Upside Down

This afternoon didn't quite go as planned, but it worked out. :)

I was supposed to fly with a student to give him a pre-solo checkout flight. It's a brand new instructor's first pre-solo student, so you send up the student with a more experienced instructor first and make sure everybody's on the same page before he goes up into the wild blue yonder on his own. But something came up for him and he had to cancel--which was too bad because it was a Gorgeous day and he probably could have soloed today. But that's the way it works sometimes!

Next I was to go up in the Decathlon and work on some aerobatics with Mike. We got going, and today was the first day since I've begun doing this aerobatic refresher that we've actually had a horizon. (A horizon is very handy when you're trying to get a sight picture of lines and such in the air.) I did knife edges to the left (where the plane's left wing is pointed straight at the ground with the right wing pointed straight up at the sky), then did some inverted flight, which I just love, then went into right knife edges. The plan was to then go into slow rolls, but when I was rolling from inverted back upright, Mike said "Do you hear that?" I didn't, but flew along straight and level for a minute, and then I did. There was a light flapping noise that definitely did not belong. We wondered if some fabric had ripped on the plane. I immediately slowed down and headed back in to land, and as we flew along the flapping noise became a lot more pronounced, becoming a little eyebrow-raising. I came straight in and landed, and when we got out, found it was just the rubber seal that connects the wing root to the fuselage. It had come loose at the base and was whipping on the fabric over Mike's head. We didn't have the stuff or the guy to fix it, so we pushed the plane away, and canceled the rest of our flight and the flight that was supposed to be in it after us. I was glad to get the practice in as much as we did though, as it has been great for me. You spend so much time as an instructor in training flights and/or in corporate flights being as straight and level and smooth and in the middle of the envelope as possible that it's nice to be able to get back out there and explore more of the edges of that envelope, improve your skills..and have a little fun while you're at it. I love viewing the world upside down. Hanging by your seat belts, blue sky below you, green earth above you, flying along like that without a care in the world. It's Awesome.

After our abbreviated flight, I went over to the T-6 hangar. It's back up and running, you know, and it was a beautiful day. But when I took a look at it, it was parked into a spot that impressed me. Inches from the Baron spinner, just a foot or two from the Cheyenne, and mere inches from the left wing to the hangar door. Pulling it out would have been a trick, let alone by myself without spotters on the wings, but putting it back away into that scenario, well, I'm just not that good. So with a pat on the cowling, I left it right where I found it, deciding to live to fly another day. I texted Nathan and told him I was darned impressed with the tug parking job he'd done on it, and he said "First try, too!" which is even more impressive. The man can run a tug. Me, I need at least a LITTLE space in which to work. ;)

On the way home from the airport I stopped at Dairy Queen for the family, okay, and myself (the new caramel brownie blizzard is pretty tasty, but chocolate X-treme still wins)...and thus ends reportable parts of the day. :)