After having bad weather and high winds for few weeks, today the weather was turning perfect for another flight. So I punched out early from work and went to get the plane ready. By the time I was all done, my minister of finance, safety & communications officer arrived from work. She mounted up and I tried to lift the nose of the plane from grazing position with the electric nose lift. No go? Started checking the electric connections and one of the micro switches fell apart in my hand. Anyway I fixed that and left the gear down. Taxied to the runup area and made the usual run-up checks. Waited forever behind couple of jets to come and go, than was my turn. Full power and we were rolling. On climb out the temps went to 210F, but dropped on downwind very fast to 170-190. Made couple of wide circles over the airport at 1500 ft but it was already getting dark, and she requested permission to join the pattern and land. Snuck in front of a jet on long final and did a beautiful landing. I let it roll almost to the end of the 6K ft runway and made the jet go around behind me. Payback is a bitch :).
By the time we taxied back to the hangar it was dark. This time we had few extra moments to enjoy the plane with the sunset on one side and the Atlantic on the other. that's what she told me. My eyeballs were stuck to the panel and EC2.
During the flight I noticed my mixture bar was going from lean to totally desapearing. Turning the knob to full rich was not enough. So I have to do some more tuning.
Bulent "Buly" Aliev
FXE Ft lauderdale, FL
 http://tinyurl.com/dcy36