Impromptu

Life in aviation is nothing if not fluid and spontaneous. I was awakened at 6:15 a.m. by a text message asking if I could fly to Georgia today, leaving in an hour and a half. Why yes, yes I can. He was a VFR only pilot and the weather was IFR in central Indiana, so we killed about three birds with one stone. He's working on his Instrument Rating, so today we logged 8.4 hours flight time in the plane, some actual IFR, most of the rest under the hood, it counts towards the 50 hours PIC (Pilot in Command) cross-country time he needs, counts towards the 40 hours of hood time he needs; it's a pretty good chunk of time out of his rating, really. He got his guys down to Georgia, he got eight and a half hours knocked out of his Instrument Rating in one fell swoop, I earned a decent paycheck, AND I got to wander around for almost 3 hours on a 72 degree sunshiny southern day. I went for a walk around the airport, checking out all the planes in the open t-hangars. It was 30 degrees and overcast back home. Win. ;)

I also flew right over the top of Macon, GA today, twice. The last time I landed there, I wandered around on the deserted airport grounds for quite awhile in the dark, at 4:00 a.m., looking for the mysterious fuel supply. From the air, during the day, it looks like an even bigger airport. It was real busy at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Not so much at 4 a.m. I curled my lip at it as I went by at 8,000'. With plenty of fuel.

It was a bit of a long day, though a good one. Left early, got back in the dark, didn't end up getting the days' things done, but Friday's weather looks bad, so maybe I can catch up a bit then. :)