Okay.

Today was recuperate day. Thankfully I didn't have any flights. I barely made it out of bed to get Kaylee up for school and it took me all morning to get my gyros spun up halfway properly. :) I did work today on talking back and forth with pilots about the Kokomo Air Show, and have some "I'm coming"s, including for a short time during the day R+10 (the main guy for the warbird show at Oshkosh), which is fantastic! I was so glad to hear he was going to try to make it to our little shin-dig again.

So, yesterday. I'll try this again, but it'll still be long, so I'd get a drink. Or just skim it like Steve will. ;)

Saturday morning I'd woken up with a stuffed up head and a bad headache. I took a lot of pain meds throughout the morning/day to try to fend it off and kick it out, and some of those meds had caffeine in them. That didn't bother me all day long, I was fine once I kicked the headache, but when I went to go to bed that night, I couldn't sleep. At all. I was awake until past 5 a.m., as of the last time I looked at the clock anyway, and had to be back up about two hours later. I was having a good,fun, relaxing time, so it wasn't *that* kind of "can't sleep", something just kept me up and I'm guessing it was that, although it would be odd considering how long the last dose was before bed time. Anyway. Well, two hours of sleep, I'm kind of getting too old for that, particularly trying to function on a quick-thinking, quick-reacting level. I did not feel great. So I was glad that our first flight of the day was to be an observation flight in the back seats of all the Yaks, as I figured that ought to wake me up. Unfortunately it was 87 degrees out, we had to wear the flight suits, which are *really* hot and for me, slightly claustrophobic. The Yaks were closed canopy, tight cockpits, with the sun just beating in, and I was sweating and having trouble from the get-go. The pilot I rode with is very good at this, and very aggressive, and he was having some fun up there, which I would normally enjoy a great deal. Hard pulls, 90 degree bank turns, random aerobatics, a little dogfighting, whooping it up, while we were learning good stuff too, but after about 45 minutes of that, my "learning good stuff too" part was breaking down into little thoughts I was trying to smother that went something like "You know you're not going to be able to hack a lot more of this, Laura..." When we landed, I popped open the canopy and spent the next 10 minutes as we were taxiing up trying to make myself look and sound normal. Failed. My head was buzzing from sleep loss and heat, my pulse was racing, I was sweating like crazy, they were out of water, I was just trying to hang on for awhile there.

As we are sitting there resting, the next flight that was supposed to happen was a 7-airplane-formation flyover of Vern Bothwell Sr.'s 90th birthday celebration. He's a WWII veteran, P51 Instructor pilot, etc., and this was supposed to be a fun learning flight, with me cut loose w/o an instructor pilot in the back seat too. Now I'm sitting there evaluating myself, and I know doggone well that I don't belong in a 7-ship formation feeling this scuddy. I kept hoping if I held out, I'd be okay, but it's not just me up there, so I piped up and said I was going to have to stand down from the flight, and I was just going to go ahead and head for home. Instead, they rearranged the flight several times, so that in the end just myself and the other T-6 could just fly line abreast without anything too complicated, no element takeoffs, no big rejoins, no big deal. I figured fine, I could do that then break off and head for home. And then in came another airplane, and on that airplane is a NATA check pilot. Next thing I know, this formation now has been redone two more times, with a flight of eight taking off, five forming up first, then me, the check pilot and the other new guy forming up into a 3-ship, then our formation forming up with the other formation for one big formation to do passes. This...is not what I had in mind, and now I have to tell them again after they've reworked this a bunch of times that if I'm going to have to have a full-blown intense formation flight, I'm still not in very good shape for that. Ugh. What a mess. They rework it again so that all I have to do is one rejoin and then stay put, so I agree to that, and finally it's time to go.

That flight was a bit of a cluster for me, compounded by the guy who will eventually be my check pilot getting to see it be a cluster, which just embarrasses the heck out of me. (Nothing dangerous, just bad.) It was also kind of neat. The check pilot joined our formation up behind the other formation, and we passed over the field several times like that. It looked pretty cool. I know I wasn't supposed to be looking, and I didn't except once when we were en route just buzzing along. I was #3, and #2 sets the spacing, and #2 was newer than I was and he was way back there, so I had plenty of time to glance up at the whole formation for a few seconds there. There was a C-45 in the lead, four Yaks in a diamond, then a Vic 3-ship (v-shape formation) of two T-6s led by a Piper twin. Kind of wild. We flew over the airport where the veteran's 90th birthday celebration was being held, then made a pass overhead, then the formation came in to land while I was cleared out of the formation to head home. Except I got about 10 miles out, and it was 2 pm, and I hadn't eaten lunch, and food was closer back there than back here, so I came back and landed single ship, as the last of the formation was off the runway. On the radio I said "Putnam County traffic, North American 43826 is on a left downwind Runway 18, Woman's Perogative, Putnam County." Several of the guys chimed in and welcomed me back, laughed, etc. We all taxiied in together, parked in the grass all lined up in a row, and I was shutting down, I looked up and saw a very old gentleman making a bee-line for me. The birthday boy came up as I got out of the plane and said "I saw all that hair and I knew I had to come to this plane first!" He told me some stories of WASPS, and talked about his family and history some, which was really neat. He was so happy to see all of us. I'm glad I landed and got to meet him. We all went in and ate, and his family were so appreciative. They had a nice little party for him, and not too many folks get an 8-ship formation flyover for their birthday. :)

From there I did just leave off on my own and head home, swinging over a couple places to let them know I was back. I was still so hot I felt sick. I pulled out the Cheyenne, tugged in the Six, pulled back in the Cheyenne, and the poor Six was so buggy I couldn't stand to leave it that way, and I got a rag and started in on the wing, but I got 3/4ths of one wing done and I was just out of gas for good. It looks weird all clean for part of it and a big mess on the rest, and I'll have to try to get it soon here. I had the Corvette to drive home, and my muscles were so sore from my feet being bent up on the rudders that it hurt to push in the clutch. :)

I have rarely been so glad to be home. It took me hours in the air conditioning to get my core body temp down to halfway normal, and after that I was chilled the rest of the evening. When I walked into the house, Kaylee said "Why do you look all red and splotchy and...crazy?" My hair was a nest. I had Kaylee take a picture of me so I could show you how bad I looked, but it's so bad I can't stand to post it, so you'll just have to imagine it. ;)

Honestly, it was a really good and worthwhile weekend. I got to meet some new folks, we had a fun time, I got some good flying in, and am going to get together with some of them to do some more flying on our own, too. It's all progress...