Florida in 6.3 hours!

Welcome back to March snowstorm land.

I must admit that we watched with glee as Minnesota and Northern Iowa were
crushed by a late-winter snow storm. I'm now convinced that Florida TV
stations make their living by showing endless footage of northerners
suffering in the cold, as this seemed to make up the lion's share of the
news while we were there.

Is there a different power setting technique you could use when forced to
drink that stuff? Would it matter? If it's worked in the past, what do you
think was different this time?

Yeah, with our engine you have to lean severely on the ground to make 100 LL
work, which we *thought* we were doing. Unfortunately we were trying to
depart on Friday while President Bush was in Orlando, which meant that in
Titusville (where we spent most of the week) we were 2 miles inside the
30-mile TFR. Thus, in order to depart we had to be under a VFR flight
plan, which somehow got "lost" in the system, which meant a long period of
"idling" while we waited for them to sort out the mess.

After 15 minutes running at the departure end of the runway, we were finally
assigned a squawk code, and cleared to depart. At about 500 feet the engine
started running roughly, and my JPI monitor showed #2 cylinder off the
bottom of the scale. I announced that I had to return to land, at which
point the controller asked if I wanted to declare an emergency. I told him
no, that I just needed to land because of a rough engine, and he cleared me
to land on any runway.

The landing was uneventful, but I couldn't get the engine to run right, no
matter how lean we ran it up. Eventually I found an A&P at the helicopter
place on the field (the largest helicopter school in the world, BTW. I've
never seen so many choppers in one place!) to help me, and he lent me the
tools to pull the plugs. Little BB's of lead fell out of a couple of them
as I pulled them, and after cleaning they all tested okay.

We re-installed them, and all was well the rest of the flight home -- but it
was certainly unnerving, not knowing if it would happen again.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"