Q - American Bonanza Society

~[[~H[RRFi OF TH[ M~~T~N1S4BWBob BlochNaples. Florida1972 V35BIstarted to fly in 1958 and bought anAeronca Chief to learn the ropes. Iflew it for three years and had a lot offun in it. I sold it in 1962 and did notfly very often for a few years whi le Istarted an alarm company.I owned several aircraft while gettingmy commercial, instrument, singleand multiengine land and sea. Then in1974, I finally found 1548W, a 1972V35B with 400 hours since new andfive seats, perfect for taking four of usgolfing with our clubs and baggage. Iwanted to use it a little for business, butmostly it was for pleasure.My wife liked to fly when we wentanywhere and she took lessons up tosolo. I checked her out in the BB(Beautiful Bird) and she was satisfiedthat she would be able to land it in caseof emergency, a factor that was alsoreassuring to friends who flew with us.We flew to Vancouver, B.C., manytimes where my wife's famil y lived,always stopping out West for sightseeingand stopovers. Our travels havetaken us all over the world and we agreeno other place can match the sceneryand history of our West.We spent six weeks flying aroundAlaska and the Yukon during the time ofthe Cold War. When we were aboUl 40miles from Russia across the BeringSea, we had numerous warnings on thecharts about spurious radio signals onthe ADF and Omni.After all these good times andadventures in our Bonanza, we believeit is still one of the best cross-countryplanes a pilot could want. I wi ll be 80this year and hope to have many moreyears of adventures before the planestarts to "get ahead" of me.In April of 2004, 48W was paintedat Mod-Works in Punta Gorda. They dida terrific job with every detail taken careof perfectly. The plane now has about1,100 hours on its third engine. The firstone broke a crankshaft at 900 hours; thesecond one developed a crack at the topcylinder through bolt on #2 at 910 hou rs.When th at crankshaft broke on thefirst one, we were over South Carolinareturning from a golfing trip at HiltonHead. At 7,500' the engine began toburp and stutter and the rpm started todrop. I hit the boost pump, the throttle,mixture, switched tanks, etc. , and finallyrealized the prop was just windmilling.A solid sheet of oil begancreeping up the wi ndshield !I shut down the engine, called ATCand they vectored me to Dillon, SouthCarolina, maybe 8 or 10 miles away.They kept telling me it was dead ahead,but every time I cocked the plane sidewaysto see out the side window, I lost alittle more al titude. So when I saw whatappeared to be a flat field, I decided toput it in there.I kept the gear up until the lastminute and set the plane down in a driedsoybean field into soya little over a foot