Southern Style

My alarm went off around 4:30 this morning, dragging me out of a really weird dream that I now don't recall. Weather was doable, just cloudy and rainy, so we were wheels-up at 6 a.m., in the dark, cold, dreary, cloudy rain. A little bit later we had a much better view...


The sun reflected off of layers of clouds above, and the whole sky was gold for a few moments...

Monday

Flew 1.1 in the 172 this afternoon, then 1.0 in the Cub, did my usual things to do, came home and worked with Kaylee on homework until 10:30 pm, and now have to go to bed early since I have to get up at the crack of ugly to fly to Mobile, Alabama. I'll get back tomorrow evening from Mobile, then the next day I head to Oklahoma. I think. ;)

Grateful Rain

We finally got our Jeep back from maintenance after about a month, and today was the first time I was going to drive it. I needed to go to Glenndale to pick up some mac & cheese that Chuck and Judy left for us before it was sucked into the Glenndale hole of stolen food. ;) But when I got in the Jeep, for the first minute I couldn't drive it smoothly to save my life. I reached up for the gear shift, which wasn't there because it's is on the column in the Suburban that I've been driving, but in between the seats on the Jeep. You have to push the brake pedal way far down to get any action on it in the suburban, and when I tried that in the Jeep it locked up tight. The gas pedal also requires a lot of input to get going..and when I tried that in the Jeep I shot forward. I looked like a student driver for a minute there until I got my groove back. Glad I was alone or I wouldn't have heard the end of it. ;)

Last night we listened to the rain as we remained cozy in our house, and today was pretty much more of the same. There's something to be said for spending 24 hours curled up on the couch listening to it rain, just enjoying the quiet company of your family.

The Break

I'd had a two-hour night flight last night, getting home around 11 p.m. This morning we had a plan: two World War II veterans were coming out to Kokomo for T-6 rides, and one was having a surprise 80th birthday party out there while he was at it. When I woke up this morning it was to IFR conditions. The rain started falling on my way to the airport, and it stayed raining for hours. The family came out, and we had them throw the rest of the party first instead of last. They got a chance to sit in the Mustang and the other fun things out there, and we waited. And waited. While wave after wave of rain and storms and clouds came rolling in. They hung out there for hours, while we waited for a window that the TAFs just didn't say was coming. The second flight was canceled, the first family prayed for better weather, because they had come from several different states to all be together and perpetuate a whammy. They had told their 80 year old dad/grandpa/husband that they had a surprise for him, but that it was "Classified". When they got him to the airport and he figured out what was going on, he was lit up and hugely excited. Even the wait didn't get him down. Found out his nickname was "No Sweat" because he was such a laid-back Air Force pilot. He flew T-6s, and loved them. We got there around 9-10 a.m., and by 3:30 p.m. the TAFs were still calling for too low of ceilings to be able to get up and do much. I warned the family that it may not get in, but the rain on radar was going away, and when I stepped outside I saw a big blue hole. So we waited another 45 minutes, and just like that the sky started opening up. The moment the rain stopped we pulled the T-6 out, got him in a flight suit and gear, loaded him up, and Nathan took him flying. I drove the family out to the runway to watch him take off, and Nathan did a great takeoff pass over the family in a photo pass so they could get some snapshots. One more pass down the runway like that, and they were off.

When they landed, the whole family had gotten these t-shirts made up specially for the occasion, and they said something about the 80th celebration of "No Sweat", and they put them on and saluted him as he taxiied past in the T-6. Nathan did a spin-around on the taxiway and blew them back a bit, laughing the whole time, and the family was clapping and cheering and crying. When he got out of the plane, they all saluted him again before the hugs began.

His wife told me a story about how they met that sounds more like a movie. She missed six months of school for a bad illness, and was held back and put into his class-in First Grade. She knew him all through grade school, high school then college. When they were 16, he had a car, and she would ride to and from places in the back seat of his car with another fellow. One day the other fellow didn't come and she rode in the front seat with him. The rest is history, and they've now been married for 58 years, known each other their whole lives, and are still obviously very much in love. It was really cool to see her excitement at getting to surprise him with something so big to him, and every time he would fly by or taxi by, she would throw her arms up in a big Victory V. They were a super neat family to get to know today.

They left, we closed up the hangar, and as we drove off the clouds had lowered back in and the rain started hitting my windshield. We had just enough time, all day long, one break in which to get his 40 minute ride in, even though it wasn't supposed to clear off. Nathan said as they were flying along, he looked up and saw a huge rainbow. It looked almost fully circular, and he said the colors were as vivid as he'd seen, all five colors perfectly distinguishable. They aimed right at it, flew through a rainbow according to the men.

When they'd landed, the veteran said he felt 25 years younger. They had done aerobatics, the whole ball of wax, and he was just eating it up. You go, sir. :)

Steve, Kaylee and I went to Chili's for dinner, in the gray rain, and they have these kiosks (named ziosk) sitting on every single table. You can look at menu items, order dessert, and pay your bill right there, as it has a credit card slide reader right on it. Pretty darned cool. And we all know that ordering the rest of your food isn't going to be too far behind, now...

Ringing Endorsement

Kaylee and her class had a field trip today, to the "Feast of the Hunter's Moon" re-enactment encampment. I picked her up from school today, and when she got in the car, she told me that she'd bought a present for me today. It was a little 'gold' ring with my birthstone (light blue) in it. She had gotten that for me, and gotten one for her with her birthstone (garnet) in it. She told me that when I look at it off and on throughout the day, I should think of her, and that when she looks at hers, she will think of me. There's a little green ring around my finger, after about 4 hours, but I'll be darned if I'm taking it off. She's a sweetie...

