Hey, so – remember back in January when I said I was off to Louisville, Kentucky and would explain later? Uh, yeah – never did that, did I? So let me make good on that promise now: tomorrow, at an hour even more insane than the one in the previously referenced post, I’ll be headed back to Kentucky to bring home the newest addition to the family. Her full name is N616JA (pronounced “November Six One Six Juliet Alpha”, or “Six Juliet Alpha” after initial call up), but we’ve already started calling her “Julie Alpha”, or just “Julie” for short.

Yeah, another airplane.

Not an easy decision, as our ever faithful Debonair (N9756Y) has served the family so well for almost a decade now, carrying us up to Oregon and Seattle, out to Wyoming, Colorado and Arizona, not to mention uncountable trips to Tahoe and LA to see the grandparents. But the kids don’t fit in the Deb’s back seat very well any more, and we’ve found ourselves yearning for a bit more legroom and a bit more carrying capacity. We dabbled with the idea of “trading up” two years ago, but got cold feet when the pre-purchase inspection on that candidate came up with some problems. And in the meantime, the faithful Deb has continued to serve us well and without complaint. But early this year, another candidate came up and after some extensive conversations with her owner, a trip out to Louisville to test fly her and a loooong annual/prepurchase inspection process, we have found ourselves the owners of a 1985 A36 Bonanza with turbo-normalization and factory air conditioning. All we have to do now is bring her home. Oh, right, and find new owners for our faithful Deb (funny – I sort of feel like “faithful” is almost the Deb’s first name, we call her that so consistently).

I guess I should also (for new readers) clarify the “we” bit. “We” is actually a rolling partnership of friends who have been sharing the Deb since 1967 under the legal framework of the SRI Flying Club. I don’t think there’s been anyone actually associated with SRI in the club in the past decade, but the entity continues and, well, we have no reason to change it. When she gets to Palo Alto, “Julie” will be tended by the three continuing members: Chris, Rich and myself. Rich and I are the ones heading out tomorrow morning to bring her back. We’re planning to take our time, spending a day or so in Kentucky getting some familiarization instruction, then making the hop to Ada, Oklahoma (never been to Oklahoma!) to get some more instruction from the the folks at Tornado Alley Turbo, who put various bits of magic under her cowl a couple of years back.

Then probably on to Texas (visit the CAF museum?) or Albuquerque (visit friends) and Sedona. Not in a hurry, which is a good thing, as Paducah appears to be in the midst of a weather apocalypse right now. But it’s okay, as we’re not planning to be flying out of there until Weds at the earliest, by which time the forecast is for partly cloudy with rainbows and unicorns.

Anyhow, what this really means is that there’s another roadtrip afoot – stay tuned!