WHO HASN’T DREAMED of an airplane that could fly long distances at speeds in excess of 200 knots in pressurized comfort, take off and land on short grass strips, and have twin-engined redundancy without the challenges of asymmetric thrust if an engine failed?

"Dream on," I thought, until I had the opportunity to join Doug Schuman in his Riley Super Skyrocket, a highly modified pressurized Skymaster offered by SuperSkyrocket, LLC, of Carlsbad, California, on a trip along the length of the U.S. East Coast.

On a hot summer afternoon, we departed Naples, Florida, for the Northeast with a pile of household baggage and a full fuel load of 150 gallons that put the big push-pull twin right up to its gross weight of 4,700 pounds. We leapt off the runway in about 1000 feet, ascended in cruise climb at less than half the airplane’s maximum climb rate of 2500 fpm and in 20 minutes, we were level at 19,000 feet, truing out at 215 knots and relaxing at a cabin altitude of 9000 feet. Upon arrival at Chester, Connecticut, the day’s final destination, Schuman would shoehorn the big airplane onto the 2400-foot runway as easily as if it were the proverbial Supercub.

Schuman needs an airplane with such a wide performance range to meet his demanding travel needs. He splits his time between his Connecticut and Florida homes and also goes up to Maine, where his Connecticut-based business (which makes electronic controls for mechanical machinery) has a production facility next to a 2500-foot grass strip.

One intriguing option was the Riley Skyrocket, the pressurized Skymaster modified into the airplane it should have been when Cessna was making it. Schuman was also drawn (in addition to its performance) to the airplane because of the safety benefit of the push-pull configuration. "You either love the concept, or hate it," he says. "There seems to be no middle ground. As an engineer, I like elegant solutions to design problems. The simplicity of using centerline thrust to eliminate handling problems in case of an engine failure really appealed to me."

At the heart of the Skyrocket modification is a Riley intercooler that greatly improves the original pressurized Skymaster’s takeoff, climb and cruise performance by pumping cooler air from the turbochargers into the 225-horsepower Continental TSIO-360 engines. STOL modifications to the wing, spoilers, a comprehensive avionics package, turbine-style engine gauges, air conditioning and a total airframe refurbishment, including new paint and custom interior round up the typical Skyrocket package.

But Riley had something even sexier in the works when Schuman get in touch: the Super Skyrocket. It was a similar package to the Skyrocket, but with three-blade propellers, two turbocharged 310-horsepower Continental TSIO 520s and larger intercoolers to go with the bigger engines. It would add a whopping 170 horses to the total horsepower and forever lay to rest any quips about lackluster Skymaster performance.

The Super Skyrocket promised everything Schuman was looking for. With factory-remanufactured engines, brand-new accessories and avionics, and a complete airframe refurbishment, it would cost about as much as a new top-of-the-line unpressurized piston single or light twin.

The problem was that it wasn’t yet available. But FAA approval of the STC was just around the corner, so Schuman made a deal. He would buy a Riley Skyrocket and as soon as the STC was approved, he would trade it in for the first Super Skyrocket.

In early 1993, he took delivery of a freshly completed Skyrocket that had started life as a 1975 pressurized Skymaster, and expected to own it for no more than 60 days. Then came a major setback. First, the STC ran into delays and next, for a variety of reasons unrelated to the soundness and quality of the modification work, Riley went out of business.

Schuman resigned himself to foregoing the Super Skyrocket, but good ideas have a way of getting a second chance. Four years and 500 flying hours after taking delivery of his Skyrocket, he got a call from a company called SuperSkyrocket, LLC, from Carlsbad, California. The new firm had acquired Riley’s STCs for the Skymaster and was making Skyrockets again. It also had in hand approved STC for the Super Skyrocket. Would Schuman be interested in upgrading his current airplane? He was, and after checking out the new operation and finding out that ex-Riley craftsmen were involved in doing the work, he decided to proceed.

The conversion was done in six months. This sounds like a long time (and was longer than the original estimate) but is not surprising, given the magnitude of the job and the fact that Schuman’s airplane was the guinea pig of SuperSkyrocket. Installing the larger engines isn’t a simple matter of bolting them on and rerouting a few cables and hoses. A tremendous amount of engine compartment modification is also required, including extensive sheet metal work and new engine mounts. Schuman also took the opportunity to have the exterior painted and the interior redone again. It had been a long time coming, but in July 1997, Schuman finally had his Super Skyrocket.

When you first see it, you think you are looking at a factory-new airplane. In fact, no stock Skymaster even looked as good when it rolled off the Cessna assembly line. The light-gray custom leather interior is first-class, reminiscent of a top-of-the-line luxury car, including the scent. The split clamshell door is slick and cavernous and is adorned with a Riley door seal superior to the original.

The interior space, however, is rather cramped for an airplane billed as a five-seater. Because of the positioning of the rear engine, the cabin is not cabin width but length. The baggage space aft of the fifth seat is tiny. It became the object of such a common gripe about Cessna devised an ugly but effective optional external belly-mounted baggage pod for the line.

A simpler and more elegant way to handle the space problem is to admit that the Skymaster is really a roomy four-seat airplane, rather than a cramped five-seater. This is especially true of the Super Skyrocket because the extra weight of the modifications has eroded the useful load to 1,296 pounds, down from 1,533 pounds on the last stock pressurized Skymasters. If you want to fill the tanks to their 150-galon capacity for maximum range, you are left with 396 pounds to put in the cabin (and a mad temptation to lie about your girth on the weight-and-balance sheet). With a slightly lower fuel load, however, it is a solid four-passenger airplane.

