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It will not surprise anyone on this site that knows me that I have a different airplane. This is #16. I change airplanes as my needs change. A couple of years ago I had a really sweet Mooney 231. A good friend of mine wanted it and I wanted more useful load (892 lb wasn't enough) and air conditioning. So I went about looking for an airplane that met those needs. I was looking for 1100 lb useful load in a single or 1500 lb in a twin. Other than those requirements, I was open to the specific airplane. I came upon a really nice B55 Baron. There are some photos of it on this site. Most importantly, it had flown just shy of 100 hours per year for each of the previous seven years. Right at a year ago now I accepted a position that allows me to fly to work a couple of days a week. It is only a 57NM flight each way but over the mountains that turns a 2 hour commute each way into a 20 minute flight. That flight comprises most of my flight time now, and it is done solo with me only bringing a back pack. So I started to investigate what I wanted next as the Baron certainly isn't required for that flight. Lancair 360 ? RV series ? Cessna 150 ? Two seats are all I need for that flight. But I need to get to 7,500/8,500 ft to clear the mountains and that may be 11,000 ft density altitude in the summer. A 150 is out, as is a 172. I guess a Cessna 182 would be the minimum. I had a Lancair and didn't like it. I've had a couple of 182s and really didn't want another one. I'm thinking 200 HP minimum. A nice F/J/K Mooney would be perfectly reasonable. I also go to Mexico a few times a year with the Flying Samaritans so four seats would be nice and useful load is good for those flights. I also need enough fuel to make it to Mexico and back without taking on fuel as the availability of fuel in Mexico is always in question. Looking for at least 1100 lb useful load rules out the Mooneys. A few weeks ago a guy posted on BeechTalk that he has a nice S35 Bonanza and was looking to trade for a Baron. We talked, we came to an agreement and we swapped airplanes last Sunday. The Bonanza has flown 100 hours per year for the last ten years. Yesterday I swapped out the Garmin 430W for an Avidyne 440 and I'll probably swap out the Garmin 340 audio panel for a PMA450B. The first photo is both airplanes side by side last Sunday, then photos of the Bonanza.

This morning I collected some data for your enjoyment. Stuff like this helps me determine where I want to put the engine parameters for various flights. As a general rule, I'm not in a big hurry, but at the same time if I'm going too slow I may as well drive. My cutoff is about 160 KTAS. Much below that and I feel like I'm sitting there forever, much above that and I have to have a good reason to burn that much fuel. Here are iPad screen shots from this morning's commute. 7,500 ft cruise, temperature was -1ºC initially, then 0ºC later. Full manifold pressure gave me 22.6" and the RPM was set at 2400 throughout. I simply chose a fuel flow, let it stabilize 2-3 minutes and calculated TAS with the Utilities part of WingX, images reproduced below. They are at 16.0 GPH, 15.0 GPH, 14.0 GPH, 13.0 GPH, 12.0 GPH and 11.0 GPH. By 11.0 GPH the engine was very LOP and the cycle to cycle variation was noticeable. To get much below 11 GPH I will probably need to go higher or reduce MP. This afternoon I'll go home at 8,500 ft and will look more closely at what the engine monitor calculates as % power since I set LOP as the default a few days ago. Tomorrow I have a longer flight that will be done at 10,500 ft so I'll gather data on lower fuel flows then and I'll gather data in 0.5 GPH increments. Each 1 GPH reduction in fuel flow only reduced my TAS by about 2 knots until I got to 11GPH. Peak temperatures occur around 14.5 GPH.