Thursday

From morning on we pretty much didn't quit. Bank runs, phone calls, then I had to go find a green or gold shirt with accessories for "Spirit Day", which took me three stores might I add, and I only had the hope that she would actually like what I picked out, because half the time she doesn't any more. But she was gonna be out of luck if she didn't, because I found ONE the right color, it was "cool" looking, and it only came a size bigger than her normal size, and I bought it anyway, along with a selection of gold bangles and bracelets for her to accessorize with. Fortunately when I showed them to her tonight, she "squee'd" and loved them all. Whew. :D

I went from shopping for girly stuff out to Kokomo where I started in on a guy's paperwork for his checkride tomorrow. First step-register for IACRA (the online FAA registry for checkrides). Except it wouldn't take his information. We did everything we could, but without registering we couldn't get his application in or anything. We're just going to have to show up with a paper copy and hope for the best. Ugh. Next I went through his logbook and signed all his endorsements, made sure everything was in order, got it all ready to go, and that took another hour. Finally it was time to leave and go over to Muncie for an instrument lesson with a guy over there. We were on a GPS approach when I looked at radar and saw a bunch of rain I hadn't seen in the forecast moving in. We finished up with our GPS and ILS approaches, I kicked him out, and got back to Kokomo as the rain was hitting Grissom.

I was supposed to do a night cross country tonight. It was doable, even though it was raining, but she decided to cancel, and I did not complain...

Whoops

I was on my way to my first flight of the day when I got a text from Nathan that we weren't leaving today for the Convention--that we were leaving next week for it instead. That's a bit of change of plans! So I opened up my schedule for the next five days, and basically refilled it back up within a couple hours.

So I had a checkride prep flight in the 172 this morning after the fog burned off, followed by lunch, followed by a Sport Pilot student in the Champ after lunch, followed right afterwards by spins in the Citabria. One of my students said before they got their license, they wanted to do spins with an instructor, to "slay the dragon" as it were, to know what it felt and looked like and how to recover not just from what the book says, but from reality. So we went up together, and did just a few of them, and that was all they needed. Good enough, mission accomplished, dragon slayed. I enjoy the types of students that are often drawn to country grass strips. ;)

Kaylee's school is having "Spirit Week" all week. I don't like spirit week. Every day the kids are supposed to dress up as something different. I have a hard enough time dressing her up for Halloween. Oh crud, Halloween is coming up fast too. *sigh* Anyway, one day was "Western" day, one day was "Sport" day, then "International" day (tomorrow), another was "Favorite Character" day, and so forth. The last day is "Spirit" day, where they are supposed to wear green and gold, their school colors. Kaylee does not own a green, or a gold, anything. So tomorrow I have to go shopping, before my flights starting from 3 pm and going through to about 11 p.m., because not having something to wear most days is just not cool. Tomorrow she is going as a Jamaican, and it's not a perfect outfit, but I hope it works, because it took us all night to come up with it. Ugh.

I suppose I should go unpack now...

Onward

A work day was had by all. My morning flight was canceled due to fog, and Kaylee's school had a two-hour delay thanks to the fog, too. So both Kaylee and I went back to bed. She fell fully asleep, I did not, but it was still nice to not rush around...like we did the rest of the day.

All morning I worked on billing, entering time sheets and fuel sheets and checks and credit cards and crediting instructors and airplanes and all that goes with it, getting done just in time to go to lunch. From lunch I went to Glenndale and flew in the Champ with a fellow for an hour, got down and drive right out to Kokomo where I flew in the 172 with pre-checkride prep work for over an hour. I made it home around 5:30 or so, helped Kaylee with all her homework, checking it over and so forth, while I did all my laundry for my trip and entered the checks that came in at the BBQ Bash into SMA Support's accounting so I could get them deposited before I left town. I finished that up by 7:30, which was when I needed to leave to go back out to Kokomo Airport to do a night flight for 1.5 hours in the 172 with another student. Once I got home, around 10:40 p.m., I started packing my bag for my trip tomorrow, because starting tomorrow morning I will have flights until it is time for me to leave in the afternoon and I won't have time, and it was at this point that I remembered that I needed to make a bank deposit. So, 11:30 at night and I'm going out and making a bank run.

And so it goes!

Monday Morning Quarterbacking

When I woke Kaylee up this morning, she looked like a wild woman with her puffy eyes and her hair sprayed out in all directions. She was tired, but that's no shock--we're all tired! Poor Steve and Chuck ran around all day putting things back to "right". We're still working on counting things up, but early indications surprised both Steve and I. See, this seemed to be a quieter year than previous years. Sunday was very quiet, in fact. We did about half the T-6 rides of the previous few years, and a quarter fewer regular rides, but we almost doubled on helicopter rides, doubled on the church service donations, corporate and personal donations, even the chili dinner made more. We expected this to be a light year, and that was okay too, because we are there to have fun, raise awareness, have a lovely safe weekend, and whatever funds come in for SMA Support will be put to good use. Instead, we found that fewer people donated more money, and our current not-finalized-yet-total? $13,527.15. That's amazing, it really is. It does a heart good.

