I went WAY above demonstrated crosswind component in that aircraft. BUT, as I said before, I knew the plane intimately
I got lucky with my second inst to check me out in the Mooney (fired the first after the 2nd flight), he insisted I learn to "feel" the stall. Said I would need it one day... and I did. I was cruising along one winter day, way below freezing at 25°F when I hit "rain", aka Super Cooled Drizzle Drops. In 30 seconds, I lost 30 kts airspeed and the plane was "feeling" very stallish. Declared the emergency, actually climbed as I was right at the tops of the clouds, and waited for the ice to sublimate off. Looking back, climbing was probably the wrong decision, but i was literally at the tops. Filed a NASA report for the E, and a couple of years later an icing researcher called me. We chatted for over an hour, and I was shook to my core. Apparently SCDD are one of those events that few pilots ever survive. It happens so fast, and has such a dramatic impact on flight characteristics, that it's virtually unrecoverable. The stall warning never went off during the entire event because the airspeed was so high.
One of my favorite flights, I did a Mercy Med Flight bringing somebody back from Boston into CAD. It was a shared flight, I met another plane roughly 1/2 way. New moon, IFR overcast, but low tops, also a thick cirrus layer too. Approach into CAD was super easy and dropped off the passenger. Climbing out of CAD, the low almost foggish like clouds were glowing orange from the city, I mean really glowing, could almost read it was that bright. Popped out of the tops, literally popped out, into absolute pure darkness. I almost requested an approach back into CAD, just so I could do that again, it was that dramatic. But, it was late, and I was getting a bit tired.
One of the strangest weather phenomenon I saw was Mackinac Island. ASOS was reporting below minimum, I was riding shotgun with a friend that was a new IFR pilot in his Mooney. He looks at me and says what are we going to do, I said shoot the approach. I wish I had a camera to take a picture of the absolute clear path in the fog from the planes landing on the island. The air was that stable, prior planes cleared the fog all the way to the runway. Engler was coming in behind us and I passed along what we were seeing.
I miss flying... a LOT! Miss my plane, as it was an exceptionally fast Mooney C. But, the fastest way to make a small fortune in Aviation, start with a large fortune. There's a long standing club over at KYIP, I've had some conversations with them about joining, but I also loved the freedom (not the expense) of owning my own plane. Not doing anything until the fall.
Here's my plane that was totaled
