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I was thinking back the other day about some of my logbook entries over the past 36 years of flying and after paging through the book, it reminded me that I had made some notes on some of the more interesting and landmark flights, so I thought I would share some of the entries with those who may find them of interest.

October 12, 1971 Flight From OJC, Local, PA-28-140 N3908K Lyc. 150 HP .2 hours FAM Flight Charles Calkins CFI.

the "zef" 36 years and 30 Pounds ago.....Purchased 1st aircraft N9878W, November 5, 1973, 1967 Piper Cherokee 140 log notes: "great day!" Flew her for 36.1 hours before selling on March 20, 1974 due to fuel price increase and shortages to 74 cents per gallon!

October 19, 1971 Near head-on mid-air with instructor CLOSE!

"No Student is going to Kill Me!" Charles Calkins CFI

November 11, 1971 6.4 Hours First Solo

December 31, 1971 1.9 hours First Solo Flight outside the pattern

January 1, 1971 Near runway collision with Yellow Piper Cub on humped runway

January 16, 1972 First Night Flight Checkout

March 19, 1972; N2295T PA-28 Transferred back to LA, first flight at VNY

May 21, 1972 First Long Cross-Country VNY-Fox (Lancaster) rr

June 10, 1972 Checkout in PA-28-180 HP! Wow. Big difference in 30 HP!

September 27, 1972 DuPage County Airport, Chicago, Ill area P/P ***Check-Ride 46 Hours TT; Passed!***

November 5, 1972 Check Out in N1000S Grumman American AA-5 (different)

(on this flight the controller said to hold our altitude as a NEW Boeing 747 would pass directly under us!.......and he passed, and passed, and passed, and finally the tail went by! That was so scary to see I said to the checkout instructor, "LET'S LAND NOW".               I was shook!) Whatta site to behold!

Internet search yielded...N1000S Today

October 29, 1973 N444KC First Night Solo Flying

Beginning December 9, 1973 hours of flying in PA-28-180. I loved that extra horse power

May 2, 1974 Flew My first Mooney! N6861N, 1968 M20-C (WOW!) Owner and old friend John Spoer purchased this Mooney BRAND NEW and still owns it today! Based at Camarillo Airport in Southern California......Thanks John!!! for the many Mooney hours You let me FLY her!

August 22, 1974 Flew N6861N to Santa Paula Airport for pie, spoke to and met pilot Steve McQueen sitting in front of his "toy filled hanger". Nice Guy!

April 27, 1986 Ramp checked at Agua Dulce Airpark, Lancaster, California. I had forgotten my pilot's license, forced to leave aircraft there while a kind sole flew me back to VNY in his Aeronca Champ! argh!!!

January 7, 1988, N4499U PA-28-161 Warrior, took my old band buddy Frank Ceazar flying for the first time. We had a ball!

About my life-long buddy FRANK

2007 Tribes Men Reunion (Frank and zef)

Frank is now and has been for years a radio announcer in the San Diego area. Here is a link to Frank's Hosting Voice for the Organization he co-founded The American Veteran http://www.theamericanveteran.com/ for the website and click: http://radioshows.theamericanveteran.com/ Click on Part 1 to hear Frank.

Frank's on the right

Frank far left, zef center with shades on.

zef and Frank at a band reunion this past summer.

Thanks for indulging the above. Frank is a very special friend and that made this a special logged FLIGHT. As of this date: January 27, 2008, Frank's father, another old friend lays in a coma at home and our hearts and prayers go out to him and his great family. Frank now nearing 60 has been blessed having his father Frank Sr. still around to this point in time.

June 27, 1988; Purchased my own first Mooney! 1965 M20E 200 horse injected and quick as lightening! OH HAPPY DAY!

N79823

March 11, 1989, flew N79823 in to Washington National. Cleared to land; 6,000' six miles out......yeah right!

May 7, 1989, Won Spot Landing Contest in N79823 with my son aboard.

July 24, 1989, Purchased Mooney N4201S for resale. August 14, 1989 I finally agreed to sell N79823 to Bill Shannon who was relentless about buying "823" from me until he finally offererd enough CASH to make me an offer I couldn't refuse! I sold him "823" somewhat reluctantly, even at $29,500 (I paid $16,800 plus paint and glass upgrade) but I turned around and kept N4201S, the 201 I had in stock for resale. I paid $40,000 for N4201S. (Mooneys have traditionally been an excellent financial investment!)