This has also been a rough summer for the airshow community. Just over our BBQ Bash weekend the racer P-51 crashed into the crowd at Reno, and the impact has been devastating on people, the community, and aviation in general, let alone the family and loved ones of those who died there. I saw a few videos of it, but one that is not widely circulated was only a few rows away from the impact, and hearing that Mustang come screaming down at approximately 107" mp, it sounded like a missile, a bomb, and I can't get the sound out of my head and I wasn't even there. The very next day an airshow pilot crashed inexplicably in WV in a warbird routine, killing just himself. That same day a friend lost the engine on his T-6 on takeoff and crashed into trees/field at the end of a grass strip. He thankfully will recover with at least leg injuries, not sure of the full extent yet. That's in one weekend. There have been many this season. Even pilots are arguing amongst themselves, talking about banning the only air race in the world because of one accident in 47 years that harmed a spectator. Pilots are arguing amongst themselves about whether or not there should be a "stand down" of air shows, stopping them altogether while people try to figure out how to make something that is inherantly riskier than sitting in your barclounger safe "enough". Even though each accident had a different cause, people want to create rules or laws to make sure it never happens again. But how do you legislate "they are human and made a mistake." Or "part of his airplane failed and he could not recover"? Believe me, everyone in aviation wants to go home to their families. I'm all for learning from these accidents and trying to do better, but I am not for bubble-wrapping the world and outlawing things in a knee-jerk reaction. Some people-even a few pilots-are saying that air racers should not be allowed to race at all, just for their own safety. Since when do we get to dictate what choices somebody else makes to keep them from maybe hurting themselves? (Besides those pesky seat belt laws *eyeroll*) I just read a joke based on reality that said that the Centers for Disease Control say that tripping over your pets causes over 86,000 serious injuries each year. You can't protect everyone from every potential harm, and one spectator accident in 47 years of racing...a few seconds sooner or later and his plane would have hit desert. It was a tragic accident. They all are. We need to take them seriously, look at them, learn from them, but people need to stop panicking. Especially pilots...

Here's an article by Patty Wagstaff on her view of the Reno accident-if you're on Facebook you should be able to see it, I think.

Anyway. I've got plenty to do prior to heading out of town for a few days here for a convention. Off and running tomorrow morning with several flights, starting 9 a.m. and going through to 10 p.m. Here we go! :) I'll let you know more about the BBQ Bash results as we get them done. Again--people out here are amazing, and I couldn't be more proud of our group...

End of Bash

Every year at our BBQ Bash on Sunday morning we have a church service, led by a pilot, with singing and passing the collection plate and all. The collections go to SMA Support. I know a lot of folks would think, or maybe do think, that it's strange. Maybe even silly. But honestly, sometimes it seems like a lot more real church service than many of the ones held in church buildings, and I can see God approving of a small group of people who choose to come together at a little country airport and share faith.

However, I wouldn't be me without an inappropriate side, and right after the final amen, I had this really strong urge to say loudly "Boogedy Boogedy Boogedy, Let's go RACING, Boys!"

Chuck took me over to Kokomo to pick up the T-6; we'd been watching the weather because of potential rain showers that day, but they kept disappearing before they got to us. Worked for us. Glenndale was slow, even for a Sunday, but it was still fairly steady, and we ended up giving something like 75 riders a flight in the "normal" airplanes that day, I gave T-6 rides for a few hours straight, and the helicopter rides were about non-stop. So, slow or no, we still got a fair amount in, including helping polish off some leftover food, too.

I finally got down on gas, the winds were picking up to 17 knots last I heard, and it really looked like rain was coming. So I flew the Six back to Kokomo, Chuck brought me back to Glenndale, I flew the 180 down to Sheridan to put it away while another pilot flew 32L back, we got a truck ride back to Glenndale, only to find that it never did actually even rain after all. That's life. ;)

This was a more relaxed year, a quieter one, but everyone's still really tired. There's a lot going on, a lot to do, a lot of loose ends that folks like Chuck and Steve have to do to put everything back where it goes, delivering golf carts and paying bills and returning equipment and yadda yadda. Me, I'm working on mid-month billing again, and my own loose ends, of which there are...plenty!

Saturday Bashing

I didn't sleep all that well either night. This time I guess it was just too much going on, but I woke up early Saturday morning, got out to Kokomo, picked up the T-6 and flew it into Glenndale, picked up Duane at Glenndale, flew into Metro, did a briefing with Trey and Duane, and went up and flew formation for a little over an hour with Trey leading in the other T-6. We did a fly-by of Glenndale and the Howard County Veterans guys as well together. It was a workout, no doubt. We did my first element takeoff in the T-6. I've done two in the Baron, but had never done it in the Six. That's where you start both airplanes rolling on the runway at the same time, and take off at the same time, in formation, as opposed to everyone lining up on the runway together but only taking off one at a time. That was fun, I liked that. You just better be darned sure you stay on your own side of the runway and so does whoever you're flying off of.

It was a pretty morning for it, but by the time I landed my head and stomach started hurting and I felt funny, so I went into the office and shut the door. Two Tums, two Tylenols, a little food and about an hour of time and I felt better. Duane gave the T-6 rides most of the day, and then in the afternoon I took over for about three rides while he ate. He took them back to finish off the evening. This time I decided I wasn't going to wait until pitch black to bring the T-6 home. Nathan was giving a ride in it to Holly, so he was just going to take the Six over, but my car was over at Kokomo, so I mimed that I was going to go with him to Kokomo to pick up my car. He nodded, I got in, and we sat there for awhile. Then he handed out his helmet. Finally he turns around and sees me and his eyes get big--he was waiting for me to come take over the plane from him, and I was waiting for him to go! He said he would just stay there, climbed out and I climbed up front. Kind of funny. I took off at sunset, and what a gorgeous sunset it was. I watched the multi-colored sky all the way home. The air was calm, and it was just beautiful. Some folks said they could see the blue flame off the T-6 on takeoff, which is neat. I've seen that a few times when it's dark enough, and I think it's beautiful...

I got the T-6 put away and drove the Corvette back to the airport where the Next Fire was lit, sweaters were on, and some folks hung out. We didn't have to get up as early the next morning, so I stayed a little later. Other than smacking my knee (which still hurts two days later), it was a good BBQ Bash Day. A little quieter than the previous year I think, but safe and fun and more relaxing than usual, and good.

Bashing Friday

The Bash weekend, and thus the last big aviation event of the year, is over. No more air shows to plan, no more waivers to apply for or sponsors to seek out or things to line up. It's always enjoyable, but it's a whole lot of work for a whole lot of people, so it will be nice to have a month or two of hopefully nice weather left for flying without having anything bigger than an ice cream Saturday social or EAA Chapter Meeting to work on. :)

Our weather held out for us with nice and cool temperatures, light-ish winds (even if they wouldn't make up their mind which way to blow while making sure it was never actually down the runway), and none of the show-stopping rain showers we were looking at having at times today came through either.

