Thursday Things

I'm sitting here in Evansville, and just watched an F-18 do an overhead break and come in for a landing. Nice. If it wasn't such a grey, scuddy day, it would have felt like summer for a minute there. :). He came in to park at the same FBO I am at, and I was hoping they'd park him next to me for a nice photo op, but alas, his plane's across the ramp.

The trip today was a bit last-minute, and the plane was over at Muncie getting avionics worked on. Not really a problem, was able to have them stop what they were doing, and the plan was to pick it up this morning, go back to Kokomo, eat lunch, then go to Evansville. It was supposed to be IFR, but decent IFR of 700 and 3. It lied. The whole morning it was foggy, less than 1/4 mile and 200', so Chuck drove me over to Muncie via a new ground route I hadn't previously seen, ;), I waited over there for awhile, and finally took off when the weather said I had 400' and 2 miles. It lied again...by the time I got to Kokomo, it was 250' and a mile or so. But I was just grateful it was above minimums (and that the minimums had just been lowered below 300' again recently), because I did not want to have to go back to Muncie and miss this flight, which Had to be in Evansville by a certain time or forget it. I hand flew it for the practice, and I still can't get over how easy it is with glass. People should not learn on this stuff and then go try to do it with steam gauges in actual at first. The autopilot chases it a little and usually stays a dot off-course, but it'll get you there. I let George the autopilot do the ILS into KEVV after I hand flew the ILS into KOKK. Mine was better. :D

When we landed at Evansville, I was getting ready to shut down, and my passenger started to head for the door. I said "Just a second; they are getting out the red carpet to put by the door." He paused, stared, and said "How am I supposed to act with that? Do they know I haul poop for a living? Can my wife come see this?" Cracked me up...

The F-18 pilot was walking back towards his plane, but on the other side of the fence was a man calling out to him, so he went over to him, talked to him for a few minutes, and handed him a sticker or badge. They were talking through an 8' tall chain link fence with triple strands of barbed wire on top of it, reached through and shook hands, and it was kind of a neat picture. The pilot almost makes it to his airplane, then he gets called over to a place along the fence farther away where there are three adults and three children. He again stops to talk to all of them, hand out stuff and shake hands through the fence before he gets in his F-18 and heads off to S. Dakota. It was kind of neat to see. I spoke to him for a few minutes; he was a very nice man, older than the usual fighter jocks, and a good ambassador.

Our flight home was uneventful, the skies were clearing back home finally, and he made it there in perfect time for his meeting and home in perfect time for his next meeting, something he flat out could not have done either with airlines or a car. And aviation wins another round. :)

Kaylee is working on a homework assignment which asked whether or not kids think they should do chores. She told me she chose that she thinks kids should do chores, partly because she thinks everyone else will say that they shouldn't have to. That's my difficult girl. ;) She also had to come up with four reasons why, write a paragraph about each reason, then end with a conclusion and a "call to action". So she wrote (on her own) that kids should do chores because it teaches them responsibility, it teaches them how to care for a house properly for some day when they do it on their own, that it is fair because they are a member of the family who needs to help out as well, and that sometimes they can get paid for chores which helps them learn how to handle money better too, and if they learn to handle money responsibly when they are young, it will help them be better at handling money when they grow up. I thought that was pretty good!

Well, today was supposed to be a day off, and instead I was on a flying job from 10 a.m. through to about 6 p.m., but it ended up being a nice three flights, good day, productive, and one of the enjoyable trip days. Plus it was clear blue sky and warm sun above 3500', which sure beat the gray scud down here. ;)