Home Base
The trips we share with you are mostly starting from Boulder Colorado. The airport of Boulder, first 1V5 and then KBDU was the base of our aircraft, stowed in one of the many hangars.
Our Aircraft
To us it was a very special aircraft, cut out for our adventures. Here are some of the corner qualities:
Registration: as Cessna CT210N Centurion, registered in 1987 with the call sign N85S
The insurance considered our Centurion a High Performance aircraft and therefore required the pilots to have an Instrument Flight Rule (IFR) License. Which was OK with us as it made flying in difficult weather and above 18'000 ft (5500m) possible.
Originally Ueli bought the aircraft and registered it under his company Helvetic Flyer Inc. Later he learned that as a Swiss citizen he is not allowed to possess an aircraft in the USA. So he sold the plane for 1 USD to Joan. Upon which the town of Boulder let him know that they refrain from requesting a sales tax.
The engine is a Continental TSIO 520R9B, rated at 310 HP, driving a 3 blade Hartzell propeller with Q tips for noise reduction.
The engine was equipped with an exhaust driven turbocharger and intercooler giving flight performance up to 27'000 ft (8200m).
Cruising speed was about between 120 to 160 kts, since the aircraft had retractable gear.
Maximum take off weight was 4000 lb (1800kg) with 1600 lb (720 kg) useful load capacity
The fuel capacity was 90 USG in the wings and a additional belly tank with 28 USG
The flight range with about 16 G/H was not the limiting factor in planning the legs. Later on we installed a GAMI Fuel Injector which allowed us to fly Lean of Peak reducing the fuel consumption. To plan a trip we decided either to fly high in the cooler air and using the Jet Stream or low and slow, where we could enjoy more of the scenery. The determining length of a leg was the time between Pit-Stops where we could stretch our legs and to get to know the airport and the bathroom. Some airports occasionally have quite a good restaurant to make the pilots flock in.
As to the use of our Centurion, we consider it a good 4 seater with possibility of some luggage or as we used it mostly a 2 seater with ample capacity for luggage.
Under the right wing was a weather radar installed, which we used rarely as in the meantime the WX weather service provided excellent situation presentation.
One feature that we enjoyed was it's high wings which let us easily clear obstacles at the side of the taxiway and in winter the snow banks.