Friday was the Major Airplane Shuffle day. I've sort of slept since then, so I don't even remember what all I flew or to where, but I pretty much was hopping from one airplane to another from late morning until sunset. The Citabria, the T-6, the Cherokee 180, etc. We had to pick up planes and pilots and bring them into Glenndale for the weekend. Friday morning I had a large photographer who wanted to go up and take photos of the Veterans flag-raising ceremony from the air. He was a little concerned about not having a parachute. I told him he wouldn't be needing one. The bottom line is that even if we wore parachutes in the Citabria to go do a photo flight, he'd never in a million years make it out of that airplane if something went wrong enough for us to bail out, particularly since our flight was at 1800' or below the whole time. He could barely get in. When I told him to put on his seat belt, he said "What good will a seat belt do me if I don't have a parachute?" I sighed and told him the seat belt was for if I ran into something on the ground or botched up a landing, that it would save his life while the parachute was just something to make you feel better but wouldn't actually do you any good. Next I did a "controls free and correct" check, and I couldn't get the stick back very far because of his belly. I told him to suck it in and pulled the stick back, and said "When we come in to land, I'm going to be putting the stick here." Sure enough, as we come down final, I say "Stick's going to be coming back here", and I brought it back against whatever resistance I had. Once I was down solidly I relaxed the stick and said "You can breathe now", and he whooshed out a bunch of air. After we got out, he insisted on taking my picture by the plane, then I guess went inside and told Steve not to get rid of "that one". Oh, he'd also said that he was suspicious of girl pilots. I said "You probably should be!" He said "Yeah, you know how aggressive those ladies are in airplanes". He was being sarcastic about it. I wasn't. ;)

Close to sunset, I took up a family of three in the Cherokee 180. Two teenagers and their mom, and the teens had never been in any kind of airplane before and were a little nervous. The girl pushed her arms against her chest and had a very frightened look on her face once I got off the runway. I turned around in my seat to see how she was doing, saw her face, and asked her if she was okay and if she would like to go back and land right now. She said no. I just flew straight and level on this perfectly smooth sunset evening, and they started relaxing. Then we flew over their house, and over a friend's house. One teen called his friend on the cell phone and had him come outside and wave at us, and from then on the teens were having a blast. Mom loved it too, and when we landed all three of them gave me a big hug and said thank you and how much they loved it. You know something's special when a teenage boy will even hug you and be excited about it. ;) Oh, and when I landed back at Glenndale, the mom said "I didn't even feel the wheels touch down!" I said "Oh, please go tell that to Steve, would you??" Heh.

Friday night it got late and dark on me, and we needed to get the T-6 back to its hangar for the night because of a potential for rain. So I took off out of Glenndale with full fuel over the wires in the dark, with Duane and Trey chasing me over to Kokomo in 32L. I was flying along when something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye--a flickering. I glance at my closed canopy, and see flame. I turn my head back to the front before the sight registered with my brain, at which point I snapped my head back around in a hurry to see the reflection of flames in my window again. I am not used to seeing things I fly shooting flames. It took another half of a second before my brain processed that it was an okay fire coming out of the exhaust of the T-6. At least my heartrate slowed down pretty quickly. ;) When I got into 32L with Duane and Trey, I was looking for Glenndale, which is not super easy to spot at night even if you know where it should be. I found a fire and flickering lights, and Duane and I decided that must be our guys around the campfire. I brought up the lights, and the runway was off to our right, not our left. Trey took a photo with his cell phone of the runway in the dark and said "Young and dumb, landing at Glenndale at night in a 172". What can we say? ;)

We hung out around the fire for awhile, but some of us had to get up early the next morning...

Quiet Birthdays

Our birthdays around here are usually pretty quiet, except for Kaylee, who is, of course, a kid, and we try to party it up for her. :) Steve turned 52 today, and worked his butt off all day. Kaylee and I had gone shopping the other day, so we got him a couple small gifts, a tasty little lemon cake and an old fart card, and Kaylee was so excited to hide stuff so he wouldn't know about it until he got home tonight. Actually until *I* got home tonight, after he did. So, happy birthday to Steve. We love you. :)

Chuck flew me to Sheridan around 8:30 this morning, and it was a doggone gorgeous morning to fly. Fall-colored sunrise on getting-to-be-Fall-colored ground, with air as smooth as glass. It was like we were in a glider, just floating. It was just about the perfect morning. I took a 172 from Sheridan up to Kokomo, got picked up there and taken back to Glenndale, after which I left and started running some BBQ Bash stuff.

The weather wasn't quite so nice later. Oh, it looked pretty enough out the window, but the winds picked up and the turbulence was pretty rough. I flew the RG over to Muncie for a lesson with a fellow, for about 2.1. We got tossed around pretty well as we shot a GPS then an ILS approach. As I was flying home, Kaylee was texting me, asking me when I would get home because she couldn't wait to give Steve his birthday stuff.

We're trying to get stuff ready, have a lot to do tomorrow...

