August 2012 - Switzerland

After ten years, the middle-of-the-night routine has become habitual.
There are two quick raps on my door.
"Mr. President" the Concierge calls out, "Your package has arrived."
This is followed by the sound of an envelope being slid under my door.
This time I am at the Grand Case Beach Club in St. Maarten's.
Sometimes I bolt out of bed and quickly snatch up the envelope containing the details of our latest feature flight.
Sometimes I stagger to the door like some sort of drunkard.
Occassionally I remain contentedly asleep until morning.
Today I really WANT to get up but I physically can't - the bed just feels too good.
Finally I doze off again for an hour or so before finally making my way to the manila envelope and Bill's instructions.
SWITZERLAND. Again ....
I actually don't mind at all, flying to the same area where we have been before - even two or three times. (We were last here in April 2010 on some Military Flights) Usually the challenges are new or the aircraft are new or the sim is new so either way it's like a whole new experience.
Job one was to get to Zurich: I called my contact at Embraer (by now we are on a first-name basis) and arranged to hop onto a delivery flight which was passing through TODAY! We were looking at a long, cross-Atlantic cruise to Cape Verde where we landed with just under 5,000 pounds of fuel remaining.
Next I boarded a scheduled BINTER flight up to Casablanca.
Finally, on Thursday August 2nd, I took a flight up to Zurich.
After some "longer" legs in the E190LR I had had some time to think about my aircraft for this FOTM. We tend to collect the kinds of planes that we like to fly and therefore I don't have a vast array of Business or GA aircraft in my FS hangar. In fact, while it's a good plane and I've used it before (Peter's Rogaine for August 2009 for example), I don't even own a PC-12 currently! Bill had mentioned taking some models into St. Moritz and I thought that flying a Piaggio with Lambourghini registration was the way to go. I can't remember if I have ever flown an "Avanti" for a FOTM before but it is fast and very "Italian."
However, I was not real comfortable with the thought of slamming the Twin Piaggio around through moutain passes or shoe-horning it onto 1,600-foot airstrips. I think I'd rather use a Do-328 or EMB-120 but both of those seemed like overkill for this challenge! (Although, I did take the Do-328 in and out of St. Barts!)
Finally it occurred to me that I owed Bill a good and legal flight. Last year for our June 2011 "Race Around Rio" I flew a Mooney Acclaim-S Turbo and was disqualified from the race on the grounds that the instructions were for non-turbos.(It's the only Mooney I have!) This time Bill is ASKING for something Turbo and it seemed appropriate to bring this plane back and "fly it right". Sure, Bill had mentioned five swimsuit models and I knew that if I used the Acclaim that only three would be able to come along - surely that's enough don't you think?

During my stop-over in Casablanca I went to FLYING Magazine's website and found this review on the Mooney Acclaim Turbo: "It's interesting to note that while the Acclaim competes with new designs in the form of the Cirrus SR22 G3 Turbo and the Cessna 400, the Mooney does almost everything in a very different way from those models. Many writers and owners before me have compared the airplane to a sports car, (Good for this FOTM!) and the comparison is certainly apt. You sit low in an Acclaim, as you do in a Lotus. Rather than 'sitting in' the airplane, it's more like you're 'wearing it.' As I said, the airplane is compact, and while the shoulder room is generous, the overall cabin size is 'cozy,' as is the case for the back seat too. The interior, on the other hand, is elegant, verging on luxurious, with nice leather with contrasting piping. (Also good for this FOTM) It's a nice place to while away the hours as the terrain passes below you at an impressive rate." It seemed perfectly matched to the Swiss Challenges Bill had put up for us.
On Friday I arranged for my aircraft and "cargo" and headed over to St. Moritz with a stop-over-for-lunch in Bad Ragaz (LSZE). After lunch we flew along at 500-1,000 feet AGL, 1500 ft/lbs of torque (about 60%) and 240 knots through the valleys, following the river to St. Moritz.
I stayed in St Moritz through the weekend before continuing on to the following stop-overs:
LSMI - Interlaken on Sunday August 5th:
LSZO - Luzern on Monday August 6th: There was wind, there was rain, there were clouds. I knew I should turn back but Bill really wanted to see if we could do it, "For safety sake, you won’t be carrying any passengers on this flight. I just want to see if you can find this tiny 1600ft long grass runway, land and pull up without overrunning the strip." With full flaps and "hanging on the prop" I was trying to keep my final approach speed at something under 130 knots but with the windshear ... I was fighting back and forth with the wind and the stall horn and finally I got slammed down into the trees just at the edge of the runway.
I hope you are happy.

I guess I won't be seeing these locations this month:
LSZB - Bern
LSMC - Ulrichen
LSPM - Ambri
LSZC - Buochs
LSGG - Geneva
After my recovery I loaded an EMB-190 from Geneva and headed on a two-leg flight to Addis, Ethiopia for our September FOTM