I don't think any of us wanted to get up this morning for some reason, but we had a nice weather day again, and a busy one, and once we got rolling it gained momentum pretty well. First thing on my agenda today was soloing a student bright and early this morning. This was the student in the Saratoga, and he nailed it today, so after three take offs and landings, I cut him loose and he flew for over an hour on his own. A new official pilot was set loose today. :)
Bank and post office runs and two other errands and then back out to the airport for another lesson in the Saratoga, this time with someone getting ready to take it on a trip who wanted to make sure they knew all the avionics and gizmos in the plane. We had a fun flight, simulated going several places to set up everything from power settings at altitudes to GPSs and HSIs and so forth.
Next it was time to get all the time sheets I could, as today is the last day of the month and that means...full bore billing. I've kept up a bit and I still have a bunch of them today, which is really a good thing. :)
Kaylee and Steve went shoe shopping while I was flying, but didn't find what she was looking for, so he dropped her off with me so he could go fly, and *I* took her shoe shopping. The ole swaperoo. :) We ended up finding what she wanted, and they were cheap, so we were both happy. We did some math together, she did her chores, I "fixed" supper, ordered some stuff for SMA Support, got off the solo photos for the student, got some stuff ready for Kaylee's school, and now it's time to work on those time sheets for a few hours. Mostly boring, but accomplished at least. :)
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Mondays
Life in aviation-I started out with a full flying schedule from 9 a.m. through to almost 6 p.m., but with some folks rescheduling, I actually ended up only flying about 4 hours today. That's still pretty good for a Monday, and Steve is busy until pretty late tonight too. We've had a couple of weeks in a row of (hot but) perfect flying weather, which we're grateful for, and we'll take it while we can get it. I've got one guy ready to solo, one getting close to a checkride, one making good progress towards solo as well, and one with one more flight to go to be done being checked out in the high performance airplane he's going to take on a trip. All great progress.
I debated writing this one, but as far as I know, since I moved it, this blog now has few readers, all of whom I'd say know me well enough to take this in the spirit it's intended. I figure our parents might get a kick out of this anyway, and that's worth it. ;) After a flight lesson where a few things clicked with the student, we shut down the plane, and they said "YOU are GOOD. You are REALLY good. You are excellent at teaching, and I wish you could teach some of my graduate students." I was of course pleased that some lightbulbs had gone off and that lots of progress was made--but the funny part was when we came inside, and they walked in, and to the folks in the room there said "She's good--she's really good!" Of course Steve rolled his eyes and asked if I'd paid them, but it was great fun. ;) The problem is, this person has an IQ somewhere in the stratosphere, has held some very high level jobs in some pretty big industries, including the Department of Defense, and while that makes the compliment even more fun, it also means that it won't be long before this person realizes they can ask me questions they understand the answers to better than I do. ;)
We got Ty hooked on Butter Burgers today, much to his chagrin, and then I had my last flight of the day, where we went to the crosswind runway and practiced those for quite awhile. When I got back, Steve and his dad went up flying in the Saratoga, and hopefully had a nice flight!
One last thing I've debated about posting, mostly because I don't like griping, but I'll try to post the details without a bunch of commentary and see how well I do. ;) You know I've tried to get in the formation clinic training, for about two years now. There are only two NATA clinics per year, one held in Florida and one in Iowa, both of which would cost me an arm and a leg to fly to and from, let alone actually do any flying, and both at very bad times of the year for us. In the meantime, any other formation clinics going on are usually for folks who are already formation qualified just knocking the rust off and/or having some fun. I can see where those are important to have too, of course, but what it boils down to is if you don't have three other good friends with T-6s plus Lead-certified pilots hanging out with you all the time, and/or a ton of time and money to take the plane far away for one of the two clinics, it's not a simple task to get the formation card done. So there's another, a new-this-year formation clinic being held, this one is being held nearby, the first weekend of October. I email and ask for info about it, get no response, and on my third contact email I hear back that Friday will be a training day, then Saturday is open only to Quiet Birdmen, which I was told I am "unqualified" for (they don't allow women in the organization), and then Sunday is a fun flying day of contests and such. I am welcome to come Friday for the ground school, which I've been through several times now, and get some training flights in Friday and maybe Saturday after the mysterious QBs get back from their event elsewhere that day. Maybe. If they stick around and are willing to go with trainees. Of which there may not be many, they don't know. *sigh* I just want a clinic I can go to for a weekend where I'll be able to work hard all weekend long with instructors and airplanes and learn what I need to learn to be a safe, proficient formation pilot. That shouldn't be such a pain in the rear end to accomplish. It really shouldn't. Do they or do they not want to "keep these planes flying" as the tag line goes? I'm kind of tired. The thought of showing up at a good ole boy clinic, alone, where purportedly up to 100 mostly linked T-6s are coming to play around, just makes me feel...tired. Of course, after a good night's sleep that may change. ;)
Kaylee's school is going well so far. We've got a good routine going, and I'm having her bring her math work home each night so we can keep up on that better than before, and so far so good. Of course now it's time to add in Awanas, gymnastics and dance. We'll see how that works out, and if it's too much, we'll cut one of the "sports" out, but so far so good, and Kaylee is having a good time with school and everything...
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"Watch your thoughts, for they become your words. Watch your words, for they become your actions. Watch your actions, for they become your habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny."
I debated writing this one, but as far as I know, since I moved it, this blog now has few readers, all of whom I'd say know me well enough to take this in the spirit it's intended. I figure our parents might get a kick out of this anyway, and that's worth it. ;) After a flight lesson where a few things clicked with the student, we shut down the plane, and they said "YOU are GOOD. You are REALLY good. You are excellent at teaching, and I wish you could teach some of my graduate students." I was of course pleased that some lightbulbs had gone off and that lots of progress was made--but the funny part was when we came inside, and they walked in, and to the folks in the room there said "She's good--she's really good!" Of course Steve rolled his eyes and asked if I'd paid them, but it was great fun. ;) The problem is, this person has an IQ somewhere in the stratosphere, has held some very high level jobs in some pretty big industries, including the Department of Defense, and while that makes the compliment even more fun, it also means that it won't be long before this person realizes they can ask me questions they understand the answers to better than I do. ;)
We got Ty hooked on Butter Burgers today, much to his chagrin, and then I had my last flight of the day, where we went to the crosswind runway and practiced those for quite awhile. When I got back, Steve and his dad went up flying in the Saratoga, and hopefully had a nice flight!
One last thing I've debated about posting, mostly because I don't like griping, but I'll try to post the details without a bunch of commentary and see how well I do. ;) You know I've tried to get in the formation clinic training, for about two years now. There are only two NATA clinics per year, one held in Florida and one in Iowa, both of which would cost me an arm and a leg to fly to and from, let alone actually do any flying, and both at very bad times of the year for us. In the meantime, any other formation clinics going on are usually for folks who are already formation qualified just knocking the rust off and/or having some fun. I can see where those are important to have too, of course, but what it boils down to is if you don't have three other good friends with T-6s plus Lead-certified pilots hanging out with you all the time, and/or a ton of time and money to take the plane far away for one of the two clinics, it's not a simple task to get the formation card done. So there's another, a new-this-year formation clinic being held, this one is being held nearby, the first weekend of October. I email and ask for info about it, get no response, and on my third contact email I hear back that Friday will be a training day, then Saturday is open only to Quiet Birdmen, which I was told I am "unqualified" for (they don't allow women in the organization), and then Sunday is a fun flying day of contests and such. I am welcome to come Friday for the ground school, which I've been through several times now, and get some training flights in Friday and maybe Saturday after the mysterious QBs get back from their event elsewhere that day. Maybe. If they stick around and are willing to go with trainees. Of which there may not be many, they don't know. *sigh* I just want a clinic I can go to for a weekend where I'll be able to work hard all weekend long with instructors and airplanes and learn what I need to learn to be a safe, proficient formation pilot. That shouldn't be such a pain in the rear end to accomplish. It really shouldn't. Do they or do they not want to "keep these planes flying" as the tag line goes? I'm kind of tired. The thought of showing up at a good ole boy clinic, alone, where purportedly up to 100 mostly linked T-6s are coming to play around, just makes me feel...tired. Of course, after a good night's sleep that may change. ;)
Kaylee's school is going well so far. We've got a good routine going, and I'm having her bring her math work home each night so we can keep up on that better than before, and so far so good. Of course now it's time to add in Awanas, gymnastics and dance. We'll see how that works out, and if it's too much, we'll cut one of the "sports" out, but so far so good, and Kaylee is having a good time with school and everything...
----------------
"Watch your thoughts, for they become your words. Watch your words, for they become your actions. Watch your actions, for they become your habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny."
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Bzzzzzz
I lost my morning to what we'll call a headache. I slept in, was up for about an hour and a half, and had to go back to bed for awhile, sick as a dog. I wasn't the only one-Steve and Kaylee both also had headaches that required some Tylenol, but fortunately we all seem to be fine this evening. :)
We seem to be hosting the unkillable bees. There is a bee hive off of our deck, and today Steve sealed it off, leaving a lot of unhappy bees on the outside trying to get in and I'm sure a lot of unhappy bees on the inside trying to get out. He sprayed them down with wasp killer stuff, with, well, I don't know what all he tried. He tried various things off the internet. Nothing killed the bees. That wasp spray, you spray that on a wasp and it drops in its tracks right then and there. The bees just drank it and moved on. So I went to the store looking for something to kill bees. Nothing. You can kill ants, roaches, spiders, mice, flies, fleas, wasps, yellow jackets, hornets, scorpions, slugs, "all flying bugs" and all "house bugs", but not one thing says it will kill bees. I got another brand of wasp/hornet/yellowjacket spray to try, and that did nothing to these things either. Steve stood out there and took the hose to them, all these poisons, and not only did nothing kill them/chase them off, none of them even stung him. So we have some kind of extremely hardy bees out here. (And yes, we all had headaches BEFORE he started spraying poisons around outside. ;))
We seem to be hosting the unkillable bees. There is a bee hive off of our deck, and today Steve sealed it off, leaving a lot of unhappy bees on the outside trying to get in and I'm sure a lot of unhappy bees on the inside trying to get out. He sprayed them down with wasp killer stuff, with, well, I don't know what all he tried. He tried various things off the internet. Nothing killed the bees. That wasp spray, you spray that on a wasp and it drops in its tracks right then and there. The bees just drank it and moved on. So I went to the store looking for something to kill bees. Nothing. You can kill ants, roaches, spiders, mice, flies, fleas, wasps, yellow jackets, hornets, scorpions, slugs, "all flying bugs" and all "house bugs", but not one thing says it will kill bees. I got another brand of wasp/hornet/yellowjacket spray to try, and that did nothing to these things either. Steve stood out there and took the hose to them, all these poisons, and not only did nothing kill them/chase them off, none of them even stung him. So we have some kind of extremely hardy bees out here. (And yes, we all had headaches BEFORE he started spraying poisons around outside. ;))
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Saturday in Review
I woke up around 6 something this morning again, had to get up for that early flight lesson. We did some of those fun things like an aborted takeoff from 50 feet above the ground (which you'd better be quick at in the Saratoga, because it comes down) and engine-out landings and so forth. About an hour and a half of that and he had to head home, and I didn't just yet, so I pulled out the T-6 for a little recurrency training of my own. Or for de-twitching, whichever you believe more. ;)
Really, I spent a little while working on a few things up in the air that felt like they needed refreshed to me, then relaxed for a bit and went over and visited some friends at Indian Hills and Glenndale and around, then came back into Kokomo and did a series of various takeoffs and landings. Part of the reason I like this plane so much is because you (I) can't just think about other things while I'm taking off or landing or performing a few other maneuvers. There's no going over my to-do list in my head, or thinking about dinner, or wondering about anything, like I do with...yep, just about anything else I fly. I actually have to concentrate on what I'm doing here. It's not tame, or stable. It is fairly docile, it's not a total bugger...unless you quit paying attention to it or push the envelope too far. Push it, and it'll push back. It may be slightly twisted of me, but I like that about the airplane.
