Saturday May 8 2010.   Mission: Key West For The Day   Planning:  We will cross an ADIZ (air defense Identification Zone) on each leg of the trip.  This forces the need to file a DVFR (defense vfr) flight plan.  I had the flight all planned on Golden Eagle the evening before the flight and hit "send".  The response was "unable - call flight service".  Turns out that DVFR plans all have to be manual now, I guess it's one step forward and two back when Homeland Security gets involved.  So I call FSS and talk to a briefer, nice enough guy but when I said DVFR he needed to talk to his supervisor.  Then we went through the standard VFR stuff until the remark column.  He needed the position where I will cross the ADIZ inbound to the US, the Time in Z, the aircraft Speed, and then he went looking for a transponder number.  He got me 1202 assigned.  Pretty cool, I got a code the evening before the flight.  The remarks box turns out to look like: “1202 140K EYW359014 1352.  Note: Plane is designed to float and two yellow life jackets.”  If I decode the above: Speed (I always plan for 150K and subtract 10 for headwinds=140), then the waypoint which is Key west 359 degree radial at 14 miles, then 13:52Z.  You want to tell them that the plane floats because they search 24 hours if you have life jackets but 1 week if you got a raft or the plane floats.  I filed a DVFR flight plan for each way.   The safety plan: Two inflatable life jackets.  SPOT locator.  Flight to Naples FL then straight south to Key West, only 90 miles over water!   The Flight:  We got the plane out and topped off the fuel, put our life jackets on and boarded the aircraft.  The inflight movie today was …. oops, never mind.  Engine start was beautiful and we taxied off to where we call ground control.  Told them we were going to KSPG cause if you tell them the truth then they hand you off to Tampa Departure and run you off in a crazy direction, trust me lying is better.  At the runway and ready to go we dialed up the local FSS, no answer, second FSS freq, third.  These guys are based like 1 mile from where I’m sitting and they won’t answer.  Now what?  I decide to ask the tower to open my flight plan to Key West.  They are real nice about it and do it for me.  Then a 737 takes off on MY runway!  Can’t use that anymore so I ask for RWY4, again the nice tower guy lets me taxi to 4 and take off.  The sky is a bit cruddy at 8:30am local and we are off into the haze and skud.  The tower calls me and says the flight plan is open, contact Whitted on 127.4 and have a nice flight.  I like that guy.  Calling Whitted I ask for a transition SE bound at 1000’ and we buzz through their airspace.  On the other side of Tampa bay we start our climb to 7500’.  We stay just out of Sarasota class B and turn on some soft rock.  You can talk to controllers or enjoy yourself.  The little Zaon traffic detector was dead quite the whole trip.  It was 60F outside and was 72F inside (too cold).  As we came up on Naples FL we turned directly south over the Gulf of Mexico.  Shortly after, there was no land in sight, 90 miles to Key West still to go.  30 Miles north I call Key West Navy Approach.  They respond ok… not much else.  As I get 10 miles out I’m wondering what Approach is doing for me but then they call me as traffic to another airplane.  At 7 out they tell me to call the tower.  I ask to pass over the top and turn up the beach and around the city.  They are cool with that.  The tower radio procedures are pretty laid back from what I’m used to.  My passenger has his camera out and clicking a bunch.  We finished the tour and I called inbound landing and got cleared for RWY 9.    Land Ho! Landed a bit long but with 5000 feet no worries, a squeaker.  I think it’s best to land long incase the engine quits and your short.  Better to land on the runway.  We taxied to the ramp and it was packed.  There was a Q sized gap between two other planes so I shut down there.  Ramp guy Eric met us and said that was a great place to tie down.  Helped me back the plane in with about 6” on either side, nice guy.  Closed the flight plan with 1:21 flight time but add 10 min for the tour, and called for a cab into town.  On the ground in Key West at 10AM.  We made 158K over the ground or 181mph.  The drive to Key West is 8-10 hours, of stop and go misery.  We spent the next hours touring around.  Had a nice lunch by the marina.  No cruise ship was in town so it was not crowded, nice.    Our plan was to get back home by 6 or 7 pm so we headed back to the airport.  I went up to the second floor building next to the FBO to check the weather and caught another pilot that had just flown in from Naples.  They said the weather was fine.  The Radar showed nothing on my planned route so that’s good enough for me.  Checked the plane over, added a touch of oil and fired her up for the ride home.  Over the water at 6500 we call MIA FSS and get no answer… no luck.  Then we try 122.2 and yes, they answer!  So we got our flight plan open.  We contemplate the fact that we’re in this little fiberglass box that drones along in the air.  Land Ho, Marco Island! About 30 miles south of Sarasota we kill the MP3’s and tune in Tampa Approach.  Now here’s the deal.  If they say “too busy” then we are stuck flying the last 30 miles over Tampa Bay at 1000’, and it’s hot and humid.  If we’re lucky they let us stay at 3500 until on final, nice!  So I call the nice controller lady and yes, she likes the tone of my voice and sees me as the very professional radio voice that I am and accepts me into her Class B world.  She was really a great controller, but calling out 737’s that are 4 miles away isn’t all that critical to me.  As we were buzzing along my buddy sees the clouds ahead and asks what I’m going to do.  Naturally I’m going to fly right up to them and look around.  As we get closer we find that they are individual clouds and we can fly around them with some maneuvering.  All the more fun.  We crossed Tampa Bay and the controller told me to turn direct to PIE.  Glad the GPS was working cause there were too many clouds to see the airport.  Look, a hole!  Down I go pulling into final for RWY 35R.  Our ground speed is really slow, and I’m crabbing left a lot to maintain runway heading.  A significant left crosswind and I touch the left wheel down first.  Not too bad a landing.  We taxi back to the hangar and give praise to the Lord that we lived to fly another day!   Now the dangerous part, the drive home.