Where there's smoke......

12.6 hours.
Today was maximum fun! This morning's flight was to be landing practice at Venice and stalls. The landings at Venice were fun, but sloppy. One day I'll learn to flare on time, and the proper amount. The trick is to keep your speed up so you have something to flare with. Even though the aircraft doesn't officially stall until around 45 MPH (NO not knots, MPH) when it's clean (no flaps) and heavy, 60 is a good flying speed and it bleeds off rapidly when flared. So we did several touch-and-go's. It's really, really fun, you make the approach, touchdown add power fly up around 20 feet, land again, add power, land the third time and then power out. All in around 5000 feet!
After beating the airplane on the ground for a while, the pattern at VNC got full and crazy, so we went northwest to do the stall series. Stalls are a real non-issue in the Remos G3. Power off, it gives a couple of shudders and begins a descent. Recovery is just add power and fly! Power on stalls are more dramatic, only because you'd have to be really distracted to allow the nose to get that high and stay there! At about 40 degrees up the airplane slows down, buffets and descends. Lower the nose and fly it out with very little altitude loss after stall recognition. No blaring horns and flashing "DEATH" lights either!
After the two stalls, we're messing around and working the GPS for the return to SRQ and the cockpit is flooded with a horrible acrid, burning smell. Sherman thinks it's a wood fire below, but we see no smoke on the ground. We check the operation of everything in the panel, feel the circuit breakers and eyeball the engine management system. Everything seems normal, so we report in and get vectored south of Sarasota to setup an upwind for Rwy 22.
I really did a credible job of landing that time and we taxied it in.
I asked Sherman and we pulled the upper nose cowling off. I looked around the left side and found that the exhaust stack (tailpipe) was not there! The smell was the fiberglass and drain tubes cooking in the hot exhaust gases at low speed during the stall series.
Reported the problem to Jim and we grabbed tools to go out and "borrow" the exhaust from the GX. Just like any muffler, heat and cold make the clamps seize up. A little added torque with vise-grips and we got the good one on. Fixed a clamp on the heater muff, a loose ground strap and a couple of chafed spring safeties. It felt really good to get my hands dirty on an airplane again.
The Remos went out with a tall businessman from DC named Marc who jumped right in on the exhaust tube change. Micky came by and we sat out front on the bench and watched the airplanes fly. Then took video of Marc coming back from his intro flight. He seemed really down, but Sherman talked him in. Marc used to fly 25 years ago, but stopped. Guess what? He has a problem with pilot-induced-oscillations! Just like I had earlier this week. Just a process of muscle memory and "feel".
The wind came up in the afternoon. I checked the WX and even though the wind was high it came right down the runway and was well within cross and headwind limits and, more importantly, under my personal limits. So now I know that 12 knots on the nose is just a shorter roll and be careful taxiing.
Speaking of taxi, I had my first encounter with tower halitosis. The dude running the ground control station was pissy as hell! I made a mistake on a readback and he was down my throat, then we're holding short of 14, as instructed, and found a "radio shadow". He tried to call us to cross the runway and all we got was static bursts. When I finally heard "Echo" I moved forward about three feet and the radio cleared. He was even more asinine and suggested we taxi back to Dolphin and get the radio fixed. Screw him! At certain geometries between the tower's antenna and any aircraft's bottom-mounted comm antenna, there's interruptions in the line-of-sight caused by landing gear, his tower antenna position, etc. Not a real radio problem.
So.... we discuss his lineage and my lack of responsibility for the stomach lining of a civil servant and taxi on down taxiway "Delta".
At the end of runways, there's a run-up area to allow us piston pukes to check the engine's magnetoes or ignition systems for proper operation. A pretty, blue Grumman Cheetah was sitting in this one doing his runs, so I taxied off to the left of the taxiway and did my little engine thing. Next thing I hear is "BAD MIKE", the tower fruit telling me not to block "Delta". Once again, screw the guvmint creep! We finished our runs and announced to our satisfaction that we were "Number two in sequence for takeoff on 22".
Of course he got his licks in and let us sit there with the cylinder head temperatures climbing while a Robinson R-22 helo did two landings, the Cheetah got out, and then a couple of guys landed on 14. But eventually, he let us use his little runway and we farted as we left!
Nice climbout, we made safe altitude before we crossed the center and I had just announced to Sherman my intention to extend a bit on runway heading until over the ICW, when the tower cleared us to 180. No problem! A left 40 degrees and a beautiful view of the beaches. Then cleared to our own navigation and away we went watching the parasails off the beach from 1600 feet. The ICW was full of boats and the people were all over the beach!
South to Venice! Another crazy pattern day! Got four approaches and squeezed seven touchdowns (intentional) out of it. Then departed south and went to Charlotte county which if course is Punta Gorda! Did a low approach to the favored runway 27, even though most traffic was using their 22 (it's longer and doesn't have grass in the cracks). We left there listening to an MD-80 do a really pro job of reporting his position every mile inbound for PGD 22 and giving all the small guys plenty of time to get outta his way.
North bound for the 45 miles or so back to home base, I enjoyed the view and we talked about checkrides, standards, and where I'd put it if the engine quit (or maybe caught on fire?). My answer is anywhere except the swamps. It will hurt, smell bad, and the airplane would be tough to recover. I understand now why Interstate Highways are aluminum magnets! For a guy like me, it's considerate of the gummint to have built thousands of mile of usable runway! And I will use them!
Just go with the flow, match speed and drop into a gap, take the next exit!
PS- I greased the landing at SRQ!