Welcome Tony! Always good to have another Tennessee Beech driver!

Jeff

This is the email I sent Paul McCracken this morning. I am a student ready for my PPL checkride and Jerrod is my instructor. For more details see "found Grandpas V"

Paul,

What an ordeal.

Here was my vision. Like a bride on her wedding day. It's finally arrived. Everything will be perfect and have a fairy tail ending. I pictured a nice flight to Dallas. An easy drive to McKinney. See the plane. Smile a lot. Go out for a steak that evening. Depart Saturday morning and fly her home in beautiful weather and wave to the crowd as we land her in St Joe.


Here's the reality

I rushed my ass home in pounding rain and hail from my outreach clinic 45 miles away. I quickly pack to head off to the airport. In the meantime, the huge storm front had caught us from the east and followed us the entire way to the airport. I drove 45 mph in driving rain and hail to get to the airport (45 miles). We get to the gate and see that no planes are coming or going and have all been diverted. The storm does not move through, it just keeps churning over MCI.

We finally get on the plane at 830pm for our 3pm flight. I have sit 6 hours in an airport with a bunch of unhappy people. We have both been partially drunk but sobered up because they ran out of beer (seriously!). We take off about 9pm for an 1-1.5 hour flight. They have to go around the storms so it takes over 2 hours. No in flight service because it was so bumpy. We land in dallas about 11. By now, the rental car places have closed so we take a shuttle to a nearby hotel with plans of getting up early and driving to McKinney.

I get up at 630 and call Enterprise. "we are sold out" Really. So I walk to Dollar/Thrifty. "we don't have a drop off in McKinney" %#$@! Then it starts pouring down rain. Can't walk back to the hotel.

I call Bill (who is awesome). He agrees to come get us. Looks like things are turning our way (finally).

We get to T31. See the plane. Lots of smiles. Looked through the engine logs. See the 786MD. Now we know this is "The Chief" I am happy again. Don't really care what happens now.

Met the guys in your shop. We go have a nice lunch. The weather is looking semi doable.

About 330p we see a break in the weather. Bill takes Jerrod up for a check ride. Jerrod did very well. He seemed quite comfortable in the plane. The bastard did some slow flight and stalled the plane (which he knows I hate). Bill and Jerrod are laughing at me.

We do a few touch and gos. Jerrod greases the landings. Loves the plane. The 696 wx works perfectly. We can see the storms.

About 430p we make the decision to go. Weather is shitty around the airport but we are on the northern edge of it. If we get 30 min north we have beautiful wx all the way home.

We are taxiing down the runway. I see that the right tank is down a bit, so like a good student tell Jerrod "take off on the fullest tank right" He says switch to Left. I couldn't quite see the markings so I switch it. Problem is I switched it to OFF. The plane dies on the taxiway. We try to start it but can't. Then I look down and see that it is on OFF. I'm thinking what a dumbass. (Great lesson to learn on the ground though. We would have been F***ed if that would have been in flight so I guess all things happen for a reason). By this time we have run the battery down. We call Bill/Mark. No answer. By the grace of God Mark hasn't left and sees us on the taxiway. He gets the tug, jumps us and we are off.

Just like the 696 said, after about 30 min, the skies opened up and we are having a beautiful flight. We can get winds aloft on the 696 and choose our altitude for best efficiency. Things are good. We are smiling again. It all seems worth it.

We get to southern Kansas. We now know we are going to land at night. If the engine monitor is correct, we have just enough fuel reserves (45 min at night) to make it. I say to Jerrod "The number one cause of engine failure is to run out of fuel" We both have to pee. We call allen county UNICOM and some guy says "yes we have self serve fuel and it is $2.80/gal" . We stop, pee, and fuel.

Now we follow the hot start procedures from the POH and call a few other guys to confirm we are doing it right. We are. It doesn't start.

A pilot who runs the flight school there lands and jumps us. We are on our way again. (How freakin lucky can you be. This little airport is in BFE with no one else around and the guy who runs the flight school lands, has a way to jump us, and gets us going).

We are now only 45 min from home. It is dark. We are going to make it.

I had called my wife. She is going to bring the kids down to watch us land. With the 696 I can tell her an exact ETA.

About 6 min out, we turn on the runway lights. She texts me. They see our lights in the distance. Winds are calm. We choose a strait in approach on runway 35. There is something going on in St Joe. There is a fireworks display to NE (no %#$@).

We land and I taxi by my family which now includes Mom (Charlie Harman's daughter) and Dad and nephews ("The Chief's" great grandchildren). I taxied by them and waved. The kids came and got in the plane. Fireworks are still going off (no %#$@).

