourn across the Atlantic a little bit over to the Bahamas. Then maybe we’ll fly down to the southern most tip of the United States in Key West, Florida to enjoy their food and a beautiful sunset before returning home.

We’ll probably fly up Florida’s pan handle to New Orleans for a first stop and then maybe Houston or San Antonio on the way home.

Truthfully, weather will play a large part in our decision of the path we fly. We were blessed with 30 to 40 knot tail winds on the way out here letting us make forward progress of 170 to 200 knots. On the way back…the head winds should slow us down an equal amount from our 163 knots cruising true airspeed. Guess we could be looking at 120 to 130 knots on the way home (lots of more time in the air).

BTW, I wasn’t the only one making silly errors on this trip, Allan began to argue with me about the rules of flight levels (odd or even thousands of feet). He pulled out a compass rose to prove why he was right, after his determined explanation I told him that I still disagreed, he held his ground…and then we laughed ourselves silly when he realized how wrong he was. Actually this discussion all started when a flight controller out of Jacksonville, FL asked me to climb to 9,000 feet while on a 200 something degree heading. I complied and then a few moments later asked the controller, “Why are we flying odd thousands while flying on a westerly heading?” The controller replied, “This is Florida, we don’t fly west or east much and someone has to fly odd and someone has to fly even.” Allan and I laughed ourselves silly, “This is Florida!” For those of you who are not pilots…Florida doesn’t get to change the rules of flight…but hey, “This is Florida!” Too much fun.

One last thing to mention,  I’ve been spelling both Allan and Sargony wrong throughout my blog posts…sorry Mrs. Sargony. Now Allan is still asleep, he may wake up and spell check me again…let’s hope I got it right this time.

More later…