Nathan came out for awhile and worked on the Cub, fixing a sloppy strut, doing a little welding, getting along on the annual. Steve came out and helped, and I sort of helped now and then and mostly observed. I fetched wrenches a couple of times, held a blanket over the welding area to try to cut back on the wind, put out a fire and lifted the strut up, if that counts. ;) Nathan took his two kids up in the T-6 (one at a time, naturally), giving them rides around for awhile too, so we kept the T-6 hopping for awhile today.
While I was up flying, on the 'up in the air relaxing' phase of it, I spent some time thinking about our son Sidney. Today is the 11th anniversary of his birth & death. It's not exactly a happy anniversary for us, because he never really had a chance. But for him, he got to skip a lot of bad things. He got to go where there is no pain, no sorrow. Today his grandma & grandpa took a stuffed animal to the local ER in his honor, to bring comfort to a child who was in the hospital and afraid. He and his brother changed my life and maybe even a few other lives too. Isn't that part of what life is about? His life was short, but it matters. He matters...
Meanwhile, I think Kaylee is fighting off a bug. Or allergies. She has had a headache for two days, gets these moments where she'll get really hot (she calls them "hot flashes" much to Steve's dismay), has circles under her eyes, isn't sleeping well at all, and is emotional/cranky, which usually happens if she's not feeling well. Poor girl. I hope it's allergies and that it goes away as soon as I get to the store and get some more Zyrtec.
I didn't get to sleep until after 1:30 a.m. and was awake again around 6 a.m., and Steve got even less sleep than I did thanks to Kaylee not getting much sleep either! So I'm guessing we should all sleep like a rock tonight. I hope. :)
Really, I spent a little while working on a few things up in the air that felt like they needed refreshed to me, then relaxed for a bit and went over and visited some friends at Indian Hills and Glenndale and around, then came back into Kokomo and did a series of various takeoffs and landings. Part of the reason I like this plane so much is because you (I) can't just think about other things while I'm taking off or landing or performing a few other maneuvers. There's no going over my to-do list in my head, or thinking about dinner, or wondering about anything, like I do with...yep, just about anything else I fly. I actually have to concentrate on what I'm doing here. It's not tame, or stable. It is fairly docile, it's not a total bugger...unless you quit paying attention to it or push the envelope too far. Push it, and it'll push back. It may be slightly twisted of me, but I like that about the airplane.
Nathan came out for awhile and worked on the Cub, fixing a sloppy strut, doing a little welding, getting along on the annual. Steve came out and helped, and I sort of helped now and then and mostly observed. I fetched wrenches a couple of times, held a blanket over the welding area to try to cut back on the wind, put out a fire and lifted the strut up, if that counts. ;) Nathan took his two kids up in the T-6 (one at a time, naturally), giving them rides around for awhile too, so we kept the T-6 hopping for awhile today.
While I was up flying, on the 'up in the air relaxing' phase of it, I spent some time thinking about our son Sidney. Today is the 11th anniversary of his birth & death. It's not exactly a happy anniversary for us, because he never really had a chance. But for him, he got to skip a lot of bad things. He got to go where there is no pain, no sorrow. Today his grandma & grandpa took a stuffed animal to the local ER in his honor, to bring comfort to a child who was in the hospital and afraid. He and his brother changed my life and maybe even a few other lives too. Isn't that part of what life is about? His life was short, but it matters. He matters...
Meanwhile, I think Kaylee is fighting off a bug. Or allergies. She has had a headache for two days, gets these moments where she'll get really hot (she calls them "hot flashes" much to Steve's dismay), has circles under her eyes, isn't sleeping well at all, and is emotional/cranky, which usually happens if she's not feeling well. Poor girl. I hope it's allergies and that it goes away as soon as I get to the store and get some more Zyrtec.
I didn't get to sleep until after 1:30 a.m. and was awake again around 6 a.m., and Steve got even less sleep than I did thanks to Kaylee not getting much sleep either! So I'm guessing we should all sleep like a rock tonight. I hope. :)
Friday, August 27, 2010
Oh-ho-ho
(As Chuck always calls "Ohio".)
I was on the ramp at Kokomo Airport at the literal crack of dawn today, and it really
was a beautiful morning. There was a pretty amphib sitting there on the ramp with the sun shining on it, so I had to take a few photos of it before loading up my passenger and heading off to Ohio.
We had decent winds going out and coming back both, which makes for a nicer day. It was so pretty out I didn't even file IFR, and we just bombed over on our own. We ended up at a little airport near Columbus, Ohio called "Fairfield County Airfield".
I was surprised by how busy this little airport was, how nice it was inside, and how
many activities they obviously had going. There was a "Warbird Dance" at a hangar, there was another party going on this weekend, and while I was sitting there, planes came and went pretty steadily. The building itself had a really nice sunroom facing the ramp and the runway, set up with cafe style high tables, and on one of the tables was a chess set with glass pieces. Clear vs. Cloudy glass, which fits for aviation too in a way. :)
As we were inbound for Kokomo, I heard a bunch of folks I knew leaving Kokomo. Ty in the Viking, somebody not on the schedule in the 172, our dinner companion last night in his twin, a friend from Iowa in his Rocket, and as I was taxiing in, the amphib, who was there to visit with Nathan, was taxiing out to go home too. These pretty days are hard for people to pass up, which is good!
Me, I've got billing to do again for the end of the month here, and tomorrow somebody dared to schedule me on a Saturday at 8 a.m. for flight lessons, so what they see is what they get. ;) In the meantime, here's another of the amphib (lands on water or land) I took when the sun got a little higher...I would love to take that for a spin/splash...
I was on the ramp at Kokomo Airport at the literal crack of dawn today, and it really
was a beautiful morning. There was a pretty amphib sitting there on the ramp with the sun shining on it, so I had to take a few photos of it before loading up my passenger and heading off to Ohio.We had decent winds going out and coming back both, which makes for a nicer day. It was so pretty out I didn't even file IFR, and we just bombed over on our own. We ended up at a little airport near Columbus, Ohio called "Fairfield County Airfield".
I was surprised by how busy this little airport was, how nice it was inside, and how
many activities they obviously had going. There was a "Warbird Dance" at a hangar, there was another party going on this weekend, and while I was sitting there, planes came and went pretty steadily. The building itself had a really nice sunroom facing the ramp and the runway, set up with cafe style high tables, and on one of the tables was a chess set with glass pieces. Clear vs. Cloudy glass, which fits for aviation too in a way. :)As we were inbound for Kokomo, I heard a bunch of folks I knew leaving Kokomo. Ty in the Viking, somebody not on the schedule in the 172, our dinner companion last night in his twin, a friend from Iowa in his Rocket, and as I was taxiing in, the amphib, who was there to visit with Nathan, was taxiing out to go home too. These pretty days are hard for people to pass up, which is good!
Me, I've got billing to do again for the end of the month here, and tomorrow somebody dared to schedule me on a Saturday at 8 a.m. for flight lessons, so what they see is what they get. ;) In the meantime, here's another of the amphib (lands on water or land) I took when the sun got a little higher...I would love to take that for a spin/splash...
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Thursday
After dropping Kaylee off at school, I flew out of Glenndale in the 172 with a brand new student for awhile, hit a drive thru on my way to Kokomo, flew with a pre-solo student in the Saratoga until early afternoon, had about an hour wait, then took the 172RG over to Muncie to do instrument approaches with a guy. For my logbook we did the GPS 27 at PLD and the GPS 32 at MIE, and I came on in and did the new ILS 23 at OKK. Everybody and their brother was up flying today. It was a really pretty Fall-feeling day, and everyone kept hopping. An early bedtime for me as there will be an early rise time too...I'm taking a fellow to Ohio tomorrow, back by lunch, or that's the plan, anyway...
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Yadda Yadda
I worked on BBQ Bash stuff during the morning, had a flight for 1.9 in the Saratoga in the afternoon, came home and spent over two hours helping Kaylee with math before fixing dinner, herding her into her chores, and doing some more work myself. Now it's 10 p.m. and I'm about ready for bed. :)
The flight in the Toga today is with a pre-solo student. He's getting close to soloing, and just today I realized that he'll be the first non-pilot-yet person I ever taught and soloed in a 300 hp high performance airplane. Most folks start off in more normal trainer airplanes, but he's doing fine. :)
For a couple of quotes pulled off of aviation boards:
"Life is the wheel that either grinds you down or polishes you up, depending on what you're made of. Hope to see your shiny hiney back at it in record time."
"Perseverance - The courage to ignore the obvious wisdom of turning back."
The flight in the Toga today is with a pre-solo student. He's getting close to soloing, and just today I realized that he'll be the first non-pilot-yet person I ever taught and soloed in a 300 hp high performance airplane. Most folks start off in more normal trainer airplanes, but he's doing fine. :)
For a couple of quotes pulled off of aviation boards:
"Life is the wheel that either grinds you down or polishes you up, depending on what you're made of. Hope to see your shiny hiney back at it in record time."
"Perseverance - The courage to ignore the obvious wisdom of turning back."
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Tuesday Passeth
A little fog this morning passed quicker than yesterday's fog, so KL and I got .8 of checkride prep in KS . One of my steady students isn't too far off from achieving his pilot's license ('certificate' for you nit pickers), and that's fantastic! He's sure worked very hard for it, and I can't wait until he's got that accomplishment under his belt. :)
The afternoon was spent on exciting things like billing, BBQ Bash paperwork, errands, housework, and helping Kaylee with some Math and English homework. It actually is a good thing she ran out of time to do her math at school, because when she completed the paper, I checked it, and she had a lot of small errors. Nothing big on actually knowing how to do something, but she'd still have gotten a lot of them marked wrong, and it was a good refresher for me to go over them with her first. It took her a couple of hours to do all of her homework, which stinks, but she seems to understand it at least.
I made Kaylee scrub out her bathroom sink, too. She had glitter powders and 4 different toothbrushes and 3 different toothpastes and lipglosses and hair brushes and peroxide and earrings and all manner of things stacked around her bathroom sink, which wasn't very clean. I made her put it all away except what actually needed to be on her sink, and scrub it with Ajax. NOW her bathroom looks reasonable, and she's in good shape. ;)
I'll be spending a lot of time this week with a pre-solo student, trying to get him ready for solo, and getting whatever BBQ Bash stuff I can get to, and the weather looks great for this week on top of it. Should be a busy one. :)
The afternoon was spent on exciting things like billing, BBQ Bash paperwork, errands, housework, and helping Kaylee with some Math and English homework. It actually is a good thing she ran out of time to do her math at school, because when she completed the paper, I checked it, and she had a lot of small errors. Nothing big on actually knowing how to do something, but she'd still have gotten a lot of them marked wrong, and it was a good refresher for me to go over them with her first. It took her a couple of hours to do all of her homework, which stinks, but she seems to understand it at least.
I made Kaylee scrub out her bathroom sink, too. She had glitter powders and 4 different toothbrushes and 3 different toothpastes and lipglosses and hair brushes and peroxide and earrings and all manner of things stacked around her bathroom sink, which wasn't very clean. I made her put it all away except what actually needed to be on her sink, and scrub it with Ajax. NOW her bathroom looks reasonable, and she's in good shape. ;)
I'll be spending a lot of time this week with a pre-solo student, trying to get him ready for solo, and getting whatever BBQ Bash stuff I can get to, and the weather looks great for this week on top of it. Should be a busy one. :)
Monday, August 23, 2010
Monday
My 9 a.m. flight ended up pushed back to 11:30 due to fog, but we finally got our 1.4 in. While flying the pattern and learning to land can get tedious for both students and instructors after awhile, there's always something enjoyable about a person's first few hours in an airplane. They're always surprised at how they are the ones doing most of the work, and they usually feel pretty impressed by that. If you think about it, the same holds for basic Driver's Ed. You don't ride along in the car and watch the instructor for awhile, you just get in there and get to it while they talk and occasionally grab something to save the day. Same/same. :)
My ability to knock people unconscious is still here. When Kaylee came home from school, I laid down on the couch with her. Within a few minutes she had passed out cold, and so did the cat who hopped on top of me too. It was a Monday-I let her sleep for awhile. That, or I didn't so much as "let" her sleep as passed out myself for a little while.
School is in a pretty good rhythm, Kaylee is doing fine, and we are starting to wind up for the BBQ Bash...coming up fast!
My ability to knock people unconscious is still here. When Kaylee came home from school, I laid down on the couch with her. Within a few minutes she had passed out cold, and so did the cat who hopped on top of me too. It was a Monday-I let her sleep for awhile. That, or I didn't so much as "let" her sleep as passed out myself for a little while.