July 9, 1989, Received Instrument Rating in N4201S...Great Day! Great Milestone!

November 30, 1989, flew N4201S from Virginia to San Antonio in consideration of moving to SAT. Lost vacuum pump while IMC....fun.....NOT!

August 1, 1992; Took 3 of my son's friends for an outing at 6th Street in Austin to "checkout the freaks". Half way home lost all electrical. We circled at SAT international for about 20 minutes looking for a GO light to land....NOTHING! It was late, there was no traffic so we landed on runway 12R and taxied all the way to the other end to the FBO where I expected the 19th Calvary to meet me with guns drawn. THEY NEVER KNEW I HAD LANDED! Must have been a good POKER GAME going on in the tower! We called a cab and simply left!

September 23, 1992, Son Michael SOLO'd in the C-152 I had bought him for training!

December 28, 1993, huge load of unpredicted ice west of Las Vegas, NV at night. Engine near shook off of mount! Very scary.....Thank You Al Mooney!

February 3, 1993, Flew N4201S in to Aspen for the first time there. 17,000' MEA, topography BREATH-TAKING! very interesting and picturesque flight.

February 23, 1993 Awarded Multi and Multi Instrument in Piper Seneca II N66AH!

February 24, 1993, Purchased 1966 Cessna Skymaster for resale. Fun but LOUD bird!

Located Cessna T210 for buyer. Engine quit on base to final as tank was down to 1/4 full. The bank caused the engine starvation. Got it running six feet AGL and then made the runway. (I've never had that happen in a Mooney!

May 10, 1993, low altitude flight over Wylie, Texas the day after a major Tornado hit that area.

June 10, 1993, I was asked to ferry a Beechcraft A36 with Machin Conversion from Oklahoma City to the Dallas area. At 11,000' my right foot was burning HOT. The very next flight (at night) I observed that plane taking off with FIRE blazing out of the bottom of the plane. I jumped on my radio and called him back to safety!

July 8, 1993, Picked up Mooney in White Plains NY to take back to Texas. They had me fly down the Hudson River at 1500' right past the Manhattan Skyline and the Twin Towers. BREATH-TAKING!

February 22, 1994, Declaired Emergency (smoke in the cabin) N4201S. Turned out to be a minor short).

March 4, 1994, sold and delivered N4201S to its new owner in Santa Paula, California. I finally had to sell due to divorce. Very sad double-whammy day. (aircraft have not been a fraction of the problem as with women I've known. I fond them to fight very dirty). Asked for his description of women; Jack Nicholson said that "you take a man, remove reason and accountability, and there you go". True over all or not, it was true twice with me and both times my planes had to go. Unconscionable Behavior! I earned my airplanes...Don't get me started! ;o)

Bye Bye Birdie..

October 11, 1995, check-out signoff Mooney Rocket! Wow, now that's PERFORMANCE!

December 12, 1995 Flying the PFM Mooney Porsche (I loved that bird's technology!)

January 12, 1996 Gear collapse on taxi N94U after annual inspection

January 19, 1996 El Paso winds aloft exceeded 70 Kts!

Delivering a Mooney with the Missile conversion N300SZ, the lower winds aloft were exceeding 70. I was wondering where all of my ground speed was. Landed at ELP with non-forecast gusts exceeding 60 Kts, well that was an interesting landing to say the least, but plane and pilot survived. Needless to say, I spent the night at EL Paso!

March 1, 1996, flying N252MP back from Kerrville after spending the night only to find that upon approach to SAT, WX went below published minimums. I landed because everywhere else went below mins within my area. Interesting and thank goodness this 252 had an accurate altimeter because I was in the flair while still IFR! I just kept my speeds flyable and felt for the ground which appeared just prior to touchdown. I was about 20' off the center line.

March 10, 1996, delivered an F model N3530X to Midway Chicago. Due to a minor problem of which had me set down at Springfield, MO, by the time I got out of there I knew that I wouldn't make Midway until after dark, but I also had an appointment to see and visit with my ex wife and I was looking forward to that, so GET-HOME-ITIS was in effect. It had snowed that morning in Chicago but was clear upon my arrival, but the problem was that Midway was situated deeply in the city lights I could not find that airport to spite the controller turning the lights up all the way. I finally found it at about 3 miles out and I quickly downed the gear and landed. Problem was the taxi ways weren't cleared of snow and ice and I slipped my way up to the FBO like I was on ice skates.

