Stuff

This morning I was heavily asleep when I heard Kaylee whispering by my bed.  She had gotten a new alarm clock last night, and Steve had set it to go off at 6:15 this morning.  Instead, it went off at 5:15 this morning.  Kaylee assumed it was time to get up and ready, and I wasn't up yet, so she came to get me.  I said "It's only 5:23, baby, go back to bed.  I'll come get you when it's time to get up."  So I go into her room an hour later, an hour in which I never did get back to sleep (grr), and she's awake in there, and irritated.  She couldn't find the off switch, so she just had to keep hitting the snooze button every 8-10 minutes.  This did not make her happy.  I do not blame her.  I'm surprised she didn't come in and get me again, or throw her clock into the other room, or something!  That extra hour made a difference on both of our tired factors though. :o

It was still dark when I got out to the airport this morning, and I watched the sun rise while waiting for the PT-26 to come on in.  After he landed, we looked over the plane, I crawled in and looked around the cockpit and made sure I knew where everything was, and then away we went.   The cockpit is set up very similarly to the T-6, so that's easy enough.  The visibility from the front seat is so good it's like you're not even in a taildragger.  This is the first plane I've flown that the range is limited by oil consumption, not fuel burn.  He said you get no more than 180 nm out of the airplane before you have to land and refill the oil.  It holds 4.1 gallons of oil. Just sitting on the ramp it left multiple puddles of oil behind, and it was only on the ramp for about 20 minutes.  It's an anemic climber, but it has pretty responsive controls.  Stalls are docile, landings are docile, it has wide gear, and when you land, it just...stays.  It's a pretty basic airplane, easier on ground handling than the Cub.  The gentleman who is to be my first student in the airplane has zero taildragger time.  At first I wondered at someone learning tailwheel in something bigger like that, but then I read the manual--it IS a PT, aka Primary Trainer, and after flying it, I don't picture it being a problem.  In fact, I'd say that someone learning tailwheel in that would need more time in something else before hopping into a lot of other tailwheels.   I enjoyed the flight though-I always like flying new-to-me airplanes.  :)

Next up was a trip to Muncie, and I'd been flying for a few minutes before it occurred to me I was having to hold in a lot of left rudder.  I actually reached down for the rudder trim, before the fact that I was in a 172 without rudder trim sank in.  My left leg got tired by the time we got home, because if the choice is fly along with the ball all the way whacked out or fly along with the left rudder pushed in for 30 minutes, well, I can't fly along sideways. ;)  After landing I noticed that the rudder pedals weren't even when I was taxiing straight, either, something I hadn't really noticed earlier.  I don't know if it was that way before and I didn't notice, or if it became worse later, but it seemed pretty obvious when I landed at Kokomo.  We had three other students scheduled in the plane that afternoon, so I got to cancel them as the guys found a broken spring and had to run around to get it fixed and back online.  My supposed five flights today ended up being no revenue flights, but at least I got to try out the PT, and later we did get one student back up after it was fixed, with another CFI, so that was good.

As we were taxiing into Muncie, two A-10s came on by and did a low pass of the runway.  This is why I didn't notice anything with my feet on the ground there--I was busy looking around for the A-10s.  ;)  That was neat though-those look like they'd be awesome to fly.  Low to the ground, always in pairs, powerful, can blow things up if need be...what's not to like?

I picked up Kaylee from school, and she'd had a Halloween party today, had eaten a ton of junk food, came home and cuddled with me for an hour, then fell asleep on Steve for awhile.  She is now officially on Fall Break.  :)  She also came home with a math test on which she'd gotten 16.5 out of 14 points, (yes, extra credit) all working with manipulating fractions.  I was pretty happy with that one!

So, Happy Wednesday...