Monday

I'm not sure why it amuses me to write out what was supposed to happen and then what actually happened. But it does. So skip this paragraph if you wish. ;) I was to go to Glenndale, pick up an airplane and meet a student at OKK by 9, and fly from 9-10 or so, another from 10:30-11:30, lunch, go to Sheridan from 2-4, hoof it back for a 4:30-6:30 in the Champ, and then run out to my school board meeting that's supposed to start at 6 pm and will last until 8 pm. I made it to Glenndale, got the plane, got to Kokomo, and did the long cross-country solo prep work, sign off, and two quick local flights. Got down and picked up victim number two and did stalls, stall recovery, then spin entries, spins and recoveries. Next Steve said I had a guy who needed to squeeze in over my lunch hour in the Champ, so I booked it back to Glenndale and waited for him. He didn't show up, which was curious, but right then my Sheridan guy canceled. I called Champ guy, and he was able to come out an hour later. He wanted calm winds to work on a few things and instead got a direct crosswind of 15 knots, which isn't much...except maybe in a Champ. ;) So we had fun doing slips, slow flight, and crosswind takeoffs and landings. It sort of helps that the Sheridan guy canceled, because it takes an hour at least to get down there and back, for just one quick flight, and makes the rest of the day run-around-ish. After that Champ fellow, I had one more Champ fellow, and we went over to Kokomo to work on concrete TOLS, then over to Duncan's short grass strip for a short field adventure. I landed with him and ran right over to the school where I got to attend a school board meeting until about 8 p.m. Home to check Kaylee's homework, fix dinner, and sit down and yawn. Busy day.

Spins are always fun. You can have all the book knowledge in the world, but until you see the sky tilt sideways and the planet rotating rapidly beneath you, you just can't really prepare for that. I've had lots of reactions to first-time spins from screams to laughs to people grabbing onto whatever they can find to grab on to. A few who felt ill after one spin, though that's more rare, and a few who thought it was a riot from the get-go. I'd say that more people don't really like them all that much than do, and I don't blame them as it is a little strange the first few times. I'm a little twisted, I know, because I always get a kick out of them. As long as I chose to do it deliberately, anyway. ;) It was actually a taildragger day. I had four Citabria flights of various lengths and two Champ flights. I instructed spins, short fields, and pretty stiff direct crosswinds, okay, and one quick flight in the 172. ;)

While I'm at it, I'd appreciate it if you if you could take a second, whenever you think of it during the day, to go to this link and vote for "Miracle for Madison & Friends". There are two groups that start with "Miracle", so make sure it says "Madison". :) You don't have to sign up for anything, don't have to join anything, don't have to allow any "apps" access to anything, it's just a website you go to as often as I dare bug to ask you to, and vote for these guys. They're friends of mine, a good group that doesn't get a lot of exposure, who will be able to help out SMA families a bit if they win, and it would mean a lot. You can vote once every two hours, but even I'm not that ambitious. Whenever I'm at a computer lurking around on the internet, I'll hit the link and hit a quick vote in. It goes through the end of September, so as many votes as we can get for them would be appreciated. I only ask because it's friends, and because it doesn't require any sign-up or effort other than going to the site and clicking on their name. :) Thank you!

Life

We woke up this morning to all the 9/11 memorial televised events. It does seem hard to believe it's been ten years, and the things that have changed-not really for the better-since then. Things like "Homeland Security" and the TSA that have grown into monsters bigger and deadlier than the boogeyman they were designed to conquer. Airline travel in general has also gone downhill in a hurry since then; convenience, comfort, professionalism, invasion of privacy, etc., making passengers more like cattle, or prisoners, than customers. Today some poor sap spent too long in the bathroom in the air, which made people on board so nervous that it was called in to home base where the military was put on alert and that airliner was shadowed by an F-16 ready to shoot it down all the way until they landed, after which the bathroom-ridden fellow was interrogated until they made sure he was just constipated, not a terrorist. It would be funny if it wasn't so blasted depressing. (Edited to add, found out he was making out in the bathroom with a female companion, not constipated, for accuracy sake. ;)) So in some ways, even though the terrorists "only" killed 3,000 people instead of the tens of thousands they were hoping to get, they definitely got in a long-term impact in that I'm sure they are pleased to have accomplished.

One of the stories that has the biggest impact on me is one that doesn't get as much attention as the "twin towers". Flight 93. The people on board know what has happened with the other airliners. They are being turned around and aimed at Washington, where the target was likely either the White House or the Capital Building. The terrorists had already hit the WTC and the Pentagon. On a recording that was recently released, you heard a terrorist transmitting over the airwaves "If everyone stay still, nobody get hurt", but some of the people on Flight 93 now know that's probably not true. There was another pilot on board, not an airline pilot, but one who soloed at 14 in gliders and had spent his life in aviation. The men get together and decide they are going to take back the airplane, because they can't just sit there and be driven into a building. They tried, and they failed, and they ended up in a field in Pennsylvania, but they also succeeded, because they ended up in a field, not in the heart of Washington DC, claiming a kind of victory over their captors in the end. There were people with their throats cut in the aisle, there were trained terrorists with bombs (supposedly) up front, and these every day folks decided they weren't going to let this go down without a fight. That's courage. That's not trying to just get yourself out of a burning building, that's not even doing your job as a firefighter or a policeman, who is trained to run into places everyone else is trying to get out of, as brave as that is. It's just Joe Blow sitting on an airline seat on his way to California on a nice September morning having to decide to turn into a soldier and fight for his, and a lot of other people's, lives.

So yes, I remember. But life keeps on rolling. I went out to Kokomo today to meet with a student and work on cross-country flight planning, sign off the trip, all that good stuff. Just as we get done with that, radar starts blowing up with little pop-up storm cells, all over the place. It's clear where the student is going, but I don't know for how long or if it for sure will stay that way. We wait it out a bit, come up with a backup plan for the flight, but the more I look at it the less comfortable I am sending a student out in it on their first every solo cross-country even if they feel like they're good to give it a go. Finally, after 3 hours out there, I cancel it, and feel guilty about it too. But that's life in aviation, unfortunately.

We watched the Colts get creamed today. That was depressing too. I hope they get into some kind of rhythm here, but there aren't hardly any "old-timers" in there right now, so this team doesn't even really know each other yet. They don't have much time to get caught up!

Tomorrow I'm supposed to have flights from 9 a.m. through to 7 p.m. after which I'm supposed to hit a school board meeting. We'll have to see what actually will happen. And that too is life in general, and a lot of life in aviation...

