Speak of the Devil

We are having a Maintenance Hades these last several months. Almost every airplane we have is and has been down for maintenance of one form or another, from the expected but still arduous annuals (yearly inspection where they take the plane apart and inspect every single thing, for all of our safety, thank you), to the unexpected and arduous like bearings tearing up engines, fabric work that took almost a year to get done elsewhere only to find out it was nowhere close and had to be brought back here and done by our own guy, to surprise split fabric on another plane to engine problems on our busiest trainer, and that's not a fraction of the maintenance issues at the moment. These things are time consuming and expensive, and anyone good at math can see the problem: how do you cover the cost of labor and parts (and insurance and hangars and) on maintenance on airplanes when said airplanes which have been grounded for maintenance for awhile are the source of income needed to cover the cost of labor and parts (and insurance and hangars and)?

So our busiest 172 had to be grounded and have its engine basically overhauled, and while it is down we doubled up on our other 172 down at Sheridan and shared it at both places. This is where I went today. I was to fly with a student this morning, then leave her there and fly the airplane up to Kokomo where it was scheduled most of the rest of the day to fly. I got to Sheridan to find a note on the radios where the last guy who flew it said the radios had failed. I was okay with that for this flight since it was just a local flight and radios aren't required, but of course the real determining question of the scope of the problem is "what's really wrong"? What's wrong was a dead battery-the plane wouldn't start. I got Jeff, who is a very helpful fellow indeed, to hand-prop the airplane for me, and we watched, and everything seemed to be charging and working properly. My student and I flew off into the sunrise (well, morning anyway) for less than an hour, only to find at some point that instead of charging, the battery was now discharging for some reason. I shut down everything electrical that I could to conserve juice for a radio and the flaps, but by the time we made it back to the home drome, the electrical system was dead. That's just beautiful. Nothing huge, but another perfect flying day and one of two remaining trainer planes "up" brought to a halt by random maintenance gremlins.

All that to say, this all shows that the system works. Before you get in an airplane, you do a preflight, and you visually inspect the airplane to find issues before you get in the air. You do a "run up" to check things like the engine so you can find potential issues before you get in the air. You do annual inspections and 100 hour inspections so you can find problems while a person is still on the ground. The reasons our planes are "grounded" is because of careful pilot checking and thorough maintenance work that discovered things that needed fixed before they became a problem for anyone flying. That means we are all doing our jobs. Though my electrical problem seemed to be fine on the ground, it would not have been (and was not) dangerous if/when it fitzed in the air. We have two airplanes for hire right now that don't even have electrical systems at all in them. It just means you get to enjoy flying at its most basic-wind and engine noise. :) But bottom line is that the system works.

Speaking of bottoms, I'm still wondering why bicycle makers have 4-inch-wide seats that people with 4-foot-wide rear-ends (okay, exaggeration solely for effect) are supposed to comfortably sit on. I still vote for a John Deere seat on my bike. ;) I found my muscles in pretty comfy shape even after the ride, which goes to show that...Indiana is in fact very flat around here. ;)

Speaking of seats, we appreciated and laughed at the big box of toilet paper that was sent our way this week. I know I let us get down to one roll; your contribution will make sure that doesn't happen again for awhile-thanks. Smart-alecks. ;)

Speaking of...body waste..., the TSA initiative that I've been ranting about (LASP) is getting a lot of flack in the political realm, thank heavens. Congresspersons, Senators, local politicians everywhere are saying that this is a very bad deal and that the TSA should "try again". I'm half afraid that the end result will still be really bad, but will be so much better than this...Gestapo version of things, that we'll all find ourselves like little sheep nodding our heads and thanking the TSA for what they end up doing, bad as it may be, just because it wasn't this LASP. You know, like when I got a little banged up once, and when my Mom came to pick me up I had bruises and such all over and my arm wrapped in a sling, and she walked in and was horrified at how I looked, so I whipped off my sling and said "ta-da, my arm is fine!" which made the rest look not quite as bad even though it really was still kind of bad looking? Something like that. ;) Anyway, it's not dead in the water yet, but at least everyone isn't just nodding and agreeing with this atrocity in the name of (false) "security".

Speaking of halcyon, (well, I am now anyway), Kaylee had a good day at school, nothing too exciting. I sent in a bottle of vanilla extract I got for her yesterday that she needs for a project they are doing tomorrow-they are baking something to send to soldiers in Iraq. (When I got the vanilla, it was $.98 for the generic big 8 oz. bottle. Or you could get the gourmet vanilla extract for $10.00 for 4 oz. Let's see. $1 for 8 oz. or $20 for 8 oz. :O That had better be some seriously good flavoring for somebody else's baked goods.) She came home and has been playing outside on her playground for a long time. She even brought the cats out to play with them and let them enjoy the sunshine too. My door to the deck can stay open, the windows on the deck are open, I can hear the birds chirping, the chains jingling, and Kaylee singing to herself on her swing, I just saw a squirrel go by my window with a chocolate chip cookie in its mouth (??), Steve is off flying in our one remaining available trainer, and at the moment, It Is Good.