Page 31 - Jan22T

Finished and ready to serve both family and humanitarian missions.
“Why the left?”
“Because I’m on your right!”
Steve laughed.
Time to pay attention. Throttles
up, Bob held them long enough for us to get an encouraging scan down the twin column of dials. “Airspeed’s alive,” I heard myself say. “Seventy...90...100.” And just like that, we were off, trees getting small. “Positive rate, gear tracking.” Then, whoops, a red “Gear Unsafe” light. The grin faded.
“Gear doors,” Bob said. “They didn’t close.” He held up the gear handle for a few extra seconds waiting for the reassuring clunk to accompany the light going out. It came. “Gears up and locked. Let’s hope not permanently.”
Between the all-black instrument panel with its big overhanging glare shield and the late afternoon overcast layer, it was none too bright in the cockpit. “Post lights and dial lights are out, too. The circuit breakers popped. A reset and it pops again.”
Prepared for this, we looked like a couple of repo guys ourselves, me with a miner’s light over my headset and Bob with a handheld to illuminate the dials. “Make sure you get the new panel painted white or something light,” Bob said.
Leveling off at just 5,500 feet for the shakedown run to Bob’s shop and initial training at N81, I jotted squawks on my kneeboard. Overall, a few snakes slithered out of the 9-year- old woodpile, but the annunciator lights mostly kept to themselves. When it came time to drop the
wheels, they fell out of the wells, a disconcertingly fast three green. The gear doors were marching to the beat of a different sequence; we’d figure it out on the ground.
Helped along by both popular Cheyenne mods (streamlined exhaust stacks and optimized ram air intakes), 0MG was not slow. The airplane that
sat still for so long zipped along at 215 knots, 1,900 RPM, lots of torque and temp to spare. Fuel flow? Ah well, let’s not spoil the moment.
My prom date was home before curfew as my facial muscles started to give out. There is something about these soulful old machines that make a guy grin.
Rosen
January 2022 / TWIN & TURBINE • 29