I got up just a bit earlier this morning so that I could take Kaylee to Walgreens before school and pick up some extra snacks for her class. This was her week to bring a snack to class, and I did, but she claimed it wasn't cool to only bring one snack, so I brought several the next day. Apparently it worked and she is the class hero again, because she said everyone was excited about the extra snack choices. One crisis for the day, averted. ;) After I left the school I had to stop by Staples and fax off a few more pages to the FAA, which put me a few minutes late for my morning flight. I don't like being late, but you can only do what you can do.
This paragraph is for our family to skip. ;) I had someone do a takeoff that got my attention more than about any other takeoff I can remember. We had just lifted off and the airspeed was too low, the nose was too high, and the person had drifted off to the very edge of the runway. My job is of course to talk a person through the scenario as far as possible, and we were on our way to getting things straightened out, when suddenly the engine got very quiet. For a split second I thought we'd had a strange and sudden engine failure, but instead the person had pulled the power all the way off by mistake. With the nose way up and the airspeed way down, when the power goes away, the plane...doesn't like that. I got the power back in asap and we'd gotten high enough that I had the altitude to recover, but I'll bet it was interesting to watch from the ground, and, well, I was definitely awake for the day. :)
From the flight I went on to Glenndale, and it was a buzzing little place. Our SMA banner is up, several trailers and Nathan's bus are parked out there for the campers, the stakes are up, and it's coming alive. One of our guys has a time-lapse camera thing going, and he's going to speed it up and show it Saturday night I think. Should be interesting.
After lunch I went out to Kokomo and flew for an hour and a half in the Cheyenne with Kevin. It's the first time I've been in the Cheyenne since they made several changes to it, and the changes are nice! That plane always feels rather speedy to me when it's been awhile since I've been in it. I call it "hurtling", and that's not a bad thing. ;)
When we were done, Steve and Chuck and Steve C. and Jonathan came out and we worked on how to load and unload people in the T-6 for the BBQ Bash rides. Safety measures, how to best get in and out, how to do the seatbelts, how to minimize the impact on the airplane (no feet scraping, no grabbing the wrong area, no people falling and breaking their legs, you know, that kind of stuff). I got to be the first helpless victim while the two guys helped me load in, buckled me up, and told me how to get in and out of the airplane. Do you think they'd be willing to come do that for me every time, because that was kind of handy. ;)
I ran home to get Kaylee, then met up at Glenndale with the others. Steve and Chuck and a few others finished up a couple of things and then we all went to dinner prior to me bringing Kaylee home so she could do her chores for the day and get to bed, and Steve going back out to Glenndale to keep on working.
It's been a hopping week, with Steve getting the brunt of it, and Chuck getting a fair share too. I've got a few more things to do myself, and I'm not looking forward to my last assignment, but that's the way life works. I just can't believe it's here already, that tomorrow night we start off with a pizza party, live bands and a movie; and away we go!
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