Flying By

It was another long, busy, productive day. It's 10:40 p.m. and we're all three just now home and settling down for the night.

This morning I had a flight with a student who brought along her niece and nephew for the ride. We flew over their homes down by Indianapolis and just had a nice little flight. We got down jjust in time for chicken and noodles lunch at Glenndale for our Friday airport lunch.

After everyone left, a few of us ran to Cone Palace for a quick scoop of ice cream, where Kaylee ate part of her cone off of the floor after I told her not to and thus lost herself a privilege and grossed me out in one swoop. ;)

At this point it was time to get moving. I took Kaylee home and brought over all her dance recital things and instructions to her grandparents so she could get ready for her first recital of the year tonight. When she was all settled in and ready to go, I went out to Kokomo where I had an Orientation Flight with a gentleman in the T-6. They were from Arkansas, and excited to see us up here in Indiana. His wife had purchased the flight as a birthday surprise for him, so he had no idea when he arrived of what was happening. I met him in full flight suit, dark shoes, gloves, etc.; we did a pre-brief, a pre-flight, a nice flight, and a post-brief, took photos, etc. He had a wonderful time and I enjoyed myself as well. He was fairly well stunned at the surprise, and that's always just fun.

In the pre-brief, he mentioned that he would like to do some aerobatics, and he listed a few specifics, and said that he had never done any before. There are some aerobatics that I feel comfortable doing in the T-6, and some that I am just going to get a bit more time doing before I do with passengers. Since he had never done aerobatics before, I knew I'd start out with the ones I felt comfortable doing, and if he made it through that and still wanted more, I would then let him know what was doable for today and not. I didn't get through my currently small repertoire of aerobatics before he decided he was done with the upside down thing-he enjoyed having experienced a couple of things and decided that was good, right there. :) It was a nice flight with a nice family all there watching, video taping, etc., and the entire time he was almost speechless. That's a pretty special thing to be able to do with/for someone. I enjoyed that.

We were just finishing up when JZ, my T-6 instructor, arrived at the airport as well for the first time since last fall. He went up and did a few aerobatics of his own (with Steve in the back), then we all put everything away and had a nice steak dinner.

Meanwhile, Kaylee was at her ballet recital with her grandparents. We arrived home before they did, but when she came home after 10-something p.m., she had her hair in a perfect braided bun, carrying two flowers, worn-off lipstick and a big smile. Tomorrow Steve and I are taking her to the Saturday recital, but for now she came home, put her flowers in water, took out her hair (which is now curly from the tight braid turned into bun), and crashed in bed without hardly a word.

A day well accomplished, I would say.