School is in a pretty good rhythm, Kaylee is doing fine, and we are starting to wind up for the BBQ Bash...coming up fast!
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Sunday Review
I was planning on taking Steve with me out to Kokomo today and doing a little flying around in the T-6, taking turns, but when the rubber met the road, we were both working on other projects around the house, and neither of us felt like it.
Steve has gotten the cars really cleaned up and repaired and put back in good order, which takes awhile. He's not completely done, but he got a good dent put in it. I did the decluttering, cleaning, laundry, bedding, dishes, forcing Kaylee to finish her weekly chores, airport billing, housework, paperwork tossing, organizing thing. I too am not completely done but got a good dent put in it. It always feels better having things in order. I prefer to do that on days when it's raining or otherwise useless to be able to do anything else, but sometimes when the mood strikes you just have to go with it. ;)
Steve grilled up some brats and Richard & Ann brought over cheesy broccoli and we had a nice dinner, then sat out by a fire in the back yard for a little while while Kaylee ran around and played.
So while I was adding up my logbook, two things stuck out at me.
One, I had 68 hours of time to catch up on logging from the last time I made entries in my logbook, which was the last week of June. I happened to know that last time I added up my hours, I had 70 hours to catch up on. Apparently that's when the nagging in my subconscious starts in on me about getting that done before it gets too far out of control on me. ;)
And two, I saw where I broke the 100 hour mark in T-6 time. I thought it was pretty neat to break the 100 hour mark while flying one morning over a lake at Oshkosh with a Mustang on my wing getting our pictures taken for an article, after a Zero and a Corsair and the Red Tail P-51, then going off and doing our own more relaxing formation flight back into the world's busiest airport. What an amazing thing...
Steve has gotten the cars really cleaned up and repaired and put back in good order, which takes awhile. He's not completely done, but he got a good dent put in it. I did the decluttering, cleaning, laundry, bedding, dishes, forcing Kaylee to finish her weekly chores, airport billing, housework, paperwork tossing, organizing thing. I too am not completely done but got a good dent put in it. It always feels better having things in order. I prefer to do that on days when it's raining or otherwise useless to be able to do anything else, but sometimes when the mood strikes you just have to go with it. ;)
Steve grilled up some brats and Richard & Ann brought over cheesy broccoli and we had a nice dinner, then sat out by a fire in the back yard for a little while while Kaylee ran around and played.
So while I was adding up my logbook, two things stuck out at me.
One, I had 68 hours of time to catch up on logging from the last time I made entries in my logbook, which was the last week of June. I happened to know that last time I added up my hours, I had 70 hours to catch up on. Apparently that's when the nagging in my subconscious starts in on me about getting that done before it gets too far out of control on me. ;)
And two, I saw where I broke the 100 hour mark in T-6 time. I thought it was pretty neat to break the 100 hour mark while flying one morning over a lake at Oshkosh with a Mustang on my wing getting our pictures taken for an article, after a Zero and a Corsair and the Red Tail P-51, then going off and doing our own more relaxing formation flight back into the world's busiest airport. What an amazing thing...
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Weekend Warrior
It was nice to sleep in this morning, and sleep in we did. Lately Dulcie has gotten pesky, coming into our room in the middle of the night and crawling all over us, sticking her nose in our face, and just generally bugging us. It's gotten worse and worse, until we're not even able to get a good night's sleep the last few nights, and I've taken to tossing her off of me less than gently, so last night she got locked onto the deck overnight (with her food and water and litterbox) where she couldn't bug anybody. So I slept like a log, had wild dreams, and started off the morning with Kaylee coming in to give me a big hug and falling asleep again with her arms wrapped around me.
My plans for today were to stay home, relax, and take Kaylee to a little church carnival being hosted by some airport friends of ours. Instead, we met Steve, Chuck, Nathan, Jamie & Gwenie at McDonald's PlayLand for a short time, went out to Kokomo Airport where the kids rode bikes and played for quite awhile, and then I took Kaylee to the carnival, half an hour before it was to end. When we got there, they had moved a lot of it inside due to the rainy weather earlier, and the one thing Kaylee had wanted to do for sure was the Dunk Tank, and it was closed. But she went inside and got her face and hand painted, I got some brownies, she laughed while a group of kids did the Chicken Dance to a large karaoke machine, and then our friend Walt was willing to jump back into the Dunk Tank and let small children throw balls at a target and sink him. Kaylee dunked him three or four times, and at one point said "Enough, Stants! Can't you ground her or something?!" She did it from the far away line too, not the "girl" line as they called it. Pretty good arm on that girl. :)
When we got back, I took the motorcycle out again, making it a record number of times in one season that I've taken it for a spin. ;) It runs great now, and that makes it so much nicer to take out. I rode out to Kokomo Airport and visited for about an hour before heading back home. Then Steve took Kaylee for a quick down the driveway run. She had begged me to take her out on the road, but I said no for now with me. I'm not ready for that responsibility-I'll stick with putting her in the pilot's seat of small airplanes for now. ;)
We came home and had some grilled brats. The day wasn't exactly what I planned, but it was a nice Saturday...
My plans for today were to stay home, relax, and take Kaylee to a little church carnival being hosted by some airport friends of ours. Instead, we met Steve, Chuck, Nathan, Jamie & Gwenie at McDonald's PlayLand for a short time, went out to Kokomo Airport where the kids rode bikes and played for quite awhile, and then I took Kaylee to the carnival, half an hour before it was to end. When we got there, they had moved a lot of it inside due to the rainy weather earlier, and the one thing Kaylee had wanted to do for sure was the Dunk Tank, and it was closed. But she went inside and got her face and hand painted, I got some brownies, she laughed while a group of kids did the Chicken Dance to a large karaoke machine, and then our friend Walt was willing to jump back into the Dunk Tank and let small children throw balls at a target and sink him. Kaylee dunked him three or four times, and at one point said "Enough, Stants! Can't you ground her or something?!" She did it from the far away line too, not the "girl" line as they called it. Pretty good arm on that girl. :)
When we got back, I took the motorcycle out again, making it a record number of times in one season that I've taken it for a spin. ;) It runs great now, and that makes it so much nicer to take out. I rode out to Kokomo Airport and visited for about an hour before heading back home. Then Steve took Kaylee for a quick down the driveway run. She had begged me to take her out on the road, but I said no for now with me. I'm not ready for that responsibility-I'll stick with putting her in the pilot's seat of small airplanes for now. ;)
We came home and had some grilled brats. The day wasn't exactly what I planned, but it was a nice Saturday...
Friday, August 20, 2010
Week One
Kaylee's first week of school is complete, successfully and happily. She aced her first reading, grammar and spelling tests of the year. She brought home her spelling list of twenty words plus seven bonus words. In the car on the way home, Kaylee says "Do you know how to spell 'chrysanthemum'? Because I know how and I'm going to spell it for you." I paused and then said "Honestly, I'm not sure if I'd know you were spelling that one correctly or not without looking at it!" She enjoys being a good speller, and that makes both of our lives easier. I don't even have to study with her on those-she just...gets them. That's so nice!
Tonight she is outside around a little fire with Steve and two of his friends, and they're all just out there chatting and relaxing and having fun. It's cute. :)
This morning I took the Citabria up for a little bit before lunch, and afterwords Steve and I went up so he could do some flying too. We had fun-we usually do when we fly together, even if I'm harassing him about not being coordinated or he's harassing me about not being on the centerline. It's all in good fun. We're a lot alike in our flying habits and standards and beliefs and capabilities, so we're a pretty good "checks and balances" system on each other. I can't get away with anything, and neither can he, and that's not a bad thing as long as it's done appropriately. :) (Nathan too. It works out pretty well!)
I'm glad it's Friday-today was the first morning I was a little unwilling to drag out of bed. It'll be nice to not have to worry about it tomorrow...I'm just catching up on cleaning and laundry and billing again and my logbook and all that good stuff that one lets go a little too far when one gets a little busy in life...
Oh, and for the record, the fact that shows like "Jersey Shore" and "Housewives of DC/Orange County/Wherever" are what is so popular right now makes me feel like the 90 year old woman sitting in a rocking chair despairing for humanity. Ick.
Tonight she is outside around a little fire with Steve and two of his friends, and they're all just out there chatting and relaxing and having fun. It's cute. :)
This morning I took the Citabria up for a little bit before lunch, and afterwords Steve and I went up so he could do some flying too. We had fun-we usually do when we fly together, even if I'm harassing him about not being coordinated or he's harassing me about not being on the centerline. It's all in good fun. We're a lot alike in our flying habits and standards and beliefs and capabilities, so we're a pretty good "checks and balances" system on each other. I can't get away with anything, and neither can he, and that's not a bad thing as long as it's done appropriately. :) (Nathan too. It works out pretty well!)
I'm glad it's Friday-today was the first morning I was a little unwilling to drag out of bed. It'll be nice to not have to worry about it tomorrow...I'm just catching up on cleaning and laundry and billing again and my logbook and all that good stuff that one lets go a little too far when one gets a little busy in life...
Oh, and for the record, the fact that shows like "Jersey Shore" and "Housewives of DC/Orange County/Wherever" are what is so popular right now makes me feel like the 90 year old woman sitting in a rocking chair despairing for humanity. Ick.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Rundown
Flew with K.L. for over an hour this morning doing checkride prep, and this afternoon had another fellow in the Saratoga doing an airplane/avionics checkout for over an hour. Landed from there and helped a friend figure out their new GPS, finished up just in time to talk to a potential new student for awhile, before running out to Glenndale for the EAA chapter meeting for the night. Steve was doing a talk on airplane selling and purchasing paperwork legalities, and I had all his copies with me. I made it there at 7:01 p.m. and the meeting had already begun. Those guys are nothing if not prompt. :)
Oh, I got pictures up on Kaylee's site. There are some from July, August, and her professional Dance photos too...
Oh, I got pictures up on Kaylee's site. There are some from July, August, and her professional Dance photos too...
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Wooster
Irony: I told Steve and Nathan to shut their phones off last night because I'd filed a flight plan that was going to go off probably around 3:30 a.m. I then forgot to shut my own phone off, and at 3:42 a.m. my phone went off with my flight plan. This was only 20 minutes earlier than I was going to get up anyway, so I just...got up.
Oops: I didn't realize until it was too late that the Baron didn't have full fuel tanks, and since I was headed to Massachusetts, I needed all available fuel. Kokomo was closed. Sheridan would have put me too far behind (and I wasn't positive I had a working card for the pump). I was left with Glenndale. So at 4:45 in the morning, when it was still quite pitch black out, I had to come on in to Glenndale. I tried to make the landing as quiet as possible to not disturb anyone, by making it a low power assault landing so to speak, but there isn't much I can do about the 600 hp engines on takeoff out of there. I hope it didn't distress anyone too awful much... :( As I was coming in to land, I kind of had to laugh, because the runway looks short enough in a 172 at night when you haven't been in there in the dark in awhile, with the lights not covering the whole runway length. Not a big deal there, plenty of room, but the visual is different if you're not used to it. In a twin, it's more interesting, about 30 knots faster than a 172 on final. It's a good time to be "on" it. ;)
I was fueled up and back in the air and had picked up my IFR clearance sometime around 5:30 a.m., which is exactly when I originally wanted to leave. I had a nice tailwind at 9000', so I tried to climb up to 11,000' and see if it would be even better. In fact, I lost 20 knots of ground speed, so once I switched controllers I went back down to 9000' and sped my way to Massachusetts with groundspeeds over 200 knots. Not bad!
Irony: There was a TFR over an airport right next to where I was going. It was for an air show. Ends up, it was for the air show that we originally were going to try to make out there in Massachusetts with the Mustang and T-6. but it was too far away to be financially feasible. So instead of the 51 and the 6, we end up having the Cheyenne and the Baron out there. And today I was wearing my Massachusetts 131st Fighter Squadron t-shirt. And I didn't plan that.