April 6, 1996, I had a partnership of 3 come in to see about purchasing a 231 I had or possibly the Mooney Porsche, PFM, N131MP. It was a blazing hot day in San Antonio and the PFM was kept at Stinson Airport on the south side so we flew the 231 over there. Along with the heat of the day and 4 large guys aboard, we were lucky to get 400 fpm climb from the 231. The funny thing was that the PFM was ridiculed for having such a low useful load, much lower than that of the 231, but the same 4 guys were in it and we did 800 FPM in the Porsche! I really liked the PFM.

April 8, 1996, I flew an F model from SAT to T27 and the engine began to run really rough and would not produce cruise power. Over the Hill Country I had to stick it out and finally landed at T27. The engine had sucked a valve.

April 9, 1996, I reluctantly had to fly a Mooney Rocket in to a short turf strip to pick up some ABS panels for another plane. Huge pucker factor, but the Rocket handled it just fine albeit memorable.

April 17, 1996, I had delivered a Rocket to Santa Maria, CA (SMX) and picked up a 1965 Mooney M20E I had bought that had only 500 hours total time since new! Needless to say I had some concern flying it back over all the mountain peaks, but when the barn type hanger was opened up, what I saw was the most gorgeous E model that appeared that it was on the showroom floor some 31 years earlier. It was stock, never painted and had color keyed old Mark 12 radios that matched the color of the panels. Illegal now, those old radios were as crystal clear as any new digital radio of today is. Everything worked perfectly. I had already set the ads on the plane and I received a call asking me to stop at Prescott AZ on the way back so this potential buyer could have the plane checked out by his local shop. They tore that bird apart and even did a bore-scope of the cylinders and virtually everything associated with that E model was in NEW CONDITION! He bought it on the spot even though after seeing it, I was reluctant to sell her. WOW! It was like that plane was sent to us in a time machine from 1965. I'll never forget that Mooney!

May 29, 1996 delivering and F model N7142V to Rochester NY. My wife and I were playing hangman at 9,000' over Lexington, KY when all of a sudden the engine quit cold and nothing I could do would restart it. We dead-sticked it in to Lexington and I had to do some 360's to lose enough altitude for our uneventful landing. Once again the old style fuel injector servo gave up the ghost and it was a weekend so we spend a few memorable days in Lexington and actually had a great time before we finally go the part delivered and installed and we went on to Rochester. I've never played hangman again while flying. :o)

July 9, 1996, I flew a TLS to Corsicana, TX, solid IFR all the way with local storms in the vicinity. The storm scope appeared to be doing its job until I penetrated a cell that did not appear on my scope. After that rough ride and ensuing 180 slow turn, I eventually broke out of the clouds only to find that where I could see a storm buildup cell on the left, the stormscope showed it on the right. Some bozo had reversed the sensing antenna connection somehow and everything read in reverse!

