GodClucker & Plano Jimbob & Poultryarch

Continuing the theme of loving on the Beech line, I picked up Otis from the Eastern side of the midwest in July 2021. Otis is a well cared for 1968 Bonanza 36. Not an A36, that designation was used later on, like the next year!

The 1968 36 Bonanza is more like a C33 Debonair, but with a stretched cabin and bigger IO-520 engine. The wings are the same where the A36 wings are longer. The keen feature of the ’36’ is that is lighter with the same GW of the A36. This means wonderful useful load.

The one limiting factor of the shorter Bonanza is a rather nasty tendency to aft CG when loaded. This is exacerbated when you burn the fuel down as it is mostly weight up front. Thus was the only challenge with my Debonair.

Otis came with a modern GPS and ADS-B compliance, but otherwise stream gauges and no autopilot! I’ve since put in a pair of G5’s and a GFC-500 to fix that. No Otis is a super traveling machine.

I’m about to add some BAS shoulder harnesses, but it is otherwise updated as far as it needs to go.

Well, there is the matter of a 2100 hour engine, but I’m waiting to get signals that it needs attention. It has been flown regularly and that means there’s a chance that the engine has a few more reliable hours yet!