FAST Weekend

Time to play a little catch up, I guess! Thursday simply had nothing worth reporting, so that's easy enough. ;)

Friday was a "Happy Birthday" to our niece Rania and our son Sidney. I can't believe how old either one of them is/would be!

This weekend is a FAST clinic (Formation and Safety Training) in Huntington, Indiana. Friday after lunch, thanks to low clouds, bad visibility and rain, I drove my car up there for the ground school portion of it. The weather caused a bunch of people to be unable to fly in, who instead diverted to Marion and Muncie, and the ground school was cancelled. Since I was already there, Jim and I and another man named John helped the hosts set up some tables, snacks, etc. and by the time it was all said and done, several more people were getting courtesy cars and driving on over. We started the ground school after all around 4:30 pm and went until it was time to break for dinner. Trey met up with everyone at the restaurant, called "The Pickle", and he came back to Huntington to set up a tent for the weekend. We continued the ground school until after 11:30 p.m., at which time everyone realized they were pooped and we agreed to reconvene in the morning. I got to drive home, and made it home around one a.m. I had to set my cruise control on my car though, because I could not seem to stop going waaaay too fast. I don't know how many times I glanced down at my speedometer (it just took me 30 seconds to come up with the name for that beyond 'airspeed indicator') to find a number that surprised even me. Cruise control on and set, iPod on, and I cruised home.

The plan was to get up and take the Baron over to Huntington this morning because the T-6 had an orientation flight at 11 back home. The weather had finally broken up a bit and it was supposed to be just fine out. Something told me to get up extra early anyway in case I had to drive again, and something was right. I woke up to 400' overcast. Again. It was "supposed" to clear up any time, but soon enough I got to decision time, where if I was going to be on time in the car, I'd have to start driving now, or risk waiting another little while and seeing if I can fly in, but if not, I'm now late. I can't stand being late, so I drove up again. That ended up being the right call. The regular briefing was at 9:30, and we had to wait for the weather to clear off. We also had to retrieve a lot of airplanes from Marion and Muncie, and I had to retrieve the T-6 from Kokomo, after noon when it would be done from its flight, before we could set up these formation flights. The clouds lifted a bit, the winds picked up a bit, and people scattered to go get their airplanes. Meanwhile, a four-ship "observation" flight took off. John S. was lead in the Yak and took Trey along with him. Carl was #2 in a T-34, and I was the back seat observer for that. #3 was a Navion, and #4 was Dan S. in the T-6 with another new guy as the back seat observer. We went up and went through the various maneuvers (and I got my first flight in a T-34). Pitchouts, rejoins, turns, all the various formations. We landed and debriefed the flight, and it was time to go get the T-6. I grabbed a sandwich and a bag of chips from the hangar and hopped in my car and drove back to Kokomo Airport, pulled out the Six, and flew back into Huntington. A little busy of a morning. :)

On my way in, I knew I was transversing through three practice areas, so I monitored a couple of the frequencies and made sure to report my position. At one point, a flight of two came back and said "We're looking for you, Laura". I got a smile out of that.

I landed, went back to the hangar, and got there in time to sit through more of the ground school. There was one man in a chair listening to the ground school, because he needed to finish it to qualify for his FAST card. I need to finish it too, so I pulled up a chair and joined him, and we went over stuff for about an hour. I'd missed about an hour's worth of stuff, but the instructor was kind enough to agree to go over all of it AGAIN, just with me, tomorrow, which I appreciate.

About then I got the thumbs-up to go on my first clinic "sortie". A two-ship flight with Dan S. as lead in a T-6, and Todd as the IP (Instructor Pilot) in my back seat. We briefed, fired up and headed out. Join-up, station keeping, turns, pitch-outs, rejoins, cross-unders. It was a good flight. I got a lot of constructive input from Todd on what to improve and smooth out on, and a lot of positive reinforcement from Dan who came up to let me know he was happy to be my "target" any time. An amusing to me side note is that when I went up with Nathan, the thing I had trouble with was turns with me on the inside, but I did the turns with me on the outside fine. This time Todd said I nailed the last part of the flight's turns with me on the inside...but the turns with me on the outside got sloppier. Go figure!

It's been busy, particularly commuting back and forth, but I've enjoyed the first two days. I've gotten to know some folks, and run into several people I already knew, some briefly and some a little better. A couple of people came up and said they recognized me from here or there, and I still don't know who they are. It's a disadvantage and advantage both that I'm not overly easy to mistake for someone else. :) There's another woman trainee there as well, in a Navion...

My muscles are sore and I am pooped!

Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be good, so I should be back out and at 'em and headed to Huntington bright and early for one final day.