Lucky: I touched down at Worcester, MA (known as Wooster), RIGHT at 9 a.m., when I said I'd be there. When I walked in, one of the gents I was picking up said "We can set our watches by when you arrive. That was perfect timing!" Usually I actually try to plan it out that way. Today, I tried, but even though I left half an hour earlier than usual to get fuel, I would have been 30 minutes late if it hadn't been for a really nice tailwind. So I'll call this one "altitude management" and "lucky" both. ;)
The trip was uneventful, about 3 hours and 30 minutes start to stop. On the way home we had a full load in the plane. Full fuel and five passengers. For weight and balance, we put the scrawny guy in the far back seat (for once I don't mind not being a scrawny chick!), myself and another medium guy sat in the middle seats, and Nathan and Kevin up front. I brought the new Robin Cook book and enjoyed the ride. Another uneventful flight and 3 hours and 45 minutes later we were back home in Kokomo...
I hung out at Kokomo for a bit, having about 40 minutes to kill before Kaylee was out of school, grabbed her, then came home and got hit with the sleepies. I guess that 3:45 a.m. wake-up call started catching up with me. I never got a good actual nap in, not with Kaylee talking to me every 15 minutes, and my contacts were glued onto my eyeballs, but I finally got a second wind around 7 p.m. at least. ;)
Oh, Kaylee told her teacher that I was flying to Massachusetts and back today, and her teacher added me to the prayer list for the day, for a safe trip. I figure I can keep them fairly busy praying for me, and you know, I'll take all the help I can get! :)
Oops: I didn't realize until it was too late that the Baron didn't have full fuel tanks, and since I was headed to Massachusetts, I needed all available fuel. Kokomo was closed. Sheridan would have put me too far behind (and I wasn't positive I had a working card for the pump). I was left with Glenndale. So at 4:45 in the morning, when it was still quite pitch black out, I had to come on in to Glenndale. I tried to make the landing as quiet as possible to not disturb anyone, by making it a low power assault landing so to speak, but there isn't much I can do about the 600 hp engines on takeoff out of there. I hope it didn't distress anyone too awful much... :( As I was coming in to land, I kind of had to laugh, because the runway looks short enough in a 172 at night when you haven't been in there in the dark in awhile, with the lights not covering the whole runway length. Not a big deal there, plenty of room, but the visual is different if you're not used to it. In a twin, it's more interesting, about 30 knots faster than a 172 on final. It's a good time to be "on" it. ;)
I was fueled up and back in the air and had picked up my IFR clearance sometime around 5:30 a.m., which is exactly when I originally wanted to leave. I had a nice tailwind at 9000', so I tried to climb up to 11,000' and see if it would be even better. In fact, I lost 20 knots of ground speed, so once I switched controllers I went back down to 9000' and sped my way to Massachusetts with groundspeeds over 200 knots. Not bad!
Irony: There was a TFR over an airport right next to where I was going. It was for an air show. Ends up, it was for the air show that we originally were going to try to make out there in Massachusetts with the Mustang and T-6. but it was too far away to be financially feasible. So instead of the 51 and the 6, we end up having the Cheyenne and the Baron out there. And today I was wearing my Massachusetts 131st Fighter Squadron t-shirt. And I didn't plan that.
Lucky: I touched down at Worcester, MA (known as Wooster), RIGHT at 9 a.m., when I said I'd be there. When I walked in, one of the gents I was picking up said "We can set our watches by when you arrive. That was perfect timing!" Usually I actually try to plan it out that way. Today, I tried, but even though I left half an hour earlier than usual to get fuel, I would have been 30 minutes late if it hadn't been for a really nice tailwind. So I'll call this one "altitude management" and "lucky" both. ;)
The trip was uneventful, about 3 hours and 30 minutes start to stop. On the way home we had a full load in the plane. Full fuel and five passengers. For weight and balance, we put the scrawny guy in the far back seat (for once I don't mind not being a scrawny chick!), myself and another medium guy sat in the middle seats, and Nathan and Kevin up front. I brought the new Robin Cook book and enjoyed the ride. Another uneventful flight and 3 hours and 45 minutes later we were back home in Kokomo...
I hung out at Kokomo for a bit, having about 40 minutes to kill before Kaylee was out of school, grabbed her, then came home and got hit with the sleepies. I guess that 3:45 a.m. wake-up call started catching up with me. I never got a good actual nap in, not with Kaylee talking to me every 15 minutes, and my contacts were glued onto my eyeballs, but I finally got a second wind around 7 p.m. at least. ;)
Oh, Kaylee told her teacher that I was flying to Massachusetts and back today, and her teacher added me to the prayer list for the day, for a safe trip. I figure I can keep them fairly busy praying for me, and you know, I'll take all the help I can get! :)
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Excerpt
I've been running pretty well today. After dropping Kaylee off for her first full day of fourth grade, I went out to Glenndale to fly for an hour with a brand new student. That first flight is always at least an hour of ground, usually a little more, and then taking it up into the air. We landed and it was time to go right up in the Citabria for a flight review. Window open, cooler day, smooth air, it was a really nice day to go fly. We were done in time for a late lunch, on to errands, then picking Kaylee up from school, a few more things to go do, like picking up Kaylee's ballet/tap/jazz photos (I'll get them scanned in later), then home to do some accounting and other work. I even got my glasses fixed. I had a new pair of prescription glasses that I ended up sitting on and squishing. One arm broke off, the other arm and frame bent, I thought it was a lost cause. I didn't take them back in thinking I'd have to get new frames, and I didn't want to spend the money, so I just used my old pair of glasses instead, for months now. The problem was, the old pair is an old prescription, and the other day when I was reading late at night, I found that I couldn't see the words clearly even with my glasses. I had to go put my contacts in. So I walked into the eyeglasses place to see how bad the damage would be for new frames, and the guy said "I can fix this", which he proceeded to do in 15 minutes, free of charge. And now I can see without straining again. Go Guy!
Fourth Grade:
Fourth Grade:
Monday, August 16, 2010
Back To School
This morning Kaylee got dressed in her new jeans and a new leopard top and skipped into 4th Grade. When I came to pick her up for the day, she was still skipping and smiling. They hadn't done much of anything this first half day except settle in, get their desks in order, meet each other (two new kids this year and a new teacher), and reconnect, but she had fun.
One of the girls in her class who knew her last year looked her up and down and in a snarky voice said "What's with the jeans?"
Did she feel weird about wearing jeans for one of the first times ever? Did she look for approval and ask if she looked okay? Did she get defensive or angry? Did she care in the least? Nope. Kaylee shrugged and replied simply "I like them now" and moved on. Subject closed, next topic.
I love her confidence. :)
One of the girls in her class who knew her last year looked her up and down and in a snarky voice said "What's with the jeans?"
Did she feel weird about wearing jeans for one of the first times ever? Did she look for approval and ask if she looked okay? Did she get defensive or angry? Did she care in the least? Nope. Kaylee shrugged and replied simply "I like them now" and moved on. Subject closed, next topic.
I love her confidence. :)
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Journeys
I choose what books I'm going to read in a very haphazard way. Almost never do I read something because I researched or hunted down The Book To Read on a topic. Rarely do I even know what the "buzz" is on the current hot book, (other than the "Twilight" or "Harry Potter" series which were impossible to miss hearing about.) I don't even usually read the entire book jacket. When I pick out a book to read, I do it in about 30 seconds. I scan all the covers and titles of the new releases, find two or three that interest me, and read about the first paragraph of the description. From there one grabs me and I'm done. Or if it's an author I already know, I usually won't even read what it's about before I buy it. It doesn't matter-I know I'll like it.
So when I picked up "The Passage" by Justin Cronin, that's all I did. Scanned the titles and covers, that one caught my eye, I skimmed the whole description because I didn't know the author, and tossed it in the cart, in under 30 seconds. Government project gone wrong, world in trouble, band of survivors, seemed like something I'd enjoy. I had no idea that it was a current "popular" read, and I had no idea what it was actually about. But once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down, and it took me until 5 a.m. this morning to finish all 784 pages of it. Yes, I stayed up until 4:57 a.m. to finish a book. I tried to put it down around 2:30, and failed. A doctor who loses his wife to cancer seeks (and finds) a way to extend life for hundreds of years, heal quickly, increase strength, etc., all with honorable intentions. The military hears about it, thinks it will make for a great soldier/weapon, and convinces the doctor it is for the greater good, a win/win to use death row inmates as subjects to perfect his virus. What can go wrong, right? ;) But when I realized that the virus had basically turned some people into monsters an awful lot like vampires, I thought "Oh, you have got to be kidding me." But that's not what it is, somehow. It reminded me a Lot of Stephen King's "The Stand" and "Swan Song" by Robert McCammon, also apocalyptic books. Insights on human nature, on courage, on survival, on duty, on morality and sacrifice and ethics and justice and choices. (Also has a bit of "I Am Legend" in it too.) This book made you see the story from several different people's eyes, many of whom did not survive the entire journey, and the author does a great job letting you look at snapshots from a variety of perspectives, including from the minds of some of the poor people who go "viral". It has some adult language and themes, so isn't for everyone, but the storytelling was good and I was hooked.
But when the book ended, after all that, it just...ended. There were way too many unanswered questions, and I was really irritated, trying to figure out if I was supposed to clue together the rest on my own or what. So I Googled the book, looking for somebody to tell me what was going on, only to find out this is supposed to be a trilogy, and the next installment isn't going to come out for over two years!! I Can Not Stand That!! So I'll have to wait 4-5 years to get the full story? This is why I didn't read "The Green Mile" until King was done publishing all of it, so I could read it in one bite. *sigh* Oh well, by the time the next segment comes out, it will have been so long I probably won't care what happens any more. ;)
Meanwhile Kaylee & Steve had a camp out night of their own, hanging out and talking and staying up late. Kind of a final hoopla before school starts. Steve got his canoes and trailer taken care of, moved, cleaned up and ready to take out on the water before winter gets here, Kenny got Kaylee's bike wheel repaired from where it got a bit bent with all the rough terrain at Oshkosh, I got the Corvette home home from the airport (it goes a lot better when you take the parking brake off by the way), Kaylee got her school bag packed and her clothes picked out for her first day, and we're looking ready for the week...
So when I picked up "The Passage" by Justin Cronin, that's all I did. Scanned the titles and covers, that one caught my eye, I skimmed the whole description because I didn't know the author, and tossed it in the cart, in under 30 seconds. Government project gone wrong, world in trouble, band of survivors, seemed like something I'd enjoy. I had no idea that it was a current "popular" read, and I had no idea what it was actually about. But once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down, and it took me until 5 a.m. this morning to finish all 784 pages of it. Yes, I stayed up until 4:57 a.m. to finish a book. I tried to put it down around 2:30, and failed. A doctor who loses his wife to cancer seeks (and finds) a way to extend life for hundreds of years, heal quickly, increase strength, etc., all with honorable intentions. The military hears about it, thinks it will make for a great soldier/weapon, and convinces the doctor it is for the greater good, a win/win to use death row inmates as subjects to perfect his virus. What can go wrong, right? ;) But when I realized that the virus had basically turned some people into monsters an awful lot like vampires, I thought "Oh, you have got to be kidding me." But that's not what it is, somehow. It reminded me a Lot of Stephen King's "The Stand" and "Swan Song" by Robert McCammon, also apocalyptic books. Insights on human nature, on courage, on survival, on duty, on morality and sacrifice and ethics and justice and choices. (Also has a bit of "I Am Legend" in it too.) This book made you see the story from several different people's eyes, many of whom did not survive the entire journey, and the author does a great job letting you look at snapshots from a variety of perspectives, including from the minds of some of the poor people who go "viral". It has some adult language and themes, so isn't for everyone, but the storytelling was good and I was hooked.
But when the book ended, after all that, it just...ended. There were way too many unanswered questions, and I was really irritated, trying to figure out if I was supposed to clue together the rest on my own or what. So I Googled the book, looking for somebody to tell me what was going on, only to find out this is supposed to be a trilogy, and the next installment isn't going to come out for over two years!! I Can Not Stand That!! So I'll have to wait 4-5 years to get the full story? This is why I didn't read "The Green Mile" until King was done publishing all of it, so I could read it in one bite. *sigh* Oh well, by the time the next segment comes out, it will have been so long I probably won't care what happens any more. ;)
Meanwhile Kaylee & Steve had a camp out night of their own, hanging out and talking and staying up late. Kind of a final hoopla before school starts. Steve got his canoes and trailer taken care of, moved, cleaned up and ready to take out on the water before winter gets here, Kenny got Kaylee's bike wheel repaired from where it got a bit bent with all the rough terrain at Oshkosh, I got the Corvette home home from the airport (it goes a lot better when you take the parking brake off by the way), Kaylee got her school bag packed and her clothes picked out for her first day, and we're looking ready for the week...
