All,

I know there was some recent discussion on which avionics shops to use around the country. This has nothing to do in the least with avionics, rather above and beyond help to fix our airplane.

My wife and I had put together this trip from San Diego to Sedona with a drop in to see Heath (Owner of Performance One Aviation) at Falcon Field (KFFZ).  Despite the fact that it was the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend, and Heath had other pre scheduled events, he graciously eked out some time to meet up with us at the airfield to discuss interior modifications/finishing for our ES.  Performance One had been highly recommended to us by Kim at Lancair and we had some ongoing dialogue over the recent months and now needed to meet.  Given a number of factors, Black Friday worked for us and the weather was cooperating. We decided to pull chocks and were headed East into clear skies.

Side note:  A few months ago we lost the left leg fairing in flight and were considering leaving the fairings and wheel pants off as I like to be able to see the wheels, tires, and brakes during preflights.  But the loss of speed and frankly the better looks with them on finalized the decision to reinstall them and so we hired the job out which was completed the night before Thanksgiving.

During the preflight all looked well on our newly reinstalled leg fairings and wheel pants making the plane look sleek again.  After an uneventful landing and taxi to the Performance One hangar, our post-flight walk around revealed the left leg fairing had delaminated along the back edge and the left wheel pant bolt was backed out leaving it only secured by the machine screws to the internal frame.  My wife's and my heart sank as we thought we were done for the night and our uber-expensive hotel in Sedona was money down the drain.

Heath showed up and instead of immediately talking about our mods he got a bunch of tools including high-speed aluminum tape (with our permission, realizing that the aesthetics aren't optimal, but we were more interested in keeping all of our parts for the remainder of the trip) and fixed us right up!  He even took the time to cut down a bolt and recut the threads to fit into the wheel perfectly.  We finally discussed options for the interior and looked at several planes under construction in his hangar to include two Evolutions.  It was an awesome and amazing site in his hangar.  All said and done it was for sure an hour of his time with no willingness to accept payment for his services, not to mention his being late to get back to his family!

After oohing and aahhing over the PT-6A engines (very familiar to me as a Navy T-34 instructor and King Air pilot since 2003) in the Evolutions it was time to head to Sedona.

Thanks to Heath, he kept the last weekend my wife and got to spend together an awesome experience before I head overseas to a crappy location for the next couple of months as a contract pilot.  We made it into Sedona for a night landing and to our beautiful hotel (L'Auberge, they will pick you up at the FBO, although they don't advertise this service) for a wonderful evening.  The next day we took off to fly around monument crater (just West of the Wilson VOR) and then back to San Diego with a drop into Blythe (BLH, friendly manager, surprisingly nice bathrooms, and cold ice cream).

If you haven't been into Performance One and are considering options for your plane, give Heath and Tammy L'Hoste a call.

Thanks again Heath, for preserving our adventure!

Sincerely,

George & Kristin