OK

Steve had just stepped in the shower this morning when I got the first text that said "Who crashed???" Next came in "You guys okay?" Then came a couple of phone calls and texts wanting to know what plane went down at Kokomo. It doesn't happen a lot, but it has happened a few times over the years, and it is never a very good feeling when you don't know how bad it is and who it is. First you reassure those who contacted you that it wasn't you. A couple of those over the years have seemed like it was either me or Steve, because of circumstances, such as the female twin pilot who crashed over by Purdue with a plane full of passengers in bad weather. A female Seneca pilot near here made a lot of people fairly concerned it was me, so I spent a fair amount of time letting people know it wasn't. In the meantime, I'm pulling up our schedule to see who has what of our airplanes scheduled out for the morning. Today we had only one, and it seemed as though it wouldn't have been that one, but you can't be sure. So you start hunting people down and finding out what's happening. My call got through to the guy out at the airport, and he let me know what they knew: a Mooney took off in not-great-weather-conditions on Runway 5, and ended up taking a sharp right in the air off the end of the runway and landing rather hard into the corn. The pilot sustained a minor head injury, no word on the condition of the kid with him, but purportedly they'll both be fine. Thankfully. The plane is still out there in the corn, very little path into it, probably waiting for the FAA/NTSB. I'm sending out what I know to folks, and Steve comes out of the shower, and I say "A lot happened while you were in the shower". I do hate those, the feeling in the pit of your stomach as you try to find out who, in a very small community of people, just crashed an airplane with an unknown end result. Like I said, was really glad to hear everyone walked away.

We left to go to a birthday party that started at 11. We didn't get real far. The "check gauges" light came on in the Suburban, along with the oil pressure dropping real low off and on. Steve got out and checked the oil, and it wasn't even showing up on the dip stick pretty much. We turned around and came home, where he put the quart and some he had here into it, after which it was registering on the dipstick, so we went ahead and went to Leia's birthday party until about 2 pm.

After the party we went out to Kokomo, where Steve added as much oil as we needed, the kids ran around on the golf cart, Nathan worked on Gumby, and I had a 3-5 pm instrument flight lesson; we hung out for a bit afterwards and then went out to dinner as a group. Ruby Tuesday's has some nice new stuff on the menu. I had a shellfish trio, with crab cake, lobster and shrimp, cheddar mashed potatoes, snap peas and salad bar, and it was really good, for under $20.

And thus passes another Saturday around OKK...

The Kiddo

Picture Day passed uneventfully. Kaylee chose her outfit and her background, and once there they let the kids choose between two poses, so she did that, too. She came home today as she's come home every day for almost the last month now--happy. And that makes me happy. :)

Tropical Storm Lee's leftovers have made it to Indiana, making today gray, cool, and rainy. Works for me. I worked on billing and did some decluttering and house work. After school I took Kaylee to the library, where she picked out a book about the Holocaust, one about the Salem Witch Trials, and another about an abusive family situation, along three or four more "fluffy" books too. I hesitated, but...I read some pretty hefty stuff as a kid too. She's told me that she's got the highest reading "score" in her class, and she seems to want to embrace that right now and dig in; I skimmed the books and they seemed appropriate recordings of the topic, so...I'm sure we'll be talking about some pretty big things coming up soon.

Steve and I got a kick out of this one. The President had a televised speech tonight, which brought to mind one of Kaylee's classes that talked about who would lead the country if something happened to the President and Vice President. She said "I can't remember what they called it. I think it was Housekeeper." She couldn't figure out why we were laughing so much. But that, ladies and gentlemen, is how my brain works sometimes too. Housekeeper = Keeper of the House = Speaker of the House. I knew exactly where she got it from! :)

Sure do enjoy that girl. ;)

Waylaid Wednesday

Everything I was going to do today fell to the wayside for one reason or another. One person canceled me due to a meeting he'd forgotten about. Another canceled because he's trying to solo and with winds up around 25 knots and gusty, that wasn't going to happen. The third I canceled because we didn't have the ceilings to go up and do what we needed to do. Aviation is nothing if not a "falls-through" kind of game. All in all that was okay today, as I am definitely getting older, and it takes me a little while longer than I think it should to recuperate from a long day and a short night. I could have done it, I was ready to do it, but I did take a small nap instead and feel better afterwards, plus got some house things done and got to see Kaylee for pretty much the first time since we got back Monday evening. :)

Tomorrow are her school pictures. Every year prior to this, we've had no choice on background, it just is whatever he shows up with, which we don't know ahead of time, and I choose what she wears and convince her to wear it. This year is different. This year we have our choice of 12 different backgrounds, and Kaylee has decided she will pick what she wears and what background to go with it. I could force her to wear something nice that I want her to wear that will look good, but...I'm not going to. Within reason. I won't let her go looking like a slob, or total clashing mess, but this year will be pretty much all her. She's old enough to know what she likes and who she is, so...we'll see how it goes. We have to decide tonight, order online tonight (also new to us), and tomorrow is Picture Day. Dum-dee-DUM.... :)

Round About

Steve took Kaylee to school for me Tuesday morning so I could sleep in an extra hour and a half, as it was "Long Tuesday". :) I flew out of Kokomo in the morning, tried to hit the post office to pick up something, but the line was out the door for some reason, so I ran home to grab what I'd forgotten, filed flight plans, went out to Kokomo and picked up Steve C, flew him to Sheridan to pick up another airplane, then departed for my trip to St. Louis. It was an atypical day, as I had a nice little almost 30 knot tailwind headed west--the wrong way. That also meant I got to St. Louis in like an hour and 15 minutes, which was just impressive. We won't talk about the way home. ;)

After I dropped off the gentlemen in Logansport, I flew back to Kokomo, topped off with fuel, filed more flight plans, recharged the iPad, rechecked the weather, and ran to eat something, getting back in time to watch the sun go down. Kaylee called me, and I went over her vocabulary and sentence structure homework with her over the phone, and then it was time to go again.