Friday, August 13, 2010
Friday the 13th
While we were at Oshkosh, Jack Rousch crashed his jet coming in to land. He's a NASCAR owner if you're not familiar, and he usually is known for flying his P-51 Mustangs. He also has a fairly large Premier jet. Coming in to land at Oshkosh, he overshot the runway, was slow, tried to crank it around like you might a Mustang, but that doesn't work well in a heavy jet. He stalled it out, hit the ground, the plane broke into several pieces, but he and his secretary walked out. He ended up with a fractured spine, a concussion, lost his left eye and had facial reconstruction surgery. This is his second major accident plus a third more minor one, a groundloop. He says he will be flying again soon. She was pretty much fine. So why do I mention all this? Because the media keeps calling it a "Hard Landing". Jack Rousch had a "hard landing". Um, I'VE had a hard landing. I have witnesses to prove it even. This was called a "crash". I think it's funny how news reporters will call a guy who makes a safe emergency landing after an engine failure a pilot who "crashed", while they are calling a stall/crash/break the plane in two a 'hard landing'. Right. Sure. Whatever you say!
I had a cross-country flight tonight, a student's first time going somewhere besides the home drone. The airplane we were in has two GPSs. When we got in, I shut down the two GPSs, and said we were going to do this by dead reckoning and pilotage, which is basically using a watch, a map, and calculations you made on what headings, timing, etc. to expect to get from Point A to Point B. Following a pink line while the machine tells you exactly where you are just does not do you any good on learning how to actually navigate an airplane. And if the box fails, that "pilot" is thoroughly lost. Most people these days are diametrically opposed to doing it the "old-fashioned" way. This person said "Oh, good! I want to learn how to do it the right way first!" That's unusual, and refreshing. ;) And, they did great, too. I didn't even have distance measuring equipment set up in there, and we still ended up right on top of our airport, Connorsville, right at the exact time we figured out we should. And the old-fashioned way wins another round. It's more work, but it works, and it's a great foundation. I trust students (and pilots) a lot more when I know they can handle the unexpected too, not just the expected. This one did just fine. :)
I had a cross-country flight tonight, a student's first time going somewhere besides the home drone. The airplane we were in has two GPSs. When we got in, I shut down the two GPSs, and said we were going to do this by dead reckoning and pilotage, which is basically using a watch, a map, and calculations you made on what headings, timing, etc. to expect to get from Point A to Point B. Following a pink line while the machine tells you exactly where you are just does not do you any good on learning how to actually navigate an airplane. And if the box fails, that "pilot" is thoroughly lost. Most people these days are diametrically opposed to doing it the "old-fashioned" way. This person said "Oh, good! I want to learn how to do it the right way first!" That's unusual, and refreshing. ;) And, they did great, too. I didn't even have distance measuring equipment set up in there, and we still ended up right on top of our airport, Connorsville, right at the exact time we figured out we should. And the old-fashioned way wins another round. It's more work, but it works, and it's a great foundation. I trust students (and pilots) a lot more when I know they can handle the unexpected too, not just the expected. This one did just fine. :)
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Hot Wings
It was another scorcher today. I had a business flight this morning, ended up being 3.1 hours in the air. We went to Joliet, Illinois, were just there for a little over an hour, then headed over to Chicago and stayed there for about three hours. There's a restaurant on field there called the "Kitty Hawk Diner", with a full view of the runways and ramp, and while I waited, I read a book, ate an excellent Cajun-seasoned tuna steak sandwich, and watched airplanes go by. At a table nearby sat a family of five. A mom, her sister, two little boys and a little girl. Every time an airplane would come up on the ramp or takeoff down the runway, that whole family would jump up from the table, the kids would press their faces and hands against the window, the two ladies would take pictures with their cell phones, and the kids would chatter excitedly about the type or look or sound of the airplane. They were entranced, and their enthusiasm made me smile.
This evening Kaylee and I went shopping. She has outgrown a lot of her clothes, and just before school starts is a good time to hit some sales, so away we went, for two hours. Kaylee tried on clothes until even SHE was sick of trying on clothes. Hehehe. She ended up with quite a few things, which is good because she was wearing the same three shirts over and over, and now she has some comfortable and nice-looking choices. The biggest shock though, was jeans. Up to now, that girl will not wear jeans, hates jeans. Today she decided she wanted jeans, and she tried on a bunch of them until she found two pair that she liked. She also just in the last month has decided she liked hamburgers...something she would never touch up till now. The other day she ordered tomato soup and pasta with marinara sauce, two more things she'd not eat. I raised an eyebrow...I guess she's growing up and changing, and she's hard to keep up with now!
As we were trying to get to the store, we kept running into construction, and I couldn't find a good way in. I was getting a little frustrated after my next trip around the block, when I saw a green VW bug. I said "Green one!" to Kaylee, and she said "Aww!", then "Well, at least you still have your sense of humor." Yes, indeed. ;)
This evening Kaylee and I went shopping. She has outgrown a lot of her clothes, and just before school starts is a good time to hit some sales, so away we went, for two hours. Kaylee tried on clothes until even SHE was sick of trying on clothes. Hehehe. She ended up with quite a few things, which is good because she was wearing the same three shirts over and over, and now she has some comfortable and nice-looking choices. The biggest shock though, was jeans. Up to now, that girl will not wear jeans, hates jeans. Today she decided she wanted jeans, and she tried on a bunch of them until she found two pair that she liked. She also just in the last month has decided she liked hamburgers...something she would never touch up till now. The other day she ordered tomato soup and pasta with marinara sauce, two more things she'd not eat. I raised an eyebrow...I guess she's growing up and changing, and she's hard to keep up with now!
As we were trying to get to the store, we kept running into construction, and I couldn't find a good way in. I was getting a little frustrated after my next trip around the block, when I saw a green VW bug. I said "Green one!" to Kaylee, and she said "Aww!", then "Well, at least you still have your sense of humor." Yes, indeed. ;)
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Summer Wind-Down
Actually, while school may be starting next week, anyone looking at a thermometer around here would say Summer still has a pretty good grip on us. So after getting all the billing mail out this morning, we took advantage of one of the last days of "freedom" Kaylee has left, and went over to Nathan/Tre's house and went swimming. All afternoon. Well, I sat and read. Kaylee swam. :) There was a whole bunch of kids there in the pool, which was fun because there were plenty of people for everyone to play with. I read, visited a little, and watched butterflies while listening to the sound of happy kids splashing and getting even more tan. We finished off the evening with pizza, wings and breadsticks.
On the way home we got into a discussion about corn and beans. Kaylee couldn't see how bean plants could be as tall as I was telling her they were, so I just pulled off the side of the road and had her walk to the edge of the bean field. She was amazed that they were past her waist. So next we stopped off the side of the road to stand by corn. She looked up and said "That has to be 7 feet tall! That's as tall as Shaq!"
She's grown up in Indiana, but this is the first time she's stood next to a bean plant. Now she knows, and that was my schooling moment for the day. ;)
On the way home we got into a discussion about corn and beans. Kaylee couldn't see how bean plants could be as tall as I was telling her they were, so I just pulled off the side of the road and had her walk to the edge of the bean field. She was amazed that they were past her waist. So next we stopped off the side of the road to stand by corn. She looked up and said "That has to be 7 feet tall! That's as tall as Shaq!"
She's grown up in Indiana, but this is the first time she's stood next to a bean plant. Now she knows, and that was my schooling moment for the day. ;)
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Dunked
I had promised Kaylee we'd go swimming today, but that was made a tad more difficult when the Jeep broke down yesterday, the Oldsmobile was already in the shop, the Corvette was in the hangar at Kokomo, Steve had a morning lesson, and I didn't have a vehicle. Of course I could have thrown Kaylee on the motorcycle with me....nah. (Just kidding. I wouldn't do that yet.) Chuck was kind enough to pick Kaylee and myself up at home here and drive us out to Kokomo, where we got in the Baron with Steve C. and Jon and Nathan and flew to Muncie. The side reason was to pick up an airplane from the shop there, but the real reason was lunch, of course. ;) The plane we were there to pick up ended up with additional problems, so we hung out at Muncie for awhile. Eventually I took the Baron and the others and went back to Kokomo, where Steve gave me a ride to pick up my Jeep. Kaylee had an Open House tonight at her school from 6-8, and I'd promised her swimming, so we'd packed all our stuff so we could go right from lunch to swimming. Lunch ended up extended, then I had to get the Jeep, then Kaylee informed me in a panic that she had packed her bag full of everything she needs...except her swim suit. I'm also out of gas in the Jeep. And we're now hungry again. So we stop one place. And we go home again. And we stop another place. And finally we get to the pool right at 4:30. Of course if we're going to make the Open House at 6, we'd have to leave here by 5:30, already dressed for the event. So we compromised and decided to show up at 7 instead. That worked pretty well. She got to swim for two hours and have fun, then she got out of the pool, dressed up in her nice school outfit, had me fix her hair, I changed my shirt to one that doesn't have an airplane on it, and we went right to the Open House. Kaylee got to meet her new teacher, Mrs. R., and she also got to see her friend Cameron, who she's known since 1st grade. There are two new girls in her class this year, for a total of 12 kids, six boys and six girls. That sounds great to me. :) I talked to the teacher some, asked questions about a few things, and everything sounds good...When we left, her teacher accidentally called her Kelsi, which is one of the other girls in her class, and while Kaylee noticed, she didn't correct her. All in all Kaylee is getting a little more excited about starting school, even if she's not excited about getting up early and doing school work. ;)
Monday, August 09, 2010
Pre School Round-Up
It was a Kaylee day, mostly. Once I got her awake and going, we ran two errands of mine, the second of which was right next to an ice cream place. I'd promised her ice cream afterwards, but when we got there it was to a big "CLOSED" sign. Gasp! Horror! We went to a nearby store instead and picked up most of her 4th grade school supplies. This is never that much fun to me, because they have specific things they want but they aren't super specific about them at the time. For example, "pack of index cards". What size? 100 or 500? Lined or unlined? White or colored? Know what I mean? Being not the best at this kind of thing, I often tend to guess wrong and end up going back for other supplies after school starts. I dislike that kind of inefficiency. This list also said "A box of 8 Crayons and a box of 16 Crayons". The store today had a box of 24 Crayons. Kaylee said "But 8 + 16 is 24, so why wouldn't that work?" I don't know. I don't know why I have to go find a box of 8 and a box of 16 when a box of 24 is right there. But that's what I'm going to do because that's what the List said and something tells me if she shows up with a box of 24, she'll be the only one and it won't be right. (Do they really need crayons in 4th grade?) Anyway, we got most of it today, and I'll get the rest probably tomorrow.
We stopped at the Mexican restaurant for lunch with 6 of our other friends, and then it was Not Kaylee time. I had an hour flight in the Saratoga, checking out someone in the plane, so I took her to the hangar where she ran around on her scooter and hung out in the hangar with Kid TV on (something she hasn't had at home for months now). And it was Hot. Today there were heat index warnings out, and in a small airplane with no air conditioning and a lot of windows, it gets H O T, and there's nothing you can do about it.
After my hour in the Saratoga Sauna, Kaylee and I hit the library, where she had a hard time limiting herself to twelve books to bring home. I made her put back the other eight she had, as I figured 20 was a few too many. I remember being her age and picking up 10-12 books at a time and bringing them back in a couple of days for the next round. I love that she prefers to read before she goes to sleep, that she's getting into "story land". What's not as easy as when she insists on telling me all about every book she's reading, a blow by blow that takes longer for me to listen to than it would for me to just read the book myself. But I think that's payback for my Mom, since I recall doing the same thing to her. ;)
Leaving the library, you know what's right there? Scoops! (Ice cream place). Time for a single scoop in a waffle cone. Their single scoop is so huge that even Kaylee couldn't finish hers, and that says a lot. She finally got that ice cream she'd been promised, and all was almost right with the world again.
