Kid Day

It started raining sometime during the night, and when I woke up this morning to go to the T-6 seminar at Warbird Headquarters, it was to a steady drizzle. I drove over to the Red Lot, and this time fortunately traffic was light and I made it over in plenty of time. The seminar itself was basically an overview of some things they'd uncovered over the last year as far as maintenance and care for the fleet as it ages and some progress they made on steps to monitor those newly known issues. I filled out the paper stating I'd attended, and I'll get a certificate mailed to me which will go towards reducing what it costs to insure me on the T-6. I saw several of the guys I spoke with from the T-6 group the other day and talked with one of them for a few minutes this morning. I'm still here. :)

But the conversation of note at the seminar was some guy at the end of it who was telling everyone there that to recover from a spin in the T-6 you have to keep the stick all the way back. Even if you go by what he meant (instead of what he said), which was that he was in an "unrecoverable steep spiral", a story which also has several problems, it's just...wrong. Hopefully everybody in there is too smart and experienced to come away from there and try recovering from a spin in anything by keeping the stick full aft. Ack.

Steve, Nathan and I took the kids to "KidVenture" today, at the EAA Museum and Pioneer Airport, and we spent several hours there. Kaylee made a glider that she drew up to look like the T-6 (and did a really nice job on it, too). She rode the hang glider simulator, and for the first time this year she flew a flight simulator with a "Red Bull" airplane on the screen. She was doing very well until she got bored and decided to try to crash it. She ended up doing several rolls, several low passes, and a couple of crashes to see what would happen. She was going to do a remote control airplane that goes pretty fast, and she was next in line, but they shut that down to give a demo right then, and the rains were coming again, so we had to leave.

We had ourselves a big old meal tonight starting with good steaks on the grill, and we had about a dozen people over. The kids did their usual evening routine and disappeared for long periods of time of playing with other kids on the hill and surrounding areas. They are getting lots of exercise and fresh air this week!