March 28, 1997, I had to fly a 231 N1173W I had sold to a South Dakota doctor and I had agreed to have speed brakes installed for him, so I flew the 231 over to Comfort Airpark, a turf strip half way to Kerrville deep within the Texas Hill Country and the surface winds were whipping in every direction. With a high degree of pucker factor I approached this rediculous airpark on final. All the numbers looked good so I began my flair on this cut patch strip out of the thicket of endless Oak and Cedar trees when all of a sudden while in the flair I noticed a huge buck deer with huge antlers flying out of the trees and on to the runway. I had no choice but to firewall that 231 beyond MP redline and get off the runway before I hit that sucker doing 80 mph, so off I went. I immediately sucked the gear back up and gave the yoke a good yank only to find that I was not gaining any altitude, I was just lumbering along because the wind had just switched from a headwind to a tail wind and here come the trees right at my altitude! As treetops do, they rise and dip from the top center of the tree down to where the next tree begins so I made a split second decision to knife edge the wing through the low spot when all of a sudden..BLAMMO! I had hit something and hit very hard, enough so that the 231 took a left turn downward toward the hills just behind the trees that began to rise and my windshield was full of grassy mountain. "Oh Shit" I remember saying out loud as I knew I was dead meat, but remembering what I had taught myself to fly the plane down to one inch of altitude, I pulled on that yoke as hard as I could and somehow began to climb from about six feet AGL as it appeared to me. It's funny that I did not feel panic which I had at one point early in my flying career, I felt that I had to accept the inevitable and I would simply die that day. Other than some previous very close to having a mid-air collision, I don't think I have ever come that close to death before, and at least with near-misses, they're over just as quickly as they began so there would be no time to think in that scenario. I had time, a short time, but time nonetheless to think on this day and through some unexplained miracle of nature, I began that climb with my poor 231 shaking itself near to death and until I painstakingly reached an altitude of about 500 ft AGL, I had trained my eyes to fly the instruments as though I were in IMC conditions. I was certainly on the edge of a stall the entire time, but I was flying after all, at least for the moment until I finally looked out of my pilot side window. I had wished I had a curtain because I would have rather closed it than having to look at what happened to my wing. At this point I had so very little aileron control that I had to call upon every bit of my flying experience to even have half a chance of surviving. The leading edge was pushed back all the way to the wing spar and the former sharp leading edge was now shaped like a huge barn door sticking out in to the slipstream! The thought had actually passed through my mind that I was dead but crossed over while still strapped to the Mooney. It was surreal for a fact. At first I could not fly straight as the plane kept wanting to turn so I remember thinking "now what?" About the only thing I could do was muscle the controls with all my might because if I had set down in the hills and trees, I would not be as lucky as I had a few moments before. Snap went the aileron as it fell in to level flight like there was a notch it had decided to settle into. That's when I used all of my acquired flying skills to somewhat command this 231 on which direction to fly. About 15 minutes later I began to have enough altitude to see the area of familiarity where Kerrville was nestled at and I dialed up Unicom on 122.7. There is normally not that much traffic at Kerrville, but that day it seemed as though everyone was in the pattern so I interrupted asking everyone to depart the pattern because I had a badly damaged airplane and needed to land there. The radio became totally silenced before the FBO operator came on to the frequency and asked me if I had wanted to declare an emergency. Emergency? I had no time nor desire to go through answering all those questions that follow and I simply said for him to clear out all traffic and to do it immediately as I now had the airport in sight in the distance. However, I began to think about the landing wondering at what speed that left wing would quit flying and whether or not the gear would come down. Other concerns that crossed my mind were last second aileron control and whether or not one flap would come down and not the other........ I could only wonder as my mind was going at mach speeds seemingly. I decided to go ahead and declare so I advised the controller of that as I made my way inbound. "How will I handle the landing? What should I do and not do?" and so on. I was indicating around 140 kts so I had made the decision to fly on past the numbers at that speed and just before touchdown, I would lower the landing gear and take what comes at that point. As I crossed the 30 numbers at what seemed like mach speeds, I pulled the power to let the speed bleed off as I knew I had 6,000' of runway in front of me. About half way down she settled and by then I gave her full flaps coming through 110 indicated, and it was a smooth albeit concerned touchdown. I don't know how it happened so quickly, but the fire engines were there along with the local news trucks and I taxied to Dugosh Aviation and shut her down. Once I had lifted my weary head to look up, Ronnie Kramer who now owns Dugosh came out of the side hanger door with a broad smirk on his face. I got out and tried to stand on my legs which had gone from flesh and blood to pure rubber and asked "what the hell are you smiling at"! He said that if I had taken that hit in anything other than a Mooney, I would not be there and he was right! He told me that two weeks earlier the a Cessna 310 hit those same trees and he put a smoking hole in the ground after losing his wing. Now I began worrying about how and what to tell the new owner of this plane whom had never even seen it before. I had never so much as put a dent in a car let alone an airplane and here I had felt that the Mooney would require an entire new wing! Not so as I later got a call from Ronnie who informed me that the spar wasn't even damaged, just two stringers and ribs, two 3' sections of wing skins, an aileron, and of course the composite wing tip and that was it and Dugosh being who they are repaired it so perfectly that you could never tell that it had ever been damaged at all. The owner was great as his main concern that I would have lost my joy for flying. That I did for about the next two years even though I still had to fly a lot back then. There were two miracles that day. First that I had survived the hit and ensuing flight to Kerrville, and second is the miraculous way that Al Mooney and his boys designed and built this aircraft! Don't try this in a composite winged airplane whatever you do!