I came home and had to change clothes before heading out to my school board meeting for this month. We met up first for over an hour, then had a pizza party with the board and the teachers for this year. It was a little ironic that I met Kaylee's teacher for the first time today, because at the library today Kaylee pointed to a blond woman and said "She looks like a teacher. Mrs. K said my teacher this year was blond and young. Maybe she's my teacher!" I told her I kind of doubted it, but it was obviously on her mind. So tonight I meet her teacher, Mrs. R., and she seems nice and energetic and eager, good qualities for that class of twelve kids. :)
The next step was all of us working together to get the school ready for its Open House tomorrow evening. I dusted floorboards and vacuumed vents and the halls while the men moved a refrigerator and cleaned up and moved some desks into the rooms, while the teachers worked on getting their own rooms set up just how they wanted them. Altogether it worked out pretty well and we got a lot done in a short time. Finally it was time for me to go home, but I only got out of the driveway headed down the road when I heard this horrid flapping noise. It sounded like I had a seriously flat tire, but it didn't feel like it. I pulled off to the side of the road, and looked at my rear right tire, and it was fine. I frown, figure maybe something got caught up back there and it's loose now, try to drive again, and "whap whap whap whap!" I pull back off and look all the way under the Jeep: Muffler broken off. It's not hitting the ground, but it's banging into the drive train. Loudly. I can't even creep along slowly without a terrible racket, but I ease my way back into the church parking lot. I go inside, and the pastor gives another guy a spool of wire, and he comes out and wires up my muffler so that I can at least drive it to the mechanic's place. I go to leave, and...my keys aren't in the ignition. I groan and walk all the way back into the church...and still can't find my keys anywhere. I circled that whole church three times, going over every place I went and some I didn't. Nothing. I went back to the Jeep and searched it and my purse again. Nothing. Now I'm really getting disturbed. Until the gent who wired up my muffler for me said "Did you check your roof?" and there they were, hidden behind the rack. Of all places. I would have never looked there either, so it's a good thing he was there. I got the Jeep safely to the repair place, had a friend pick me up and bring me home, and finally the day was almost over. ;) I was very grateful that if the car had to break down, it did it at a place where I could get help easily, where folks were there who had the ability and tools to help, as opposed to being stuck by the side of the road off of Hwy 31 all by myself.
Things work out for the best, usually... :)
We stopped at the Mexican restaurant for lunch with 6 of our other friends, and then it was Not Kaylee time. I had an hour flight in the Saratoga, checking out someone in the plane, so I took her to the hangar where she ran around on her scooter and hung out in the hangar with Kid TV on (something she hasn't had at home for months now). And it was Hot. Today there were heat index warnings out, and in a small airplane with no air conditioning and a lot of windows, it gets H O T, and there's nothing you can do about it.
After my hour in the Saratoga Sauna, Kaylee and I hit the library, where she had a hard time limiting herself to twelve books to bring home. I made her put back the other eight she had, as I figured 20 was a few too many. I remember being her age and picking up 10-12 books at a time and bringing them back in a couple of days for the next round. I love that she prefers to read before she goes to sleep, that she's getting into "story land". What's not as easy as when she insists on telling me all about every book she's reading, a blow by blow that takes longer for me to listen to than it would for me to just read the book myself. But I think that's payback for my Mom, since I recall doing the same thing to her. ;)
Leaving the library, you know what's right there? Scoops! (Ice cream place). Time for a single scoop in a waffle cone. Their single scoop is so huge that even Kaylee couldn't finish hers, and that says a lot. She finally got that ice cream she'd been promised, and all was almost right with the world again.
I came home and had to change clothes before heading out to my school board meeting for this month. We met up first for over an hour, then had a pizza party with the board and the teachers for this year. It was a little ironic that I met Kaylee's teacher for the first time today, because at the library today Kaylee pointed to a blond woman and said "She looks like a teacher. Mrs. K said my teacher this year was blond and young. Maybe she's my teacher!" I told her I kind of doubted it, but it was obviously on her mind. So tonight I meet her teacher, Mrs. R., and she seems nice and energetic and eager, good qualities for that class of twelve kids. :)
The next step was all of us working together to get the school ready for its Open House tomorrow evening. I dusted floorboards and vacuumed vents and the halls while the men moved a refrigerator and cleaned up and moved some desks into the rooms, while the teachers worked on getting their own rooms set up just how they wanted them. Altogether it worked out pretty well and we got a lot done in a short time. Finally it was time for me to go home, but I only got out of the driveway headed down the road when I heard this horrid flapping noise. It sounded like I had a seriously flat tire, but it didn't feel like it. I pulled off to the side of the road, and looked at my rear right tire, and it was fine. I frown, figure maybe something got caught up back there and it's loose now, try to drive again, and "whap whap whap whap!" I pull back off and look all the way under the Jeep: Muffler broken off. It's not hitting the ground, but it's banging into the drive train. Loudly. I can't even creep along slowly without a terrible racket, but I ease my way back into the church parking lot. I go inside, and the pastor gives another guy a spool of wire, and he comes out and wires up my muffler so that I can at least drive it to the mechanic's place. I go to leave, and...my keys aren't in the ignition. I groan and walk all the way back into the church...and still can't find my keys anywhere. I circled that whole church three times, going over every place I went and some I didn't. Nothing. I went back to the Jeep and searched it and my purse again. Nothing. Now I'm really getting disturbed. Until the gent who wired up my muffler for me said "Did you check your roof?" and there they were, hidden behind the rack. Of all places. I would have never looked there either, so it's a good thing he was there. I got the Jeep safely to the repair place, had a friend pick me up and bring me home, and finally the day was almost over. ;) I was very grateful that if the car had to break down, it did it at a place where I could get help easily, where folks were there who had the ability and tools to help, as opposed to being stuck by the side of the road off of Hwy 31 all by myself.
Things work out for the best, usually... :)
Sunday, August 08, 2010
Shortly
Steve was the trooper who was out at the airport by 7 a.m. to let the aerobatic guys into the hangars. He waited until after lunch, making sure all the planes were out and nobody seemed to need anything before heading home with a headache. Today was the last day of the competition, and we are all caught up on the "angry little airplanes" as Chuck called it. :)
Tonight on ABC they did a rerun of "Extreme Home Makeover Edition", and it was the one done here in Kokomo. I watched again just to catch sight of the airport, the ramp, the Cheyenne, the hangars, etc. It's always kind of fun to see your home turf on TV, you know? (Well, almost always...)
I've got a few pictures of the planes packed into the hangars, so I'll see if I can get one of those posted later. Other than that, here comes Monday!
Tonight on ABC they did a rerun of "Extreme Home Makeover Edition", and it was the one done here in Kokomo. I watched again just to catch sight of the airport, the ramp, the Cheyenne, the hangars, etc. It's always kind of fun to see your home turf on TV, you know? (Well, almost always...)
I've got a few pictures of the planes packed into the hangars, so I'll see if I can get one of those posted later. Other than that, here comes Monday!
Saturday, August 07, 2010
Hoedown Throwdown
Chuck was up and at 'em early this morning, letting the aerobatic pilots into the hangars to get their planes. Nathan and Steve were out not too much later, and Kaylee and I straggled in a few hours later.
It was an awfully pretty day. Not too hot, a decent breeze but not too much, blue skies, and we weren't responsible for doing all the work at the event. :) I did a maintenance flight on 739SC, and it went just fine, but otherwise I sat on the ground and watched everyone else fly. The place was really packed out for awhile this morning, as we had somewhere between 150-200 cars in the grass on the other side of the fence of folks coming out to watch the competition. People sitting on top of RVs, folks camping out in the grass, folks who came locally to watch. Later that evening a small group of us went to Applebees for dinner, came back and made sure all the planes were put away safely, and hung out for the party at Bob's hangar. Live hoedown music, open drinks, a speech by the IAC chapter president, and more music, talking and eating/drinking. It was a beautiful evening, and we didn't get home until almost 10 p.m. :) Kaylee's feet were so dirty I just threw her into the bathtub as soon as we walked into the house. I still like it when she plays hard on her bike and scooter and feet and gets all dirty at the airport...
On the way home, I was in the Jeep and Steve & Kaylee were in the Suburban. They passed me at one point, and I told myself, "I am not racing tonight." But then traffic worked in my favor and I passed them anyway, and ended up a couple stoplights ahead, and I admit, I snickered about it. Coming up on the home stretch, I see this vehicle do a semi-stop at a cross-street stop sign and head for home, and realized it was the Suburban and they were now in front of me. I burst out laughing, and laughed the last two blocks home. They got me. They got out of the Suburban and danced in the driveway with some sort of chant about how they beat me. No, it doesn't come naturally to this family, not at all. ;)
It was an awfully pretty day. Not too hot, a decent breeze but not too much, blue skies, and we weren't responsible for doing all the work at the event. :) I did a maintenance flight on 739SC, and it went just fine, but otherwise I sat on the ground and watched everyone else fly. The place was really packed out for awhile this morning, as we had somewhere between 150-200 cars in the grass on the other side of the fence of folks coming out to watch the competition. People sitting on top of RVs, folks camping out in the grass, folks who came locally to watch. Later that evening a small group of us went to Applebees for dinner, came back and made sure all the planes were put away safely, and hung out for the party at Bob's hangar. Live hoedown music, open drinks, a speech by the IAC chapter president, and more music, talking and eating/drinking. It was a beautiful evening, and we didn't get home until almost 10 p.m. :) Kaylee's feet were so dirty I just threw her into the bathtub as soon as we walked into the house. I still like it when she plays hard on her bike and scooter and feet and gets all dirty at the airport...
On the way home, I was in the Jeep and Steve & Kaylee were in the Suburban. They passed me at one point, and I told myself, "I am not racing tonight." But then traffic worked in my favor and I passed them anyway, and ended up a couple stoplights ahead, and I admit, I snickered about it. Coming up on the home stretch, I see this vehicle do a semi-stop at a cross-street stop sign and head for home, and realized it was the Suburban and they were now in front of me. I burst out laughing, and laughed the last two blocks home. They got me. They got out of the Suburban and danced in the driveway with some sort of chant about how they beat me. No, it doesn't come naturally to this family, not at all. ;)
Oshkosh 2010 Video
This guy Slick does a video every year, and he does such a fantastic job. Last year's video is probably always going to be my favorite-I still watch it now and then-but here is this year's video...snapshots taken in a ten-day period of time. :)
Friday, August 06, 2010
Flying Friday
It was an early one this morning. Steve had to be down at Sheridan by 7 a.m., and I was out at Glenndale by 8:30. Originally I was going to fly with a student, but instead I sent him off solo and went flying with Kaylee in the Citabria. I put her up front, and it's the first time she's been in the front seat of a tandem plane, first time she's started and shut down an airplane herself. She was a little 
uncertain about being up front in the "In Charge" seat, but once she got the plane started successfully, she was pretty much ready to go. She can't quite reach the rudders properly from the front seat, so I had to help with that, but she controlled the power, the elevator and the ailerons herself today, doing the takeoff, straight and level, turns, and bringing us down final through to the landing. She's very quick and responsive, so when I say "left, left, back, hold it right there", etc. she'll do it at appropriate amounts. We had a bit of a crosswind today, so I was telling her how much left aileron to hold, and I was bringing in the right rudder, and she actually did do the level off and flare without me having to take over the stick. When I said "Now bring the stick back to your belly and hold it there", that's exactly what she did, nice and smooth, and luck or not, it worked out quite nicely. ;) Something else new she learned today was the trim. She figured out how sensitive it was and how to adjust it to help keep you level, and she learned how to use a couple of the instruments to help her figure out when she's not climbing, descending or turning (since she only has peripheral vision right now...isn't tall enough to see over the cowling). More importantly, she had a fun time with it. (So did I).
