Whew! We flew the Bonanza from KSFM to KHYS (3 legs) and visited the RANS factory. It was nice to see the raw materials and how they get turned into airplane parts. Kept checking names on the crates ready for shipping but none were for us yet! The S21 is clearly an extremely popular model and straining production capacity, although there were definitely some S7 and S20 builds going on also.

The highlight of course was the demo flights Rob and I got. Loved the airplane. 🙂

Handling and visibility (in flight) are great. Taxi visibility not so great, but that’s okay. Takeoff was uneventful, and even though the takeoff roll was probably only 400ft, it felt a tiny bit long to me, having gotten used to cooler sea level takeoffs in my Scout. The climbout was disorienting because I was half paying attention to the airplane and half looking around at Hays thinking about how much it’s changed. The glass panel also reminded me that I’m definitely a steam-gauge girl…

My first clearing turn really highlighted just how great the visibility was. I could see up, down, sideways — the whole sky. And the turn itself felt crisp and sharp.

My power off stall turned into a ‘falling leaf’ exercise. Very benign and stable, but Randy suggested I stop using the rudders so much. Seemed like an odd suggestion, but trying it out showed me that it was quite stable even without any help. I was probably overcontrolling based on muscle memory! Stall speeds were around 50mph or so flaps up and 40 with flaps. A few more maneuvers and I was not even aware I was flying a ‘new’ airplane. The landing at KHYS was straightforward but I couldn’t try short-field (or grass), having to land long to avoid wake turbulence.

Coming back to Randy’s strip, he took over the landing due to the sidestep maneuvering on final. Looked perfectly doable but I can understand why he wouldn’t want to let some unknown person try it. It was almost more fun watching Rob take off with Randy after my turn, since I got to do the photo-op thing. What a gorgeous airplane!