Cracking Up

All of our trip airplanes are down. The RG has a cracked-through cowling, the 180 is waiting on parts, and the Toga is still down. The Viking is still up, but most club members can't use it, so that doesn't help anyone but me and two others, really. I am, however, grateful that it's up, because tomorrow morning I'll be getting up at 4:30 a.m. to head to South Carolina, then later that day over to St. Louis, then tomorrow evening heading home. Without the Viking this wouldn't be possible. Unfortunately the weather doesn't look the nicest--I'll have fairly low IFR at my morning destination, and 70% chance of thunderstorms at my afternoon destination. So we'll have to see.

It's funny--Jon was talking about doing something with the Mustang, charging up something, installing something, I don't know, doesn't matter. Being a red-blooded American pilot, my next thought went to flying the airplane. The smooth handling on taxi/turns, the smell/sound of the engine when it fires up, that power on take off that shoves you forward and makes your ears squeal...and now, of course, I'm smirking to myself, because, well, the airplane has that effect on me. And that led me to thinking about how many people have told me that it's not as difficult to fly as the T-6. Dudley, Duane, Jim, Nathan, Doug, (Budd in an article). Now I'm not smirking any more. I'm thinking, that can't be totally accurate, because it's twice as fast and three times as powerful, and you've got to be more ahead of it or it'll bite you faster. But in the air, I know it's just another airplane, within a certain normal operating envelope. Smooth, powerful, responsive, fun. I was lucky enough to be Autopilot Laura for enough hours to know that. :) On takeoff and landing it's purportedly more stable than the Six, with wider gear and not as far aft of a CG. But now I've gone from smirking to...not so smirking. So, moving on. Thoughts of Mustangs and T-6s fade to the background as I go flying and doing other things today, getting in some checkride prep with one student, flying with another and sending them off on their second ever solo, etc. (It has been a fantastic two weeks for getting people finished up on stuff! Thank you mother nature!) When I get home, Justin had sent me a link to the new EAA sport magazine article, all about the T-6. I eagerly open it up, smiling at the pretty pictures of one of my favorite airplanes, and the first thing I see in a big black bolded box off on its own is the words "Pilots with experience in many warbirds, however, say the T-6 is more demanding of a pilot than most fighters and bombers designed later. Sean said it's easier to check out in a P-51, for example, than the T-6, particularly for takeoffs and landings."

Aw, just shuddup already...

;)

Guess I'd better eat dinner, work on billing, and get my stuff ready to wake up at 4:30 a.m. for the Next Great Adventure in the Super Viking; may she stay strong for one more flight as our last trip plane standing right now. :)