After hot dogs for lunch, I flew with Scott in the Citabria over to Kokomo to drop him off, topped off the airplane when I got back to Glenndale, put it away, and then we went out to Kokomo Airport where it was Registration and Practice day for the IAC Competition. The "Hoosier Hoedown". Nathan says it should be renamed the "Boiler Hoedown" because there are way more Purdue guys there than IU guys. ;) There are 36 participants in something like 23 airplanes, which is a really nice turnout for a first-time event. Obviously the aerobatic folks were needing an Indiana venue as well. Nathan is the technical inspector, and he goes through and inspects the airplanes (and the pilots' paperwork) very carefully to make sure that they are safe and good to go fly. As the day wound down, we started putting the airplanes into all the available hangar space, and it's quite a sight. We got ten airplanes in Nathan's hangar, and that space also includes the big ole T-6, his huge bus, two Corvettes and a four-wheeler. Now THAT'S a hangar. And a stacking job. I went up to the scaffolding and took some photos from up there, but I need a wider angle lens and/or more distance from them to get them all at once. We also got over 13 airplanes in the maintenance hangar of the airport, and a couple in Ed's hangar where I used to keep the Pizza Hut plane. At the end of the day all the planes were warm and dry and tucked into some seriously tight spaces, and the Mission was Accomplished.
Jon finished the Baron today, so after running it and checking for leaks (nope!), I took Jon and Justin up on the maintenance checkout flight. Technically shouldn't have. Did anyway. I was ready to abort as necessary (as always in a twin), but she ran like a charm. I only kept it up long enough to check out the systems and performance, and came on in for a sunset landing. Love that airplane...
Steve and Kaylee left the airport early to go to a Blues concert being held in Foster Park. It's a free concert, they do a different one each Friday evening. They had a great time, enjoyed the music, ran into several friends, and had ice cream afterwards which really made Kaylee smile. :) We all didn't get home until well after 9 p.m. from our respective events.
It was a good day for all, I think...
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uncertain about being up front in the "In Charge" seat, but once she got the plane started successfully, she was pretty much ready to go. She can't quite reach the rudders properly from the front seat, so I had to help with that, but she controlled the power, the elevator and the ailerons herself today, doing the takeoff, straight and level, turns, and bringing us down final through to the landing. She's very quick and responsive, so when I say "left, left, back, hold it right there", etc. she'll do it at appropriate amounts. We had a bit of a crosswind today, so I was telling her how much left aileron to hold, and I was bringing in the right rudder, and she actually did do the level off and flare without me having to take over the stick. When I said "Now bring the stick back to your belly and hold it there", that's exactly what she did, nice and smooth, and luck or not, it worked out quite nicely. ;) Something else new she learned today was the trim. She figured out how sensitive it was and how to adjust it to help keep you level, and she learned how to use a couple of the instruments to help her figure out when she's not climbing, descending or turning (since she only has peripheral vision right now...isn't tall enough to see over the cowling). More importantly, she had a fun time with it. (So did I).After hot dogs for lunch, I flew with Scott in the Citabria over to Kokomo to drop him off, topped off the airplane when I got back to Glenndale, put it away, and then we went out to Kokomo Airport where it was Registration and Practice day for the IAC Competition. The "Hoosier Hoedown". Nathan says it should be renamed the "Boiler Hoedown" because there are way more Purdue guys there than IU guys. ;) There are 36 participants in something like 23 airplanes, which is a really nice turnout for a first-time event. Obviously the aerobatic folks were needing an Indiana venue as well. Nathan is the technical inspector, and he goes through and inspects the airplanes (and the pilots' paperwork) very carefully to make sure that they are safe and good to go fly. As the day wound down, we started putting the airplanes into all the available hangar space, and it's quite a sight. We got ten airplanes in Nathan's hangar, and that space also includes the big ole T-6, his huge bus, two Corvettes and a four-wheeler. Now THAT'S a hangar. And a stacking job. I went up to the scaffolding and took some photos from up there, but I need a wider angle lens and/or more distance from them to get them all at once. We also got over 13 airplanes in the maintenance hangar of the airport, and a couple in Ed's hangar where I used to keep the Pizza Hut plane. At the end of the day all the planes were warm and dry and tucked into some seriously tight spaces, and the Mission was Accomplished.
Jon finished the Baron today, so after running it and checking for leaks (nope!), I took Jon and Justin up on the maintenance checkout flight. Technically shouldn't have. Did anyway. I was ready to abort as necessary (as always in a twin), but she ran like a charm. I only kept it up long enough to check out the systems and performance, and came on in for a sunset landing. Love that airplane...
Steve and Kaylee left the airport early to go to a Blues concert being held in Foster Park. It's a free concert, they do a different one each Friday evening. They had a great time, enjoyed the music, ran into several friends, and had ice cream afterwards which really made Kaylee smile. :) We all didn't get home until well after 9 p.m. from our respective events.
It was a good day for all, I think...
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Cessna Nation
It's been awfully hot around here, but I can't say much because it's hot everywhere. It's particularly hot in little airplanes with no air conditioning, but honestly it was such a long, horrid winter that I'll even take the hot over that...
I flew for 2.2 in the 172RG this afternoon. Part of it is I take the plane to the airport where the pilot is, and then fly it home when we're done. I've said it before, but the 172 feels like I'm hopping in my car and driving somewhere. You get in, you go, you want to tune in the radio and think about other stuff, it's just...normal. As I was out and about tonight I heard another of our instructors out in a 172, heard Steve in another 172, heard a former student in their Cherokee 180, and heard yet another instructor in yet another 172. A busy night in airport land. :)
I made some half-wit(ty) comment to a student, who said "You ought to blog." A little later I said some other quip and he said "Seriously, you ought to blog." I laughed and said I do blog, but I'm afraid he'd be pretty disappointed in it. ;)
There's an IAC Hoosier Hoedown (aerobatic) competition this weekend at Kokomo. It's being hosted in Bob & Nathan's hangars, although the Wilds are doing the majority of the work on this one. I was out there tonight, and the first airplane is here and tucked away, with more to arrive tomorrow. We're looking at having 21-22 competitors, which is pretty good for this kind of first-time event. Hopefully the weather holds out for them and we can have a good, successful, safe event...
I flew for 2.2 in the 172RG this afternoon. Part of it is I take the plane to the airport where the pilot is, and then fly it home when we're done. I've said it before, but the 172 feels like I'm hopping in my car and driving somewhere. You get in, you go, you want to tune in the radio and think about other stuff, it's just...normal. As I was out and about tonight I heard another of our instructors out in a 172, heard Steve in another 172, heard a former student in their Cherokee 180, and heard yet another instructor in yet another 172. A busy night in airport land. :)
I made some half-wit(ty) comment to a student, who said "You ought to blog." A little later I said some other quip and he said "Seriously, you ought to blog." I laughed and said I do blog, but I'm afraid he'd be pretty disappointed in it. ;)
There's an IAC Hoosier Hoedown (aerobatic) competition this weekend at Kokomo. It's being hosted in Bob & Nathan's hangars, although the Wilds are doing the majority of the work on this one. I was out there tonight, and the first airplane is here and tucked away, with more to arrive tomorrow. We're looking at having 21-22 competitors, which is pretty good for this kind of first-time event. Hopefully the weather holds out for them and we can have a good, successful, safe event...
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
Hump Day Already
Billing and pictures, pictures and billing. I now have seven pages of photos up on my site from Oshkosh, so feel free to peruse at your leisure. :)
Things went back to a bit of normal today. Lunch at Applebees with some of the gang, post office run, bank deposit, and a store run for the first time since we got home, a much-needed run might I add.
Kaylee is enjoying her last couple weeks of freedom. School starts up again August 16th, so she's trying to cram in as much laziness and conversely Summer Fun as she possibly can. I don't blame her. I'm not looking forward to a 7 a.m. wake-up call every day again either!
Tonight Chuck & Judy's church hosted an annual Fish Fry fundraiser they do, and Steve, Kaylee & I joined them for that. I also ran into one of my flight students and his family there, and Charlie Brier. It's a small world. ;) We enjoyed the company and the food, as always. Next year Kaylee's going to get to help out, wiping tables, picking up dirty dishes, whatever they need. She'll do great. :) The sky opened up while we were there, paused, and as we were driving home, very full of excellent fish, tenderloin, sides and dessert, the sky opened up and dumped. Lightning all over the place, huge and bright and right here, and rain so heavy we just sat in our car rather than even attempt to get in the house, even with an umbrella. It was fierce. (And of course they had to interrupt my reruns on tv with weather reports constantly too.) We did lose power last night around 1:30 a.m. but the outage didn't last long enough to do anything but set all my clocks to 00:00 and irritate me. Tonight over 7000 people are without power around here, but we are not one of them. Thankfully.
I'm trying to get a video uploaded onto here, of Kaylee in the back of the T-6, but Blogger seems to be choking on it. If you're on FaceBook I made it public and you can see it here. If not...I'm working on it. :)
Things went back to a bit of normal today. Lunch at Applebees with some of the gang, post office run, bank deposit, and a store run for the first time since we got home, a much-needed run might I add.
Kaylee is enjoying her last couple weeks of freedom. School starts up again August 16th, so she's trying to cram in as much laziness and conversely Summer Fun as she possibly can. I don't blame her. I'm not looking forward to a 7 a.m. wake-up call every day again either!
Tonight Chuck & Judy's church hosted an annual Fish Fry fundraiser they do, and Steve, Kaylee & I joined them for that. I also ran into one of my flight students and his family there, and Charlie Brier. It's a small world. ;) We enjoyed the company and the food, as always. Next year Kaylee's going to get to help out, wiping tables, picking up dirty dishes, whatever they need. She'll do great. :) The sky opened up while we were there, paused, and as we were driving home, very full of excellent fish, tenderloin, sides and dessert, the sky opened up and dumped. Lightning all over the place, huge and bright and right here, and rain so heavy we just sat in our car rather than even attempt to get in the house, even with an umbrella. It was fierce. (And of course they had to interrupt my reruns on tv with weather reports constantly too.) We did lose power last night around 1:30 a.m. but the outage didn't last long enough to do anything but set all my clocks to 00:00 and irritate me. Tonight over 7000 people are without power around here, but we are not one of them. Thankfully.
I'm trying to get a video uploaded onto here, of Kaylee in the back of the T-6, but Blogger seems to be choking on it. If you're on FaceBook I made it public and you can see it here. If not...I'm working on it. :)
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
A Dark & Stormy Night...
As you may guess, I worked on airport billing, household duties and sticking up pictures pretty much the entirety of today. I'm not done on the photos yet, that was just some of the batch from my (and Kaylee's) cameras. I still have over 1000 photos to go through and decide what to put up. It's tough, man! Plus there are a lot of airplane photos, and I'm always torn on that. For one thing, it's an air show, so putting up photos of airplanes kind of makes sense. On the other hand, it's the people who make it more fun and interesting to look at from year to year, and if I eliminate most of the just airplane photos, it saves me space and time. ;) I still save them all of course!
A Kaylee/Jamie story from Oshkosh: We took the kids to Aeroshell Square, where they could take tours through a lot of the airplanes there. They went through the DC-7 with Steve. The DC-7 was configured like the airliner it used to be, with seat back trays and such. The kids were fascinated by that, going right to the trays, sitting in the seats, and Steve said it suddenly occurred to him that neither of them had ever been on a Commercial airliner in their lives. Both kids whined a little about how they wanted to go on an airliner, and why do we always have to take our own little planes anyway? Kind of made us snicker a little...
I was supposed to have a flight this morning, but thunderstorms took care of that. After lunch the weather cleared up enough, and Chuck ran me to Sheridan in the Citabria so I could bring the 172 back to Kokomo for maintenance. We took off pretty close together, and the 172 and the Citabria held similar speeds, meaning we arrived at Kokomo within a mile or so of each other. As we were coming in, each of us in a leg in the pattern, we heard Nathan on the radio in the Saratoga on base, coming in to land too. All we were missing was Steve out there. :)
There's a big old storm hitting us as I type this. Tornado warning, flash flood watch, severe thunderstorm warning, lightning turning the whole sky white at midnight, yadda yadda. It's distracting. ;)
It's officially tomorrow already. but I'm not at a quitting place for work just yet. No rest for the wicked, you know!
A Kaylee/Jamie story from Oshkosh: We took the kids to Aeroshell Square, where they could take tours through a lot of the airplanes there. They went through the DC-7 with Steve. The DC-7 was configured like the airliner it used to be, with seat back trays and such. The kids were fascinated by that, going right to the trays, sitting in the seats, and Steve said it suddenly occurred to him that neither of them had ever been on a Commercial airliner in their lives. Both kids whined a little about how they wanted to go on an airliner, and why do we always have to take our own little planes anyway? Kind of made us snicker a little...
