Whew!

What a busy couple of days!

Yesterday, after I dropped Kaylee off at preschool, Chuck, Greg A., Nathan and myself flew to Metropolis, Illinois. If Metropolis sounds familiar to you, it's because it is the home of Superman, of course! We were going there to take Greg to look at and possibly buy a PJ (pretty, isn't it!). It was going to be a fly there, eat lunch, do paperwork or not, come home kind of day, but the plane, Murphy's Law and possibly God himself had other plans. :)

I won't recap the day, but suffice it to say I got home at 10 p.m. that night, sunburned, and a firm believer in listening to the PJ and not trying to force it to leave any more that day! The exploding tire was probably the last straw for most everybody, I think. But throughout the day, the guys got a LOT done to fix what needed fixed both paperwork and mechanically. They worked hard, with only a brief break or two.

When we first got there, the airport has a large Superman right there, so of course we all had to go on a flight. I'll spare the boys and just put mine. ;)

We hit lunch at a nice place in town, toured around town in a car and saw the 15' tall bronze statue of Superman too, then headed back out to the airport for round two. Found the world's dirtiest bathroom, which helped my bathroom phobia out a lot. Made more progress on the plane, got stopped by a few more obstacles, and finally dragged our tired bums home. The world of aviation is full of days like these. :)

Then I went home, tried to crash early, and couldn't sleep to save my life. I saw every hour go by on the clock. I fell asleep when Kaylee came into my room and snuggled in bed with me-at 7 a.m. At 7:30 a.m. my alarm went off. I didn't get out of bed until 8:15, about when I should have been leaving, but I was shaky, nauseated, and felt about two notches behind the rest of the world. So this morning I finally got up, dropped Kaylee off at preschool, then headed out to the airport. Nate, Chuck and myself hopped in the Cheyenne to take it to Muncie to leave it there and pick up the Aerostar. Well, Nate had me do the taxi and take off, fly it and land it, the first time I've touched it other than in the air briefly. Now let me mention here that the Cheyenne is a lot of airplane. Did I mention I was exhausted and running on about 30 minutes sleep? I was NOT firing on all cylinders today. But that was too exciting not to at least try to pay attention. :) My takeoff was a bit wobbly, the flying part was easy, the landing was...that's fast, man. You feel like you are a bullet aimed at the runway. LOL But with some fast talking and a bit of help, we made it down fairly smoothly. Then came the taxiing. Taxiing the airplane was harder than flying it! I have only ever had nose steering airplanes, and this doesn't, and you don't even use typical asymetric thrust, you do the opposite. If that sounds confusing, yeah, well, join the club. ;) So I looked rather wobbly on the ground and way overshot the runway on my turns, but all in all I was okay with it. A bit of practice and I could have that down.

But next we picked up the Aerostar, and he had me fly that to Huntington. Now I had assumed that the Aerostar would be the easy one. It's not a ton bigger than the Baron, while the Cheyenne is a monster in comparison. I was WRONG. My first take-off was horrid. Now take offs are not usually that hard, but this one was. Again, flying it was fine. And the landing, well, I almost don't want to talk about the landing. Nate had to rescue it and I pronged it on. I was so embarassed-and annoyed at myself. I haven't had to have a landing rescued in so long I don't remember when it was! I have never taken off or landed a weirder-feeling airplane. You can't just pull to lift off, you have to yank and shove stuff. You have to yank the yoke back to take off and I mean YANK. If you pulled like that on any other airplane I'd been in, you'd be in some serious trouble. The gear handle you have to YANK to get it up or down all the way. The flaps you have to manhandle. It's the most different thing I've flown to date and while I know probably one more round and I'd at least get it decently, I did not fare well today! I was kind of bummed by that, but the landing bothered me the most. I think if I'd known what to look for on the take-offs, I'd have done much better on those, but that landing, I have no excuses for that one. It was just bad.

At Huntington we went to lunch at Ponderosa with some guys up there Nate knew, and when we got back to the airport, one of them whom Nate had been picking on said "Hey Nate, did you land a bit hard on the left main there, it looks like it's sagging." My heart just dropped and my neck about got whiplash looking. The guy was kidding, the ramp was crooked. I said "That's not funny, man." He said "Why, were you the one who landed?" I said "Yes. Not very well, but yes!" He came up to me and said quietly "It doesn't land very well, does it!" Which made me feel much better by the way. :) After my botched Take off AND landing, I took off out of Huntington determined to do a better one. Didn't. So I asked if Nate minded if we did one more round. He flew for awhile and landed, then I took it back off. Still didn't have it right, but better at least-because he helped. Showed me about where it needed to be. I think I should have asked for a demo before my first one, because I'd never have guessed that position! Pulled my gear up, went to call crosswind on the radio, when Nate said "nope" and reached over and Yanked the gear the REST of the way up. I hadn't pulled hard enough. Well that just honked me off, because I'm an instructor for crying out loud, I know to check that the gear is up, it's basic. I had my finger on the radio to call my position, but instead I said "Awwww, crud!" Which I transmitted over the airwaves. There were three other planes in the pattern, so I'm sure they all got a chuckle out of that one. Another stupid tired beginner mistake, to hit the button and talk without remembering you hit the button. And my take-off flaps were still hanging down so we just left them at this point. After I did that, I just started laughing, because what could go wrong had, and that was just my last straw and by now I was just laughing and hoping I could redo or forgot this day altogether. What an introduction to these planes. I just hope I get to give that another try after I've actually slept and am not running on a dim-watt bulb. When I am forgetting to check my gear up, forgetting to pull off my flaps, forgetting I'm talking with my radio transmitting, and needing landings rescued, it was time to hang it up! At least my last landing was almost okay. Taxiing this one also left me looking wobbly on the ground. So I felt half pumped-up from the experience and half like an idiot flying like that in front of two guys whose respect I would like to at least pretend to keep. :) Chuck said it was nice to see his instructor back in a student role. *I* didn't think so! Let's just say it was fun too, but it really was not very impressive on my part! And honestly, even if I wasn't exhausted, I'm not sure how much better of a job I'd have done on some of it-the taxiing, the takeoff in the Aerostar, the overshooting the pattern. I am simply not used to that size of aircraft yet. But if I get a chance, it shouldn't take me long to get there. I hope!!!!!

Then tonight Steve, Kaylee, Myself, and some airport guys went to an Air Force band concert. It was really nice, actually, and Kaylee sat for 3 hours and was VERY good. At one point she was even dancing to "Grease" songs the band did. Which was cute, of course!

Now it's almost midnight, and I've gone for so long without sleep that I'm almost too wired to do it. I'm afraid if I lie down again, I'll end up with my mind in that "loop" again that kept me up all night last night...I can't do another day on no sleep! Here are crossed fingers...