As you can see it was an amazing journey with a fairy tale ending.

The guys at T31 are awesome. We will see you again.

Thanks for everything


Brett

BRAVO!!!!
That is so awesome to hear. Thanks for the story. Any chance we can get a picture of the Chief with dad, and then a similar picture with you?

Nice Bo! - time for a new battery perhaps.

I love the paint scheme.

My first attempt at a hot start using the manual also failed, so I don't use the POH method anymore.

Do a search on the BT Forum - there have been some extended discussions of hot start procedures.

Greetings, Ron Foster here, based in Bessemer, AL (EKY). I fly a 1978 V35B and if it were a woman, my wife would be in trouble. I recently sold my business and now have lots of time to fly. Equipment includes Garmin 327, 330 w/ traffic, 430W with weather and terrain, MX20 with charts and traffic, SL30 and Century III with DAC GPSS.

I've owned my Bonanza for about 2 yrs +. Previously, I owned a Cardinal RG, which was a pleasure to fly, but pretty slow.

I flew as an F4 RIO in the Marine Corps and retired from the U.S. Army.

Looking forward to being a member of Beech Talk.

...and I KNOW you're about to upload that picture!

I bought my V35A from a fine fellow in Birmingham... who was gonna get a Citabria... ut now has... a Bonanza.

Hi Brett-

Congrats on getting the new bird home.

Don't feel too bad about getting the fuel selector in the wrong spot; I did it too the first time I flew our Deb.

One thing, though... it generally isn't good practice to "jump" an airplane and then depart. You really ought to remove the battery and charge it normally, then reinstall it.

Paul can quote you the chapter and verse.

-TH

Greetings all,

My name is Phil Carr, I live in Arizona, and it only took a year and a half but I finally did it! I've had a PA28-180 for about 4 years now and have been looking seriously for a V35 or an F33A since about December 2007. Looked at several but none were compelling enough to part with the cash. Then, I found her:

- '77 V35B (30th anniversary year)
- Same paint and interior scheme (grey leather) as the 10000th Bonanza
- 3 owner aircraft hangared at the same airport in Ohio since new (I73)
- 1820 hours
- 260 SFREM
- no damage, no stories
- meticulously maintained

and best of all, it got the full McCracken seal of approval!!!

Since I didn't have my HP or Complex endorsements, I enlisted the help of Bill Sterling CFII from Prosper Texas to help me fly her from Ohio to DVT over the Memorial Day weekend. We flew to HQZ just east of Dallas on Friday with absolutely no trouble. Saw 192 knots GS at one point but averaged about 175 for the majority of the flight. Could't wipe the grin off if I wanted to. Got stuck in Dallas for a couple of days due to the crazy weather pattern over most of Texas but it worked out OK as Bill and I were able to get emergency procedures and various other things out of the way, including about 100 landings. Bill was great and very patient. The sky finally cleared on Monday and we had a great flight from HQZ to DVT with a stop in 5T6 for fuel. I've still got about 12 more hours of dual required before I can solo and can't wait.

Phil,

What caused all that corrosion in the rear of the fuselage???? (Just kidding.)
That is a fine looking plane.

Congratulations. In my opinion you have bought into the "sweet spot" of all the Beech airplanes, the last 1000 made of the 35 models. These had all the modern improvements but still handle like a sports car, with better handling than the 33's and 36's (yes, I'm prejudiced, but I've flown them all).

Keep us updated on your activities with the plane.

Enjoy!

Phil's airplane looks new when you look at its "guts"....First year of all zinc'ed internal skins...less than 2000 TT. I am jealous as hell.....

I'm glad you shared it with us, Phil....expect to see alot more of you on the forum...

Regards,

Paul

I am also jealous. If I could have, I would have bought it. I am glad Phil is pleased with it. It was fun to help out, and have pancakes with McCracken. Paul, can you imagine that great You Tube moment for the Golden Nugget?

Phil, congratulations, and enjoy!

John,

Thanks again for you help...your pictures prior to having Paul look at it took all the worry out. Also, sorry I forgot to call you that Friday morning before we left...as you can imagine alot was going through my head. I was making my first 30minute fuel tank switch when I remembered I was supposed to call you but it was a little late then.

Phil

Oh Yeah...Paul and John,

I want to hear more about this youtube moment and the Golden Nugget?

I think Paul and Bill have a scam going. That sounds very familiar.

I agree with the grin part. Sat in my plane today because weather was shitty. Just pretended to fly. Makes me very happy.

Who did you get to insure you and how much (if I may ask)?