While I'm Getting Cooler

These 100 degree plus days, one after the other, are getting to be a drag.  It's nice and cool about 5,000 feet (if 85 degrees can be called "cool"), but it takes between 15 and 20 minutes to get the aircraft started, taxied, checked out, airborne, and climbed to 5,000.  That is a hot 1/4 hour.  So I got myself one of these:

It's a "B-Kool" portable air cooler.  It runs off the airplane power, plugged into the cigarette lighter (the Bonanza uses 12V, just like a car.  24V versions are also available).  You load it with up to 20lbs of ice (2 bags), add a small amount of water, and turn it on.  It will run from 1.5 to 2 hours, and has a wireless remote control, so you can put it in the back, but control it from the front.  Very useful for take off, and then it can be stopped and turned on again for landing.

Check out http://www.b-kool.net/ for more details.

Now perhaps my wife and kids will want to go up and check out the new airplane.......