N293AC: "Why Don't You Ever Listen To Me"

THE AIRPLANE FINALLY HAD ENOUGH                               

After being so surprised about how the airplane made no problems I thought I was all but home, and was looking forward to putting the airplane back into a hangar.  Since I’ve owned it I’ve never used it as hard as I did these past few weeks and it was outside the entire time, so I was ready to get it back inside and give it a good bath and some gentle loving care.  I dropped Renae at Goshen and was working my way around some weather in eastern Ohio when she finally told me she had enough.  It’s not that she was trying to tell me for some time, and I should have dug deeper before, but I wasn’t listening as I should have been.  I heard a slight tick (Jolene was even tuned in to the machine enough to recognize it).  I looked into the engine from underneath and from the oil door, but didn’t see anything amiss, and originally thought it was an electrical interference.  Everything was performing so well, but I should have removed the cowling and checked everything out more, because the old bird was trying to tell me something.  As we got closer to home I was convinced it was an exhaust leak but thought it was in the muffler heat shroud, since I was getting a little carbon monoxide indication.  I had a little over 2 hours to get home and thought I will monitor the air quality and opened the window and watched the CO2 detectors.  I stopped for weather and after it cleared out and I saw I could easily make it home I headed out and shortly after takeoff I heard a very loud noise and realized something happened to the exhaust.  I made an immediate return to the airport and after taking off the cowling discovered the exhaust pipes had cracked at the number 2 and 4 cylinders, and were now completely separated.  I knew I wasn’t going anywhere.  It was Saturday evening in Cambridge, OH, a small town, and I couldn’t get a rental car except in Columbus 100 miles the wrong direction.  I was disappointed I could not get it home, but also thankful it didn’t happen before at some of the remote places we were.  It could have happened at a much worse location.  I knew I couldn’t fix it until the following week, so I called Jolene and she came to get me – leaving at home around 8:00PM and getting to Cambridge at 2:00AM.  I had a lounge to hang out (most airports keep something available for pilots with the code of the radio frequency so a pilot would only know) and I had a great lazy-boy to sleep on.  When she got there it was my turn to drive so I drove most of the way back although she also drove for some of the time.  We got home about 8:15AM, took a quick shower and went to church.  We were pretty tired in church, but hey we were back.  We will take long naps this afternoon, you can be sure of that!  ROGER