April 11, 1997, I had to fly the King Flight School giveaway MSE Mooney N95KS to Laughlin, NV. I had stopped briefly to pick up my then ex brother-in-law; Ray Rude who was family for life as far as I was concerned as it was Ray whom when I was a youngster that introduced me to mechanics and other technical things that I had made use of throughout my life. Ray was scared to death of flying let alone flying with me, the kid he had taught to drive his truck when I was 12 or 13. He was very nervous but kept an open mind, so up the gorge we followed all the way to Laughlin and had a great time touring the old car museum and stuff. After two days of having a great time with Ray as well as taking care of the business at hand, I flew him back home on my way back to Texas. I got word on the 24th of that same month that Ray had passed away suddenly of an aneurism. I had to turn back around and fly back to where Ray was living for the funeral in the same plane I had just given him a ride in. I kept staring at the co-pilot's seat imagining him sitting there, but it was never to be again. So long Ray old buddy!

May 3, 1997, the good doctor from South Dakota came in to pick up his new and newly repaired 231 that I had hit the tree with. I gave him the most careful checkout of any customer in memory and we had a great time! Last I heard he still owns that beautiful Mooney 231.

November 28, 1998 delivering E model Mooney N2968V to Jerry S at Botavia, NY. Over Youngstown Ohio while solid IMC, the main aircraft battery exploded and all electrical immediately lost. I immediately pulled out my hand-held nav-comm, tuned the Garmin 195 GPS to nearest airport and shot an approach to minimums with that GPS. It was a non event as it turned out thanks to the portable GPS and nav-comm. It turned out that the battery had not been replaced in 9 years! But finally gave up the ghost all at once.

November 11, 1999,  jetted to Washington DC to fly back as PIC the Mooney 201 N57003 that had recently sold to Jake Jacobs. Jake came back to SAT with me on that IFR flight to okay repairs on that plane. Interestingly, the week before I had the seller fly his plane from his airport also on the Eastern Seaboard to Jake's location near DC. While the seller was taxiing to get fuel, he hit a mounted fire extinguisher near the pumps while doing a taxiing 360 and put a dent in the 201's leading edge. He hooked up with Jake a while later and while demonstrating the 201, he over-shot the runway, went down an embankment, and put a large dent in the other wing's leading edge! Jake still liked the airplane and with the insurance payoff and a good discount, he still bought the plane, but to save him money, we brought it out here to effect the fix. The local Eastern mechanic formed a piece of wood to fill in the gash and then duct taped it securely and signed the plane off for the ferry flight back to SAT! Jake was not as yet checked out in that model thus my trip to DC and the uneventful flight back home to Texas. I was simply amazed at the whole ordeal!

January 5, 2000 had me waiting in anticipation for Reggie J. was to fly in from the Dakota's to pick up his gorgeous new Mooney Rocket N5659M. What kept me from sleeping the previous two nights was the fact that Reggie had only around 200 hours flight time and only in small Cessna's! More money than brains? When Reggie got here, I again re-iterated my deep concerns but he assured me that once we were done with our training and if I thought he would have problems flying the Rocket back home, he would hire an instructor to accompany him, so my mind was eased some, in fact I had already alerted a local CFII of the impending trip. My son Sean was about to be born so I couldn't leave town. The reason I am mentioning this was that I had never seen anything like it. Reggie, a dot-commer with a brilliant technical mind as it turned out took to flying that Rocket like a duck to water! I had never seen anyone with such a mind that what ever you told him to do, he would do it perfectly day after day of local flying. I kid you not that Reggie became a Rocket expert in days with no previous Rocket experience let alone Mooney! This guy flew better than many 3,000 hour guys I've flown with. Somehow he was able to get insurance from a company that knew me whom also knew that I would not let Reggie out of my site unless I approved his ability. Will wonders never cease?

