headed back out early to the airport. The weather called for a little bit of a broken low layer, but at least it wasn't fog and overcast like the previous two days, and it was VFR. I took off out of Kokomo and climbed above the broken layer, and it was a beautiful morning, with the sun just up over the cloud tops. It cleared off and looked beautiful until I got about 20 miles away from Huntington, where a line was drawn in the sky, and on the other side of the line was a layer of clouds that hadn't been in the weather report I'd gotten. I went over the top of them to see if I could find a decent-sized hole to get down, but it solidified. A quickie IFR from Ft. Wayne wouldn't work for a couple of reasons. So I went back quite a few miles to the "line" in the sky where it was clear, got out the ole sectional to find obstacles and altitudes for the area, and just went under the stuff, arriving 30 minutes late. There wasn't any activity when I first got there-the fuel pump wasn't open, the tug wasn't available (so I had to start up, taxi over, shut down, fuel up when it was 'on', start up, taxi back to parking). I hadn't seen Jim yet and it was about an hour past when he was hoping to go, so I texted him that it was here and ready for him, only to find out his best friend's house had burned down, and he was going to head back home after lunch and not fly. The fires out in California destroyed her home last night-fortunately they had time to evacuate, but that's an awful loss.I flew once today, in the morning, with Todd in the back seat and Don S. in the other T-6 with Trey in his back seat shooting pictures. It's ironic-I did worse rejoins with someone actually stepping me through it. :) In part it's because there are differences in how he wanted me to do it than I'd practiced, and in part because today felt a little bit like Chuck's joke when you ask him to fly straight & level of "Do you want me to fly straight or do you want me to fly level, because I can't do both." Today it felt like "do you want me to listen or do you want me to fly, because I can't seem to do both." lol It wasn't that bad, well, other than that second rejoin which wins the prize as the worst one I've ever done. Ah, well, such is the learning curve, and some things went well, too. It was good practice and I have a decent foundation to go do some practice on, even if it can't be with another T-6...although I wish there was another around. Before I just wanted to get the idea. Now I want to practice on the actual visual points. If wishes were horses and all that. :)
When everyone got done flying sorties, some of them did a "balloon pop" competition. I'd never heard of or seen one before, so I watched and took some photos/videos. Here's how it works. A
person on the ground near the runway with a handheld radio waits for the pilot on base/final approach to call "release". When the ground person hears that, they let go of a black balloon, which gets blown up and away by the wind. The pilot flies down the runway to spot the balloon, then climbs up and tries to pop it with their prop. John won with three or four balloons popped. Todd came in second after nailing two of them, and Trey spotted one of the downed balloons by the runway and retrieved it to give to the pilot as proof of his "kill". I got a video of it, too.I went ahead and came on home shortly after that. All the other T-6 guys headed out and there were not going to be any more formation training flights. I was very tired, from a lot of traveling back and forth, a lot of getting up early, getting back late, concentrating, etc. I flew home with the canopy wide open and enjoyed the beautiful evening. I got it put away, and was going to leave the clean-up for the clean-up crew, but the wings/prop/cowling/windshield were all covered in bugs and there was oil underneath and on the sides. I just couldn't leave her looking like that. I didn't do a professional job, but at least she's back to respectable. :)
It's been a busy weekend, and it's time to recuperate!
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