De-twitch Central

This morning I tried to get Kaylee moving, but she is on summer vacation, capital "V", and she was not going to be moved along. :) It was almost 10 a.m. before she decided she was ready, and then she decided she didn't want to go with me to run errands and go to the airport after all. I told her I'd probably be gone until 3 pm or so, but she wanted to stay with her grandparents. Lucky for her, they were free! She found out last night that her Moon Sand can in fact go in the water, so she wanted to show them that little trick among others.

By the time I got my errands run and got out to Kokomo, it was 11:15 or so. I dropped off something up front, then headed back to Nathan's hangar, and I thought--while I'm here, I'll take up the Citabria. I didn't realize or remember it had been moved back to Glenndale, though I should have known. No go, and it was a beautiful morning, too. Lunch was at Applebees with Steve, Chuck, Ty, Steve C., me and Nathan, after which I went back to Kokomo with Nathan while the others broke for their respective flights/activities for the day.

After he got some springs fixed on a golf cart, Nathan pulled out the T-6, which kind of woke me up from a little dainty post-lunch-doze on the comfy chair out there, and we went to Muncie. I flew from the back this time. It was still quite the bugger to start/keep running. Anyway, I taxiied out to the runway, and since there isn't a working push-to-talk switch in the back seat, he had to make all the radio calls. I said that worked for me, because if I goofed any of these up, it would look like he did it since he's up front and doing the talking. ;) The standard approach doesn't work so well for the back seat person, since I lose sight of the entire runway the moment I turn final. Keeping it in tight and more of an oval shape than a rectangular pattern helped. How'd I do? Let's see. One lousy takeoff (eh, it was a fluke), two okay; one level off too high landing (first one from the back today), two okay. More practice necessary on tight turns with the tailwheel unlocked. No perfect ones, but I did end up with one of the best I've done so far at least. They all probably look fine from the ground (except the one takeoff), I just need to smooth them out-fewer jerky rudder actions on roll out and takeoff. Nathan did one to end on, and for grins on takeoff he was goofing around and putting it on one wheel, then the other, lifting off, touching back down, just a terrible "student pilot" kind of takeoff where the person is trying to "kill" you...

There was a hangar door open and a gentleman watching us while he was waiting for me to finish up and go up and do a flight review with him in his airplane. I got out of the T-6 and drove over to his hangar, and he asked if I was flying from the back or if Nathan was. I said I'd been flying from the back until the last one, and he said "It looked good from here, nice wheel landings." I said thank you, and then that takeoff occurred to me, and I said "That last takeoff was not what it looked like! We were just goofing off." He started laughing-he'd seen it. I wonder how many people enjoyed what they may have thought was one of us really hosing a takeoff. Even my bad one out of Muncie wasn't THAT bad. ;)

I went up next with this gentleman in his Cherokee 180, and we flew for about an hour. At the end, I asked if there was anything specific he wanted to do while he had an instructor on board, and he said he'd like to do spins. I can say I haven't had that request from a flight review before, but the plane is certified for spins (as long as it's loaded properly which it was), so we went up and did that, too. Just a couple, out of respect for his gyros. I really do enjoy spins. Come on, what part of this doesn't look fun?? :)



I came home, and Kaylee wanted to invite a friend over, so she's been playing with "N" for the last two hours, mostly with the sprinkler. A little water has a high entertainment value for kids! Throw in a snack and a towel and a playhouse, and they're good for hours. :)