June 14, 2001 had me delivering an F model Mooney N7127V to Medford Oregon at the beginning of summer heat. My flight would take me through Eloy Nevada where I finally had to set down due to moderate to severe turbulence, as result of heat as well as nearby pop-up T-Storms. I sat there for several hours itching to be back on my way, so at around 5 p.m. I decided to give it another go. Departing Eloy northwest bound would take me through a mountain pass where a T-Storm was situation on the other sides of both mountains I had to pass through. They did not seem to be that close and it was CAVU through that pass with the flattest terrain below me, so it seemed no big deal if I buckled up really tight. I don't recall feeling much turbulence if any, but midway through that pass began a serious downdraft that ended up taking me down toward the flat terrain at a relatively alarming rate well above the climb rate of that F model, so down I went, and went..... and went, so low that I had set the plane up for flair thinking that within a minute or two I would make contact with the surface. I remember thinking that this was not really scarry feeling, I felt that all things remaining equal, I would simply land on the flat terrain. With gear and flaps now down for landing, things suddenly changed from a downdraft to an amazing updraft which had me back at my original altitude in minutes, in fact, I had to lower the nose severely not to exceed my target altitude and you should have seen that airspeed indicator wind on up! Once beyond the pass, things returned to normal and I chuckled to myself of all things. It remained a simply gorgeous flight from there onward until I had to fly through billows of smoke created by a fire that seemed to have the entire city of Spokane Washington ablaze. I'll take this opportunity to mention that it seemed that there was nothing beyond the capability of the Mooney! Ever since my first flight in one back in the '70's, Mooney gave off this feeling of security that I had never experienced in all the other brand names I had ever flown. Thanks again Al!

