Air and Sea

Day Two of Kaylee's swim lessons went well. She did more floating face up and face down, dunking, and propelling off the side of the pool wall to get some momentum going. She really enjoyed her time at the pool, and she's always annoyed when the lesson is over for the day. She seems to be making decent progress.

Kaylee got several emails today, thank you! She didn't get home until almost 9 pm tonight, so she'll have to write you back tomorrow after her swim lesson, but she loved getting the mail, it lit up her evening!

I spent the day after swim lessons and lunch out at Glenndale, as did Kaylee. It was a beautiful day, and a super busy flying day, so Steve and Ty and Chuck were all hopping in various airplanes while I worked on the computer and entered time sheets. Nathan returned the T-6 to its owner, so that'll be the end of T-6 flying until Nathan's is done, had the 'breaking in' hours put on it, and is back from Oshkosh, which will be August. Late in the afternoon, someone came in who needed an instructor to go up once around the pattern with them to make sure they could solo for the day, so I went up and did that for 15 minutes or so, which made for a nice break in the billing project.

I finished one part of the billing process, and I was in kind of a blah mood, so I decided it was such a pretty day, I'd take up the Citabria for awhile. Kaylee came with me, and I stuck her on some cushions so she could see better, and away we went. Once we got up in the air, she took over and did some of the flying for awhile. She made the radio call that we were departing 18 at Glenndale, then asked me if we could do a low pass over the runway. Sure, why not, it's been awhile. She asked if she could get on the radio and tell Daddy to come outside, and I said sure, thinking that's what she was going to say. Instead she said "Daddy, if you can, come outside and watch us. We're going to do a low pass." I tried to wave off the last line, but I was unsuccessful. :) We did that, and then she said she wanted to try a take off and landing. I came in and landed, and had her do the take off. She can't reach the rudder pedals so I had to do the ground steering part of it, but she had the stick, and I didn't touch it through the entire take off. She held it steady, pushed it forward to get the tail up, then brought it back for a nice smooth take off. I was kind of impressed. For the landing, she did it all the way down final and into the flare, and then I had to help with the flare this time. You can see in the picture that she's concentrating on flying and turning there. :)

We were running low on fuel, so I landed again, and Kaylee was ready to take a break. The airport was just hopping-there were three other planes already at the fuel pump jockeying for position, and there were a lot of planes flying around on this lovely evening. The Cub, both the 172s, the Decathlon, the Citabria, Dale in his Cub, another guy on field, a couple guys who flew in from elsewhere, etc. Flying with Kaylee had improved my disposition, so after Chuck filled up the Citabria, he and I went back up and just flew around and relaxed. We flew over his house, my house, the town, Grissom, and came back in. It's not often he's in the back of that plane just along for the ride. :)

One thing I found kind of funny-after flying the T-6, the Citabria was really quite relaxing, steady, and, well, easy. There were no issues with holding it smooth or steady, and I rolled on every landing. Normally I wouldn't mention that, but three wheel landings and a three-pointer where you can hear the grass whisper prior to the wheels touching down made ME feel better. Not as well as I'd feel if I could have ended on a smooth one in the other plane, but alas, we don't always get to choose. :)

Steve was done working on the billing stuff and we got everything put away and made it home somewhere around 9 p.m. A long day, but I got a fair amount of stuff done and so did Steve. He got to save the day in the computer world for a company, worked on billing, took some flights, etc. Oh, and Steve's student who was going for his CFI (flight instructor) certificate passed today! This is great news, because as I said, CFI applicants have a 13% pass rate the first time. Steve's last two guys he sent through passed on the first time, and both went with a guy who is a real hard nose to the applicants. So that says something for the prep work Steve does with the guys. :) As I said, a productive day!

To end the day, here's another picture of Kaylee flying the Citabria, cheesing it for the camera. :)