A peek under the jam-packed rear cowling confirms that the pusher engine is still a bear to work on, although both Schuman and his maintenance technician say that due to the different location of some accessories on the new engine, some routine maintenance tasks have become easier.

The Super Skyrocket is fired up like any other fuel-injected twin with one exception: You always start the rear engine first for foolproof confirmation that it is working properly. The only other rare item to remember on the pre-takeoff checks is to set the pressurization system.

Another indication of climb performance is a comparison to the airplane's performance when it was a Skyrocket. "Back then, it could hold 1000 fpm to around 10,000 feet. Now it will hold it all the way up to its 20,000-foot certified ceiling," says Schuman.

A standard item of the conversion package is the two-axis S-Tech 65 autopilot/flight director with altitude preselect, coupled to the Silver Crown nav radios and the KLN 90B GPS. This capable flight management package reduces the single-pilot IFR workload to a reasonable level, even at peak traffic times in the Northeast corridor. An optional Stormscope^® rounds out Schuman's avionics package. So far into the flight, he had been using it in checklist mode, but later in the afternoon, he would also make good use of its primary purpose.

Level at FL190, there was little to do but monitor our progress toward our enroute fuel stop in North Carolina, par Cosette, Schuman's fluffy little white Bichon Frise, on the head as she snoozed out at our feet and enjoy the CAVU view. One strong suit of the airplane is excellent visibility from the front seats. You sit well ahead of the high wing and with the exception of a slight obstruction as you look aft and up, the whole world is at your feet.. Cockpit visibility was a key factor in convincing the USAF to select the unpressurized version of the Skymaster as a forward air controller aircraft for the Vietnam war.

With the power set to 31.5 inches and 2230 rpm, the TAS edged up to 220 knots in normal cruise. "That is an improvement of between 20 and 25 knots over the previous engines," said Schuman.

Monitoring the engine temperatures in cruise is worth extra attention in the Super Skyrocket, given the aft engine's tendency to run a little hotter than the one up in front, in spite of the big overhead air scoop's best efforts. Schuman tracks engine parameters on the optional JPI engine monitoring system. It takes an extra 2 ghp fuel flow and an occasional touch of cowl flaps to keep the rear engine on a par with the one up in front. SuperSkyrocket says the problem is the location of the oil cooler. It is too close to the hottest (number-six) cylinder. The opening in the baffling that is required to route air to the oil cooler slightly decreases the air flow over the cylinder. The company is working on a fix.

During a lull in the radio traffic, I asked Schuman how he felt about centerline thrust, now that he is pushing over 700 hours in the airplane. Very good, as it turns out, because he has had the opportunity to sample its benign single-engine characteristics firsthand when the rear engine failed - twice.

The first time was in Skyrocket configuration over Atlantic City in the winter, above a solid undercast. Shortly after the engine failed, the airplane also developed a cabin leak. The only way was down, into the muck. Schuman describes the approach as "wild," with nasty windshear and a 35-knot headwind, fortunately, right down the runway. "In a conventional twin, it could have been marginal," he says. The problem turned out to be an intake hose that worked its way loose and disconnected.

Handling the second failure was a nonevent in good weather, but the incident proved to be more annoying in a way, because the engine did, indeed, fail and had to be replaced. This was after the Super Skymaster conversion, with barely 120 hours on the engine. A fialed seal had allowed oil into a magneto. The oil carbonized, causing a short. The resultant pre-ignition poke a hole in a cylinder. Suffice it to say that Schuman is all for centerline thrust.

Following a quick trunaround by the nice folks at Duplin County, we were soon climbing again into blossoming shades of gray. Cosette must have sensed something was up, perhaps from the tone of our conversation as we watched the Stormscope, which neatly displayed a mass of electrical discharges along a 100-nm line to the west, but nothing ahead.

At 14,000 feet, ascending in climb cruise, we entered a solid overcast with the tops reported at 17,000 feet. Traces of ice soon began to form, first at the bottom of the windshield and then along the wing's leading edge and the struts. Schuman's airplane has propeller de-icing but no de-icing boots (it was an option on Skymasters), so we watched the buildup and the airspeed indicator with extra care.

We broke out on the top at FL180, well before the deterioration in the climb rate and airspeed would have dictated a descent back into the warm air close below us. We were in the clouds for only about five minutes, but as I peered at the half-inch thick layer of ice along the wings, I was reminded of how little it takes to turn an airframe into a lethal ice sculpture. Boots would get my vote in any purchase of a Super Skyrocket.

"Let's hope sublimation works," Schuman said, as we leveled out at FL190 and calculated that the load of ice was lopping off 25 knots from cruise speed. It does work, but oh, so slowly: It took well over an hour for the last traces of ice to disappear. The good news was that for the moment, it was CAVU on top. Cosette curled up on the floor and went back to sleep.

We heard about the next hurdle on the radio before we saw it. The daily late afternoon armada of airliners was converging on New York City and everyone of them was asking for a deviation to keep the ride smooth. The weather picture was much the same as earlier over North Carolina. A line of thunderstorms extended westward but again, it looked as if we could do an end run around them, with a slight detour to the east.

Watching the Stormscope, Schuman asked for a got a deviation around a patch of boiling blackness in our path; we droned into the more benign murk to the seats well before the first jolts of moderate turbulence hit us but in minutes, we were through. A fantastic pastel palette of oranges, blues, grays and brilliant white gave way to sunshine over Long Island Sound. It was clear sailing all the way to Hanscom Field, near Boston, where Schuman dropped me off before hopping back down to Connecticut. The total flight time from Naples was 6+22, headwinds and icing included. Schuman routinely sees 5+30 between Florida and Connecticut, plus a 30-minute fuel stop. Door to door that beats the airlines.