Good to go

 The weather cooperated this afternoon and it actually turned out to be a pretty nice day for flying, at least relative to the normal weather around here this time of year. The instructor I was originally scheduled to do this with became unavailable so I was assigned a different instructor. This instructor didn't have any experience in a Musketeer, but he does own a mid-60s V-tail Bonanza so he at least has experience with Beechcraft aircraft.

Because this was a plane he'd never flown before, I was asked to bring the maintenance logs for the plane. The previous owner had organized all of the paperwork for the plane into a set of binders which he gave me in a duffel bag along with the logbooks. So I brought the entire bag because I knew from weighing it that it weighed 27 lbs. If you remember from my last post, I was probably going to need some weight in the baggage compartment to balance the plane and, as it turned out, this bag, along with my regular flight bag, fit the bill nicely. After he went over the maintenance logs, he told me to go out and preflight the plane, and he'd meet me there.

I went out and started my preflight inspection. I took my time, going through the checklist, and didn't find any issues. I then pulled the plane out of the hangar, we hopped in, and got ourselves situated and strapped in. It took a few tries to start the engine but we got it started and it ran fine. I probably just need to give another couple shots of prime next time. I configured the plane for taxi and we headed out to the runway.

I was a bit concerned that neither the instructor nor myself had ever flown this model, but he had done some research on the plane, and I also told him a lot of what I knew about it. As it turns out, we were both very well prepared for the flight and we had absolutely no issues whatsoever.

We started by taking off and heading out to the south to go over some of the basic maneuvers such as steep turns, slow flight, and stalls. The plane handled just fine through all of them. We also practiced engine failure procedures which also went well. Then we headed back and made our first landing.

It was fine. Not great, but decent. I need to get better at staying right on the center line but the plane touched down rather gently, more so than I expected it to. I think I was moving just a bit sideways, even though there was almost no wind, but it handled it like a champ. The landing gear on the Musketeer is very robust, which was another factor that makes it nearly perfect for my mission of building time and becoming more proficient.

We then did a short field take off, followed by a short field landing, then we did a simulated soft field take off from the runway followed by a simulated soft field landing. One of the nice things about Harvey field is that it actually has a grass strip parallel to the paved runway, but it's closed during the colder and wetter months. I may try it out during the summer, though, just to get a feel for it, since the last time I used it was during my flight training.

After the third landing, he said that everything looked good and that he was satisfied with everything we had done. He said we could take off again if I wanted. Although I wanted to fly some more, I also recognized that I'd basically had almost an hour and a half of training where I was strongly focused on what I was doing, and was therefore a bit fatigued. So, being cautious I decided to head back to the hangar.

When we got there, I handed him my log book and he headed back to the office to fill in the entry and also additional information in case the insurance company wants to see it. I put the plane back in the hangar, put the cover on it, and headed over to the office to meet him. He showed me what he had filled out in the log book, handed it back to me, and congratulated me on joining the ranks of aircraft owners.

The total time was 1.4 hours, which easily satisfies the insurance company's requirement. Now that I've done that, I can fly it whenever I want; conditions permitting of course. The next time I go flying I'll need to put some fuel in the tanks. It has a capacity close to 60 gallons but we started out with about 34 gallons. This was plenty of fuel for the flight, but it's now down to around 23 gallons so I really should put some in before the next flight. My intention is to fill it to 40 gallons whenever I put fuel in it. That way I have a bit more weight margin considering Harvey's runway is 2600'. If I do go on a long flight, I can always fly to an airport with a longer runway, fill the tanks all the way there, and then head out.

And that's pretty much it. If the weather is nice enough tomorrow or Sunday, I'd like to go again. This time I'll set up my tablet and ADS-B receiver. I did verify that the iPad holder in the plane fits my tablet. Mines a 5th generation iPad mini. The 4th and 5th gen iPad minis are a bit larger than their predecessors and I didn't know which size the holder was for. But it's for the 4th and 5th gen so it fit fine. I'm looking forward to flying around with a moving map and traffic information.