This leg was to Logansport, to pick up the gentlemen. This leg takes me ten minutes, I take off, talk to Grissom tower, pass right over their runway, enter the pattern and land at Logansport. It's not even a "real" leg. Except it is. It's dark now, so I click up the runway lights, look around, and see...nothing. I look at my GPS, and the airport is right in front of me, 2 miles away, but I can't see it. I double-check the radio frequency, and it's still the same. I try again, and no lights. I look down and see the runway right below me, and it won't light up. So. I can either fly back to Kokomo and these guys will have to find a ride over there, or I can land on the unlit runway. I can see the runway all the way up at pattern altitude thanks to the bright moon and clear sky, so I flipped on my landing/taxi lights and came on in, being particularly careful for stray animals. The Bellanca has a particularly bright landing light, you know it? I thought back--I'd checked NOTAMS...for OKK & St. Louis, but I didn't know for sure that I checked NOTAMS for Logansport this time. Usually I do. It takes a second, nothing is ever there, but at least you know. So when I got home, I looked again, and sure enough, the runway lights were NOTAMed (Notice to Airman) inoperative until further notice as of two days prior. So, boys and girls, one of the reminders for the day--never assume, always check, and every leg of a trip is real no matter how short it is.

The flight back to St. Louis was really beautiful. I was on top of a cloud deck, with that bright moon and clear skies above. The tailwinds pushed us there in an hour and eight minutes, and the tower at Downtown St. Louis closed for the night right as I was on base and had just been cleared to land. I dropped off the fellows, turned around and left, and when I took off, I took off towards the arch and all the lit-up downtown buildings. It's just a stunning view at night. The city lights, the colorful downtown, the arch glowing (you can see it in this bad, blurry photo if you look in the right spot), and airplanes all over the sky. It's so busy, even at 11:30 at night, that it's hard to have the time to look around that you'd like, but it really is a beautiful backdrop.

The headwinds slowed me down for the trip home, but whether the Viking is my favorite airplane or not, it was just as fast with a 25+ knot headwind as the RG would be with no wind at all, so it really went pretty well. I ended up with 8.6 hours of flight time total for the day, some actual IFR, some night flying, a pretty sunset, a moon view, a no-runway-light landing, a view of St. Louis, and a mission safely accomplished. I got back on the ground around 1:30 a.m. or so, and this time instead of taking the time to put everything back where it was supposed to be, iPads, seatbelts buckled, etc., I just pushed the plane away, closed the hangar door and drove straight home. I had a full day Wednesday, starting 10 a.m. and going until 6:30 p.m. or so, so I wanted to get in bed asap and get as much sleep as possible...

Laboring

We enjoyed relaxing on the boat, and took today to wander around and check out some local sites. We went down to a couple of beach areas, ate at a nearby marina, stopped at a couple of historic areas, and really enjoyed the cooler temps today.

Kaylee had trouble getting to sleep each night, and I had trouble staying asleep in the morning, so I'm sort of wiped out, but it was a nice weekend away. Kaylee got to met up with another young lady named Kaylee and play with her for several hours. She even got to go on the other Kaylee's boat with them and go out and go swimming together, which she thought was way cool. They made bows and arrows out of sticks and string, and who knows what all they played. It was funny, they just said "hi" and were off and running like they'd always known each other. Since they are both named Kaylee, the other one was nicknamed "Pee Wee" because she's so tiny, and my Kaylee I call "Fred", so they went by Pee Wee and Fred for the day, and had a grand time.

The flight home was a little longer today thanks to some decent headwinds, but Kaylee and I sat up front and goofed around and refused to let Steve go to sleep in the back seat there. It's good to be home, even if I do have a busy week coming up with a possible student checkride, my weekly late-night run to St. Louis a couple times, spins, school, life, billing, and the BBQ Bash coming up fast which will make poor Steve crazy...

Kentucky Rain

Saturday morning I woke up before 6am, so I just went ahead and got up and ready to go. Convincing Kaylee was a little tougher, but after 6:30 I finally got her moving too. We got out to the airport before 7, I got the T-6 pulled out and ready to go, and we headed to Marion for their fly-in breakfast together. Kaylee asked if she could fly the Six, so I gave the controls over to her until I heard the traffic flow over there and how crazy busy it was. Traffic was all over the place, but it worked out pretty well if people were patient and communicating well. Anyway, when I came in and landed, the parking guys all would wave at Kaylee, so she felt pretty special taxiing up. :)

We were supposed to be able to get a free breakfast and skip the line, but when we arrived, the line was short, so we just went ahead and didn't take advantage of the freebie. I ran into R+10 and the Yak guys and Bill and a few others and said hello to them briefly before taking Kaylee around to see the sights. We took a tram ride around the grounds just to enjoy a breeze and see the sights too. The organizer of the event then gathered three of us ladies together to do an interview. He asked Judy about Ladies Love Taildraggers, asked the other lady about her projects, then asked me how it felt to be checked out in the Mustang. Errr.... I'll let you know if I find out? :)

Kaylee and I stayed for several hours. When I headed out, Ray had asked me to do a fly-by, so I came around the pattern, timed it with traffic so as to not be in the way, then did a high low pass (so folks further back could see too). Waved a goodbye with the wings then flew west for home. Kaylee loved the pull up at the end, even though I didn't do a real aggressive one. She asked to do "whoopdees" on the way home, so I floated her in her seat over and over until we got back to Kokomo. She had fun.

Part of the problem of the day was the heat and humidity though. It was in the 90s again, high humidity, high heat, and fairly miserable. We were outside all day in it, sweating like crazy. Back at Kokomo, we had to wait quite awhile to leave, so we sat and swatted in the hangar, too. Steve was trying to get the RG fixed up before we left, skipped the fly in today to sit and wait on a part that ended up not being what we needed, even after spending $100 to ship it overnight. Nice.

