After a suitable lurking period of about six weeks, I suppose it is time to surface.
As you can see, I am (will be) based in South central Virginia at a nice 3200 paved strip, W91 which is 900MSL, or 840 depending on which end we are discussing. That strip is in walking distance to the lake, and in fact to my house. But, actually, at the moment I am living in Johannesburg, South Africa. And I am not flying, and have not been since I sold my B55 in 1996 and started the international life. I am AS/AMEL Instrument with about 1300 hours, 550 or so in the Baron.
International life is coming to an end at the end of September, and thoughts are returning to flying. Every time I leave my home in Virginia, I have to drive past both ends of W91. It's not a question of whether to return, just when. I restored my medical two years ago to see that is was still possible. Get to renew it during home leave next month without having clocked an hour.
Lot of catching up to do. I can see that the advances are substantial in the great area of electronics. Love all the glass I see in Panel Talk. Will need some of that. BeechTalk is a great resource. Wow could I have used this when I had my plane! But actually, it is a great resource for the prospective owner as well. I have spent many an hour here following just about everything.
Now on to planes... Great time to buy them, perhaps less than great to operate them, economically speaking. But right now, I am prospecting. I started with the idea of an "E" (just as I did in 1989 when I bought my "B".) Then I moved on to "B"s, and the presidential variants (it is a 3200 ft strip, which was never a balanced field for my "B"... and we all like POWER
) And despite the notations re the "P" being a roadrunner regarding field lengths, it definitely has allure!
I have been building my little spreadsheet to evaluate them. Just shy of 80 airplanes in it so far. Helps pass the time in the cold winter (Southern Hemisphere!)
I will be in the USA for a few weeks in July, then back to South Africa to finish my assignment. Then it is home for good. Hope to have lined up some training by then, to clean away 16 plus years of rust, and to have a pretty good idea of which of those Barons I am really after.
In the meantime, I will be back here lurking away... not much to say without a ride! So please keep posting and I will keep reading!
BTW, although perhaps best known in Europe, the younger DJ version of me is truly South African. But I am the older, American, non-musical, but more aviation oriented one with a very similar name.