September 25, 2001 had me on a simple flight from SAT to BAZ, a normally 15 minute flight in the E model N115RC. This was about two weeks after 911. I will digress by saying that I had to have an Austin Mooney owner jet up to OJC (Kansas City) to pick the bird up for me because I had just had a vasectomy surgery a couple of days before, so on he went. This plane had been sitting outside for a time as the owner had lost his medical. I had asked Cutter Aviation to check the plane out and especially for any water in the tanks in which they found gallons, so I had them  completely empty the fuel tanks, check the gascolater and injector servo for any further contamination. Once given the go ahead thumbs up by Cutter, my guy jetting up for the pickup with the promise that he would not night fly this bird. His pax jet got delayed in OKC for some mechanical reason and got to OJC rather late. He made the decision to go ahead and fly her back even though a portion of his flight would be at night. Argh! I got an email from him the following day stating that the E model was at SAT awaiting me to pick her up. I phoned him to mention that it looked to me that he had to fly at night in order to have made the trip so quickly and he admitted that prior to his landing at Dallas Addison due north of Dallas where he re-fueled and finally got the bird back to SAT by midnight. I obviously scolded him some for flying an unknown bird at night, especially one that had had so much water in the system but he laughed it off and that was that. After carefully easing my way in to the cockpit due to my sore loins, I asked for and received 3,000' direct to BAZ ( New Braunfels). Just as I leveled off at 3K, the engine suddenly lost power! Nothing I would do lead up to a re-start so I informed SAT departure of my plight and she immediately cleared me back to SAT to any runway of my choosing. I told her that there was no way that I could make it back to SAT and I had no interest of flying over the city engine out even if I could. Just below me and to my right was Randolph AFB and I asked her of the possibility of landing there. She got back to me with a frequency and I called the Randolph tower who immediately cleared me for landing. I greased her on the numbers of that 10,000' runway and upon my rollout I asked the controller if okay to use the high speed taxi way so I could clear the active. "No sir" he replied; "please shut her down right there and step out of the airplane as you will be met by a car".  Not only did a 4 door Chevy pull up, but also a covered truck along with a fire engine. Some officer yelled the order to me to lay down flat on the runway with my hands over the back of my head, so I eased my sore torso down to the asphalt and when I looked up there was this 17 year old looking kid with an M-16 pointed at me! After being handcuffed, the officer pulled me up using my cuffed hands and arms as a handle. Ouch! I then instructed that "kid" to point his rifle to another direction and he replied; "no sir, I can't do that". I got a bit pissed and said that I was just a lowly aircraft salesman with a sick plane and if that gun should accidentally go off......... "no sir, I can't point this gun elsewhere". While that conversation was ongoing, the officer searched me like I had a hidden machine gun or grenade on me and he hit my crotch so hard in his search, I felt the stitches on both sides open up and blood ran down each leg. They then manhandled me over to the Chevy sedan and sat me down on my cuffs in the rear seat while two other soldiers cautiously walked toward the Mooney with guns trained on it. They carefully peered inside through the windows with me yelling that there was nothing in there and not to be afraid. I was then whisked away to some very dark interrogation room and finally let out of my hand cuffs. Blood was dripping on the floor out the bottom of my pant legs so of course they asked me why. Starting with the term "you bozo's"... had me explain what his body search did. No apology! Meanwhile I gave them my business card and even mentioned that years back I was given an invitation by them for me and my son Michael to fly their jet simulators, so check their records to verify that...on and on back and forth we spoke for hours including 3 different interrogators questioning me. I was getting more pissed by the minute after sitting there from around 10:30 a.m. and it was now going on 4! I told them that if I had worn a turban, I would better understand their gross over-reaction. They responded by placing a form in front of me they wanted me to sign under the threat that if I didn't then they were going to bill me $10,000.00 for having to bring all the equipment and men out. I said "bull shit" and reiterated that I was "cleared to land" pure and simple which is a welcome mat. They said that I hadn't declared an emergency and therefore I did not have any rights to land. "Bull shit" I said again! Your controller did not ask me to declare, nor did I feel it was an emergency situation having 3,000' of altitude and a 10,000' runway that I was welcomed to land on by "their controller". I was told that they would deal with him later but if I wanted to be release, then I would have to sign that paper or else! "Screw you over-reacting bozo's!" But I signed anyway because I didn't have any plans to sue, I just wanted to get out of that place and be done with it. Once I signed, I became everyone's buddy seemingly, even the officer said that he owned a Cessna 340 he wanted me to do his interior for him, on and on, butt kiss after butt kiss they finally drove me back to my plane. I had thought that the engine had a bout with some trapped water that Cutter didn't get out, especially after running it on the ground for twenty minutes in every power setting imaginable. It seemed fine and my thinking it was just some water seemed confirmed by the fact that the plane was running great, so I got clearance and took the heck off from there. Just after liftoff and over the base houses at about 500' AGL, the engine quit again! "Oh shit", I was going to fly into someone's living room! I let go of the yoke and began frantically jockeying the throttle and mixture when all of a sudden she came alive again only to quit again seconds later. I immediately turned left away from the houses and told the controller I was having engine problems again and asked if I could land if I could make it around the circuit. He said "yessir, if you declare an emergency" which I promptly did. In order to keep this sick bird running, I had to continue jockeying the throttle and mixture using my knee to bank the plane and/or keep it level. I could not climb above around 500' but I made it around engine running on and off and set down. This time the engine would idle and I followed the truck back to tie down as frustrated as one could get. I checked again for water and there was none, so I began to suspect the injector servo. My wife came and got me and the next day my mechanic Ron Fisher and I went back out to Randolph with some tools where we were promptly greeted by two FAA guys, one of which used to work for Mooney Aircraft, the same one I had had a run-in and subsequent words with some years earlier. We then agreed no hard feelings and shook hands but they watched every move Ron and I had made removing the servo. We then took it to Alvin at Alamo Accessories in San Antonio and asked him to run a flow test. He said that he couldn't as the FBI had phoned him preventing that servo from being touched until the following morning when they would be there. We met with these two dark glasses TV looking Feds and Alvin then ran the flow test which the servo faithfully flunked, so Alvin had his boys open up the servo only to find that the Cutter mechanic had used an automotive black O ring instead of the Bendix blue one, and because the black O ring was not an exact matchup, he used some goop of some sort to get it to fit in to the slot! That goop ended up plugging the tiny fuel hole that was opned and closed by the flow needle which was bent in to a curve due to the goop. The FBI asked if that damage was sufficient to kill the engine and he responded with he had no idea how I was able to keep that plane running around the pattern for that second engine failure of the day, that there was no way that engine should have run at all. That was enough to satisfy "Joe Friday" and his sidekick so off they went with the two FAA guys in tow. "Just a minute" I yelled. I explained that Cutter damn near killed me and some unsuspecting people living in those houses not to mention my dumb ferry pilot who had flown her the night before in the dark, and out of Addison where the departure end had nothing but sky scraper buildings on the departure end, and isn't the FAA going to do anything to site Cutter?! None of them had any interest in that. They only wanted confirmation that there was a mechanical problem. Had that problem not shown up, I believe that they would have re-arrested me! BOZO'S! Cutter got a good piece of  my words I guarantee!

