Can't Get No Respect

I just got home here at 9:30 at night, for the first time today, and I am worn out. I was in an upbeat mood most of the day, but the last three hours of my day along with not getting nearly enough sleep the last two nights (not by my choice, either!) has really sucked it out of me. I shall try to get it back before I go to bed here though. :)

To answer my thought from yesterday, no, two flights in the 172s today were not enough to bring me back to reality. In fact, I was prone to random moments of smiling at nothing in particular at odd times throughout the day.

I woke up this morning with some muscles that felt like they'd been hit with a 2.5 ton airplane. Oh wait... ;) Steve said "So are you sore today?" I said "Yes!" He said "Awww, poor baby, does your widdle bitty muscles hurt after having to fly all day? I don't wanna hear it." We're at lunch. Steve tells them I'm sore. The other participants there...have no sympathy whatsoever either. I fly this morning with a new CFI, after which we hit lunch with the "boys"; on our way to lunch, from the back seat, I hear from the peanut gallery "How out of shape does a person have to be to get sore flying an airplane?? I mean, really??" I am alone, adrift in a sea of uncaring and disrespect. ;)

I had some people ask a few questions about the weekend flying, so I'll throw a few thoughts out about it, and then life will get back to normal for awhile. :) For one thing, as I've said to a few people, I came away with a definite appreciation/respect of the airplane. Not that I didn't before, of course. But for example, when we teach stalls to students in our normal trainers, you full stall it, it mushes, the nose drops, you recover, yadda yadda. As Nathan said, the T-6 is a trainer, but it's not a big C-150 trainer, it's a fighter trainer, and it stalls like one. You can't stall it and just hang out and "falling leaf" it. You also can't hesitate or stop to think about what you need to do. There is not a ton of warning prior to the stall, and once it goes, it goes. The actual exercise itself is fine, it's just a stall in an airplane at plenty of altitude to recover, not a problem. But how it reacts, even if you recover immediately, completely coordinated, is interesting enough that I can see how someone could really get themselves into a very bad situation very quickly (and that is what training is for!).

Well, I flew a bit at Glenndale this morning, went to lunch, then flew this afternoon as well, at Sheridan. When I left Sheridan, I drove back to Glenndale to pick up my purse, then went to Kokomo to pick up Kaylee from Steve out there, brought Kaylee back to Glenndale to drop off some stuff we needed to leave for another instructor, went home and got ready, took Kaylee to cheer, and I left for a school board meeting that lasted for 3 hours. Aaaaaaah. Well, it's good to be home, even if it's late and I'm past tired again...