Meanwhile I got the Viking pulled out, fueled up, packed up, flight plan filed, weather checked, and all ready to go, so finally it was time to get back in a hot plane and head to a hotter place:Kentucky. Kaylee sat up front with me while Steve napped, and she asked to fly the Viking, too, which she did for almost an hour! The Viking is actually harder to do some things than the T6, and after awhile she wore out and asked me to do the altitude while she did the heading, so that's how we flew the rest of the way. She did well, and that's three different planes she flew in two days. :) Kind of neat!

We finished off the day at a church chicken dinner and trying to relax on a houseboat. It always takes awhile to get used to not needing to do something, or to quit thinking about what you need to do...we arrived just in front of some pretty strong winds and weather, so it was good to get the cool off and quiet. I was very, very done being hot and sweaty again...

Ladies' Sauna

I woke up feeling kind of puny, so I sent my morning flight off on his own, and he ended up going to Muncie with Chuck, which made him happier than practicing stalls and hoodwork again. :)

Another heat index in the triple digits day made for some pretty miserable conditions and a nice day to stay indoors, which of course we didn't actually do.

The guys at Muncie gave Chuck the wrong part when he went over there, and by lunch I was feeling mostly okay, so I took the Bellanca over to Muncie to exchange the wrong part for the right one. The Bellanca actually has some pretty good air output from those little air vents, but to say it's hot in an enclosed airplane is still quite an understatement. When I got back home, it took a good 30 minutes in the air conditioning before I quit feeling the heat radiating out of me, and I had to completely change clothes, too.

So of course I had to go flying again. ;) This time I took Kaylee with me. Friday night, a friend named Judy had asked ladies who fly, in particular taildraggers, to come on out for a Dan's Fish Fry dinner and a ladies' night. So Kaylee sat in the front seat and flew us there, and other than the ground rudder/taxi ops, she did the takeoff, flew us all the way there, and did the landing, and I only touched the stick once, and that was on landing, I bumped it back just a fraction there in the flare so she wouldn't bounce her landing in public. :) She did really well. She also did the start-up: mixture rich, one prime, master and mags on, starter engage, she did the throttle and stick on takeoff, etc. It worked out pretty well, I just kept us straight on the runway with the rudder and she did the rest. I had to tell her what to do, of course, she doesn't know how or why just yet, but she's learning. Tonight after we landed she asked me how to hand prop an airplane, so I went over that briefly too, and talked about the importance of staying clear of the prop, how to (not) grab it, how to swing it so you'd fall backwards if you tripped or after you swung, etc. She watched, she wore her "Chicks Fly" hat, she enjoyed a little attention from folks who saw her getting out of the front seat and commented, and she's getting pretty good at using peripheral vision outside to keep herself straight and level, on altitude, etc. We had fun. We sweated to death, but it was a nice flight with the windows open and a good breeze.

Again, when we got home, well, I've been home for awhile now and I'm still sweating, still feel the heat coming off of me, mostly my head. I baked from the inside out and I'm still baking. M-I-S-E-R-A-B-L-E. The event coordinator asked me to be there as early as possible tomorrow because it's easier to park the T-6 before everyone gets there. He said the event starts at 7 a.m. I don't think I'm going to make 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Maybe 8. And 8 is pushing it considering what time I'll have to leave the house to get to the airport, get out the Six, get the kid buckled in, and get TO Marion by 8. This is not a fun relaxing weekend thing, this is a "I am going to be nice and support a guy I like and his event" thing. When I told him Nathan wasn't coming, he then said "But you're coming, right?" There goes that hint of an idea I had about just skipping. ;) It would be more enjoyable if everyone was going and if it wasn't supposed to be another miserable hot day, but if you're out flying the T-6 with your daughter, exactly how bad can it be. ;) Kaylee's plugging Marion into the GPS. She also dialed in and flip-flopped the radio frequencies for me.


Flying along...
Halfway home she gave me the controls and just wanted to look around a little bit.

Back to flying herself, giving me a thumbs-up.

Driving home in the car, window down, red face, cooling off in the breeze...

Heat Wave

Wednesday was sort of a recovery day. I slept in until past 9 while Steve took Kaylee to school for me, and then after lunch I took care of the usual house and business running around. I also had started "The Help" (book), and wanted to finish it up, which kept me up too late, which isn't brilliant when you're already running low on sleep. But I did get it finished. ;)

This morning was a little harder to rise and shine, but I got Kaylee off to school okay, had a flight in the morning in the 172, and by the time we were done it was already hot. After lunch I had another flight for an hour, this time in the Champ. It's the fellow's second time in a taildragger, we had a 15 knot direct crosswind, and he nailed it. At least it's cooler in there with the open windows, but we were still sweating when we were done. As I did the shopping and running around, the heat index was at 104. The air conditioning isn't working properly in the Suburban, so I drive around with the windows down, which helps for a breeze but it's pretty much hot oven air coming in. A few hours of that's pretty draining, actually!

After school, I took Kaylee shopping. She has outgrown her jean shorts and her flip flops have broken, so we went on the hunt. Three stores later, we could not find any jean shorts, just jeans and a few capris, and it wasn't until the last store, two hours later, that she found a pair of flip flops that were stylish and comfortable. That was a long two-hour journey to find a shirt and a pair of flip flops, but hey, we got it done. Now, where to find jean shorts in September. Maybe online...

Since the month ended yesterday, you can guess what I've been working on. I worked on them throughout the evening until about 11 before I called it a night. I'm going to try to get to bed earlier tonight...I'm already yawning. :) I've got three potential flights tomorrow, and again the heat index is supposed to be 100-105F. Beautiful. *sigh*