Thanksgiving Eve, 2005, I had been attempting to deliver Tom Leonard's newly purchased 201 to him in Richmond Virginia. At each attempt either the WX on this end was bad or the WX was on his end, so we finally agreed that I would fly his bird to Louisville Kentucky so that when his WX finally cleared, he and his instructor would fly out to pick her up. That was convenient and a favor really because I had to pick up an F model and fly her back to SAT which was located near to Louisville. Liana had never been in a small plane and only one airliner, so she was eager to go with me. After spending a nice evening in Louisville, we got a driver to take us to the farm where the F model was located. That farmer/airplane owner was a man in his mid 80's and he took us to an old barn where the F model was parked, full of dust and soot. I had only then learned that the F model had not been flown since the last annual nearly a year before. "Oh crap, not one of these again" I pondered, but we were a captive audience and I had decided that if after a careful pre-flight and run-up if she seemed okay, off we would go on that freshly cut winter grass strip, and off we went. She was flying pretty good on my climb-out and we reached 4500' southwest bound with headwinds of course, but I had decided eventually to climb up to 6500 to try to get above the haze to spite the stronger winds at that altitude, so up we went. Upon leveling off, I had felt in the seat of my pants, a premonition really that something was amiss even though the engine was smooth and the gages read correctly, I decided to trust my gut and initiated a 180 back to an airport I had passed some time before because GPS showed no airports in front of me. Half way through the turn, the engine quit! This is getting old I remember thinking. After pointing this F model Mooney toward the airport I began to realize that the rolling hills of Kentucky were not a friendly environment at all should we have to set down before reaching the airport that was far away in my mind. I had her trimmed out a 105 mph indicated and felt a tendency to scoot back and forth in my seat to stretch the glide as far as I could. :o) Down we came at around 400+ FPM now coming through about 2,000' AGL with the prop now in coarse pitch in my effort to stretch the glide when I finally spotted the airport in the distance. As I began to see the runway work its way slowly upward in my windshield, I had determined that we weren't going to make the runway. Great! We weren't equipped with shoulder harnesses I remember thinking. After instructing Liana to get her big coat out from the rear seat and position that in front of her face, I noticed one of the few streets that was not the winding type that I had decided to set down on and I informed Liana that. As I turned slightly to line up with that street I began to see some children playing in that street. DRAT! The only choice was to angle back toward the runway, about 20 degrees back to my left, and fought off the temptation to lower my gear and flaps until the very last second before touching down where-ever. We ended up flying through two small then leafless trees,  located just before the runway. It was at those trees I reached for the landing gear switch followed by the electric flap switch and just as the gear clunked in the down position, we hit the runway abutment that arose about ten inches off of the turf which promptly launched our airplane upward stall horn blaring.... I then pointed the nose downward and then immediately upward and then bounced three or four times before she settled on the runway with surface winds at our backs. We rolled out and on to the taxi way trying to get every last foot of momentum out of the plane because the prop had stopped at some point during the landing phase. Short of parking about 20 feet away, I attempted a re-start. Nothing doing. She was dead and no one was around! We got out of the plane and I promptly walked to the back of that bird and kicked it right straight in its ass! Liana laughed never fully realizing the dire straight we had just been in. I was pissed....once again! Meanwhile a local cop drove up and told us that the Louisville controllers had called him to check and see if we had made it to the airport. He said that he knew the one man based at that strip and would phone him to see if we could use the one hanger located at that field. The man then drove over from his office and offered to fly us to Louisville in his 182 if we wanted. We wanted! So we left that bird there after pushing it to tie down. $200.00 for the Cessna pilot and $1300.00 for last minute airline tickets, we were back in San Antonio. Because they were having their worst winter ever in that area, it took months before I could get a mechanic out there and what he found was the gasket around the Ram Air inlet was mostly gone and the engine had been sucking cow dust and grass in to it for Lord knows how long, the engine had not just sucked a valve, but it turned the shape in to an upside down umbrella such as he had never seen before and an injector full of debris, the engine was of course taken out. It was nearly six months before I got that bird back to San Antonio! I did not look forward to seeing it again, but we got it running great and I finally sold it for the old man.

I'm not near finished with this article but am about to post it so those who wish to can get started on some of my war stories, the best of which are yet to come so do check back from time to time.

Thanks! zef

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