I was supposed to have a flight this morning, but thunderstorms took care of that. After lunch the weather cleared up enough, and Chuck ran me to Sheridan in the Citabria so I could bring the 172 back to Kokomo for maintenance. We took off pretty close together, and the 172 and the Citabria held similar speeds, meaning we arrived at Kokomo within a mile or so of each other. As we were coming in, each of us in a leg in the pattern, we heard Nathan on the radio in the Saratoga on base, coming in to land too. All we were missing was Steve out there. :)
There's a big old storm hitting us as I type this. Tornado warning, flash flood watch, severe thunderstorm warning, lightning turning the whole sky white at midnight, yadda yadda. It's distracting. ;)
It's officially tomorrow already. but I'm not at a quitting place for work just yet. No rest for the wicked, you know!
Monday, August 02, 2010
Parenting Hypocrisy
Kaylee is in her room playing. I am working at home. I hear her give a long, loud, prolonged shriek. I wait, and she comes running in, crying about a big black spider that crawled under her Glenndale shirt in her room while she was playing, and she wanted me to come kill it. I go in there, but her room is a minefield of spider hiding places right now because it's got all her stuff all over that isn't unpacked and put away properly yet. We look around, me with a can of Raid, and I see nothing. The spider is back in hiding. I tell Kaylee she needs to pick up her clothes. She says she's afraid. I tell her to use this toy grabber thing, and I leave her room-quickly. She comes back out telling me that she's afraid and that she'd feel much better if I'd go in there and prove to her that the spider wasn't in her doll area, her closet, or her clothes. I don't wanna. I don't like spiders worse than she doesn't like spiders, right?? But I go in with the toy grabber and pick things up with it, clearing a path, shaking out everything to see if a spider falls out, the can of spider killer in my other hand (because I am NOT squishing it), pretending like I'm not completely skeeved out or picturing it running across my bare feet or jumping on me or picturing it come flying out of a shirt at my face. I finally clear a path, say "See, he's not here", and I exit the room as fast as I can...while making her stay there and hang up her clothes. So what does she do? She takes all her clothes and hangars outside her room, puts everything up on hangars, then runs in and puts them in her closet all at once. (Which is exactly what I'd do if I were her.) She spots the spider later, comes in screaming again. I go in armed, but he's gone again. Now we're both tense about this spider running wild in her room. Finally tonight she spots the spider again, and this time Steve is home, and she keeps an eye on Mr. Soon-to-be-Deceased Arachnid until Daddy can ride in on his white horse and squish the thing. Finally. Now maybe I can concentrate again. ;)
As you can imagine, today is all about unpacking, putting away, doing laundry, returning calls, catching up on work stuff, and starting in on billing for the end of July. More busy days to come...
As you can imagine, today is all about unpacking, putting away, doing laundry, returning calls, catching up on work stuff, and starting in on billing for the end of July. More busy days to come...
Sunday, August 01, 2010
Oshkosh, Day Ten
Better known as "She's Baaaaack!"
We were too tired and lazy to pack anything last night, any of us, and in fact we all started dozing around the fire after the night aerobatics shows. I opened my eyes and Nathan and Steve's eyes were closed and Kaylee was fast asleep in her chair over there. I didn't even look any further-I made the general announcement that I was headed to bed, and we all just conked out.
The next morning we all had our trailers packed, tents down, everything ready by close to 9:20 a.m. Not shabby for packing up your entire house, plus the general shared quarters where you've lived for the last 9 days! Many hands make light work and all that. :) Steve drove Kaylee and I over to to the tower gate, after which we walked to the Tram, where we waited for 20 minutes to catch a ride to warbirds. It would have been faster to walk, but it was hot and neither of us were interested in walking. I got the T-6 preflighted and packed up, got Kaylee strapped into the back seat with her headset and camera, hopped in and within about five minutes was taxiing out to leave. For some reason there was a stand still on departures, and we all sat there for a Very long time at the end of the runway, no radio chatter, just nobody moving. I obviously missed whatever was happening, but I started looking for an accident somewhere or something at first. Then the controller came back finally and said, without a breath, "Okay guys, let's go! Red and White Experimental, position and hold right side. Yellow Cherokee, position and hold left side. King Air, position and hold right side. Red & White experimental, cleared for take off." and we were off and running. "T-6, position and hold left side, T-6 cleared for take off", and away we went.
About ten minutes into the flight, Kaylee asked me if we could do whoopies. That's not the word she used but I can't think of it. I said sure, so I did a few "lift you in your seat" things. She cracked up and wanted me to do them all the way home. Off and on, we sort of did, some bigger than others. Then I asked her if she wanted to fly, and she said sure. She did a few "whee" things too, and then flew us straight and level for a bit. She'd been begging me to do a roll with her for awhile, but I hadn't done it so far...but today was the day. I made her wait until we were close to home just in case it scared her, so I could just land. She was buckled in, had her parachute on (not that anybody's jumping mind you, but it's legal that way), and I explained what I was going to do, then went up plenty high in altitude, climbing above some clouds, and I rolled her. She burst out laughing, cackling, she laughed for about 30 seconds straight. She loved it. She wanted to do more of them, but I stuck with one for now. She asked me to do more whoopies, and I said "Nah", so she said "Can I fly?" I shook the stick, said "Your Plane". She shook the stick back and said "My Plane", and she flew. I have to tell you, that was something else, hearing her say 'My Plane' and watching her fly a T-6 home from Oshkosh for awhile. She has no idea... She did pretty well, too, considering she can't reach the rudders properly. She kept us fairly straight and level, and she can't see real well out of there. When she was done, she said "Okay, I'm done, your plane" and shook the stick, and I took it back with a "My plane" and stick shake, and she was done flying for the day.
She's definitely my kid in a few regards though-one of them being that while she was flying back there, she took her camera out and took a little video of herself holding the stick and doing some "whoopies" of her own. Ha. Then she had me do a few and she video taped herself floating up, and laughing, and I love that video, it makes me laugh every time I see it. She took a third little clip, just around, and at one point she points it at herself, then up at me, and you can see the red bobble head with "Laura S" on the back of it and of course my hair flying around. I think they're great. :)
I heard Nathan on our discreet frequency, he and Jamie were catching up to us. I would have waited around and goofed off a little with them, but my fuel was about where I wanted it to be with reserves, so I came on in and landed. I was still sitting by the T-6 when I saw the Mustang break overhead. Ahhh.
We got the planes put away, and Chuck came out to help us, which was super nice since he just got back yesterday himself and is probably a little worn down. He dropped me off at home with my meager belongings, and I went in a very predictable order: First stop, opening e-mail. Second stop, start downloading photos. Third stop, shed clothes as I run towards the shower. A good long refreshing water-draining scrub-down later, I threw a load of laundry in, the first of many, and...sat down.
Steve, Zak & Steve, and AE drove up to Glenndale this afternoon, so I met them out there to help unload stuff. We now have a mountain in our living room. Bags, bedding, shoes, umbrellas, all of it. I am still walking around it as I work on important things like blog entries and photos and emails. ;)
We had something of Nathan's in our stuff, so I ran it back to his house tonight, and on the way in stopped for fuel and to pick up 10 days' worth of mail, a gallon of milk for Kaylee's breakfast tomorrow, and a pizza and breadsticks combo for us. Our diet has suddenly gone from grilled chicken and brats and steaks and eating out at nice restaurants to pizza in a box. Yep, we're home. ;)
I've got almost 500 photos of my own, and Steve T. gave me a dvd with over 1000 photos on it. So it's going to take me awhile to get that caught up...but I can't wait. Have I ever mentioned how much I love pictures?
Twas good to be away, Tis good to be home...
We were too tired and lazy to pack anything last night, any of us, and in fact we all started dozing around the fire after the night aerobatics shows. I opened my eyes and Nathan and Steve's eyes were closed and Kaylee was fast asleep in her chair over there. I didn't even look any further-I made the general announcement that I was headed to bed, and we all just conked out.
The next morning we all had our trailers packed, tents down, everything ready by close to 9:20 a.m. Not shabby for packing up your entire house, plus the general shared quarters where you've lived for the last 9 days! Many hands make light work and all that. :) Steve drove Kaylee and I over to to the tower gate, after which we walked to the Tram, where we waited for 20 minutes to catch a ride to warbirds. It would have been faster to walk, but it was hot and neither of us were interested in walking. I got the T-6 preflighted and packed up, got Kaylee strapped into the back seat with her headset and camera, hopped in and within about five minutes was taxiing out to leave. For some reason there was a stand still on departures, and we all sat there for a Very long time at the end of the runway, no radio chatter, just nobody moving. I obviously missed whatever was happening, but I started looking for an accident somewhere or something at first. Then the controller came back finally and said, without a breath, "Okay guys, let's go! Red and White Experimental, position and hold right side. Yellow Cherokee, position and hold left side. King Air, position and hold right side. Red & White experimental, cleared for take off." and we were off and running. "T-6, position and hold left side, T-6 cleared for take off", and away we went.
About ten minutes into the flight, Kaylee asked me if we could do whoopies. That's not the word she used but I can't think of it. I said sure, so I did a few "lift you in your seat" things. She cracked up and wanted me to do them all the way home. Off and on, we sort of did, some bigger than others. Then I asked her if she wanted to fly, and she said sure. She did a few "whee" things too, and then flew us straight and level for a bit. She'd been begging me to do a roll with her for awhile, but I hadn't done it so far...but today was the day. I made her wait until we were close to home just in case it scared her, so I could just land. She was buckled in, had her parachute on (not that anybody's jumping mind you, but it's legal that way), and I explained what I was going to do, then went up plenty high in altitude, climbing above some clouds, and I rolled her. She burst out laughing, cackling, she laughed for about 30 seconds straight. She loved it. She wanted to do more of them, but I stuck with one for now. She asked me to do more whoopies, and I said "Nah", so she said "Can I fly?" I shook the stick, said "Your Plane". She shook the stick back and said "My Plane", and she flew. I have to tell you, that was something else, hearing her say 'My Plane' and watching her fly a T-6 home from Oshkosh for awhile. She has no idea... She did pretty well, too, considering she can't reach the rudders properly. She kept us fairly straight and level, and she can't see real well out of there. When she was done, she said "Okay, I'm done, your plane" and shook the stick, and I took it back with a "My plane" and stick shake, and she was done flying for the day.
She's definitely my kid in a few regards though-one of them being that while she was flying back there, she took her camera out and took a little video of herself holding the stick and doing some "whoopies" of her own. Ha. Then she had me do a few and she video taped herself floating up, and laughing, and I love that video, it makes me laugh every time I see it. She took a third little clip, just around, and at one point she points it at herself, then up at me, and you can see the red bobble head with "Laura S" on the back of it and of course my hair flying around. I think they're great. :)
I heard Nathan on our discreet frequency, he and Jamie were catching up to us. I would have waited around and goofed off a little with them, but my fuel was about where I wanted it to be with reserves, so I came on in and landed. I was still sitting by the T-6 when I saw the Mustang break overhead. Ahhh.
We got the planes put away, and Chuck came out to help us, which was super nice since he just got back yesterday himself and is probably a little worn down. He dropped me off at home with my meager belongings, and I went in a very predictable order: First stop, opening e-mail. Second stop, start downloading photos. Third stop, shed clothes as I run towards the shower. A good long refreshing water-draining scrub-down later, I threw a load of laundry in, the first of many, and...sat down.
Steve, Zak & Steve, and AE drove up to Glenndale this afternoon, so I met them out there to help unload stuff. We now have a mountain in our living room. Bags, bedding, shoes, umbrellas, all of it. I am still walking around it as I work on important things like blog entries and photos and emails. ;)
We had something of Nathan's in our stuff, so I ran it back to his house tonight, and on the way in stopped for fuel and to pick up 10 days' worth of mail, a gallon of milk for Kaylee's breakfast tomorrow, and a pizza and breadsticks combo for us. Our diet has suddenly gone from grilled chicken and brats and steaks and eating out at nice restaurants to pizza in a box. Yep, we're home. ;)
I've got almost 500 photos of my own, and Steve T. gave me a dvd with over 1000 photos on it. So it's going to take me awhile to get that caught up...but I can't wait. Have I ever mentioned how much I love pictures?
Twas good to be away, Tis good to be home...
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