What was your longest Day? (total flight time)

[Bennett]

Longest and fastest all in one day. Winter in about 1990 - San Carlos, CA to Venice, Fl in 9:15 total time, with one stop in Gulfport, for fuel.  This was in my old Trophy 261 conversion. I had 115 gallons in the Monroy conversion tanks along with Prist. The jet strean was very low that day, and climbing up to FL270 gave me a tailwind well in excess of 125 Kts, and ocassionally much more. Very smooth, very cold, and I just throttled back to about 50% power and stayed in the stream for as long as possible. ALB center tracked me at 315 Kts ground speed at one point when the jet stream was really pushing.  Sort of holding the tiger by the tail. I just didn't want to come down, but i did a long slow decsent as I got futher East. A really fast fueling at Gulfport and then back up to about FL210, but by now it was just a more normal winter tailwind. Lost 3 hours on the clock, but it was still a fantastic run, and one I never was able to duplicate. One of the really hot civilan test pilots and Reno racer, who is based at San Carlos, made a non-stop run to FL a year or so later, even faster in a Mooney in similar winter conditions.  I normally flew the route to Fl at FL210, but seeing the weather forecasts, I just had to try and catch the jet stream. Controls were mushy, the windows were all frosted over, the in cabin temperature was freezing (I hate Mooney heaters), and I was about as uncomfortable as I have ever been in an airplane, and yet it was a bit of a fun adventure.  Oh,  I didn't need an iron butt as I had had the seats reuphostered in multiple grades of conformal foam. Even so, the form "hardens: somewhat with low temperatures, so it was body warmth alone that kept the seat tolerable. Also, thank goodness for "rest stop" packs.