Warbird Expo

Today had a lot going on.  I started to say I got up early, but 8 isn't really all that early in comparison to school days, so...I got up at 8 ;), and went out to Kokomo, loaded up the T-6, and met up in the air at Mt. Comfort Airport with two Yaks, right dead smack at 10 a.m. on the nose.  Love it when timing works out like that.  We joined up, and then met up with another group of four airplanes, and joined the two groups together to come by and do some crowd passes for the Indy Metro Airport, where they were hosting a "Warbird Expo" day for the CAF.  We landed from that, ate breakfast, debriefed, chatted, briefed the next flight, and then went up again as a group of seven, broken into a 4-ship and a 3-ship.  This time I was #4 in the 4-ship.  We went out and did Everything. Every single formation maneuver and position.  That kind of wore me out.  After a long time of that, like an hour, we hooked back up with the other 3-ship group, and did some more passes over Indy Metro.  We land from that, ate lunch, debriefed, chatted, and briefed the next flight, and this time we went up as an 8-ship.  Again I was #4 in one set of four.  This was the most tiring flight of all, because basically we stayed in the pattern the whole time, and we switched around from one formation to the next to the next to the next...I don't know how many circles and passes we did, I lost count, but it was non-stop, with 8 of us all together, and you were "on" the whole time, and in that last flight, and I know this is ironic to say, but two of the other people in my four-ship were...a little...not very smooth, and at one point I was told to go into the slot for a diamond formation, and I'm heading back there, and suddenly both those guys, who I am supposed to basically slip in between, are all over the place, their wings moving a lot back and forth, sliding in and out of the space I'm supposed to be occupying.  So I stop moving in, just back off, wait till they're settled down, then work back in slowly, but I'm watching them a little more closely than I had been up till then.  Before it was just wobbly; they must have both hit some turbulence or something right then, I don't know, but it really wasn't cool.  I probably never did get as "tight" on that as I was supposed to, but I didn't like my big wings too close to their wings after seeing that.  Kaylee had asked to go with me on the last flight, and fly home with me.  She's been on formation flights before, me and Nathan and Steve and her, in the Mustang and the T-6 twice, and in the Mustang and the Aerostar, and so forth.  But I said no to this one--too many airplanes, I'm not a veteran yet, and if she would yell or have a problem or something, neither I nor anybody else in that flight would need me to be really distracted right then.  :)  But I was glad she was interested in going and thought it was neat.  She took 25 photos with her iPhone and texted them all to me later.  lol  She's funny...

I did get a confirmed Kill today.  The second flight of the day, I was #4, and my #3 got on the radio and said "BIG BIRD!"  I saw the bird, it went right past him, and unfortunately aimed for me. It was a big bugger. The good news was that it wasn't aimed for anything too critical.  The bad news is you can't exactly take abrupt evasive maneuvers when you're in a formation.  He hit me, but it was a glancing blow under my left wing. The guys on the ground saw the bird do a stall/spin down to the ground, hunted it down and took a photo the poor dead buzzard.  Meanwhile, #2 in the flight swung around me and looked over my airplane to see if he could spot any damage from the strike.  He reported no visible sign of the hit, I reported that my control surfaces were operating as normal, and we continued on with the flight.  When we got on the ground, several people came over to inspect the airplane and see if there was any damage from the hit--this surprised me, but I hadn't realized that had happened in view of the airport.  I'm just a dumb wingman, I don't always know where I am.  ;)  They saw the bird spiral down and knew I'd hit it, so there was concern down there.  They found the blood smear on the underside of the left wing, and no damage.  So, that was good.  Here's the photo they got.  He was bigger than he looks without a person in it for perspective.  For the best perspective you need somebody to hold him up with his wings spread coming at you with a closure rate of 130 mph or so.  Heh.  They're joking about painting a buzzard on my helmet, or getting a little stick-on decal of a bird to temporarily stick on the side of the T-6.  Nathan said he'd hit one with the Mustang once, dented the spinner, so now both Checkertails have been bird christened...hopefully for the last time.  We got lucky on where and how he hit.

 

The thing is, I kind of feel bad for the thing...I like birds.  It just picked the wrong time and place.

 

I left right out of that third flight and headed for home.  I was already late.  So instead of going home, taking a shower, and putting on some nice clothes, I stayed at the airport, took off my sweaty flightsuit, put on my thankfully clean clothes that I had not worn underneath my flightsuit today, put on some foundation and chapstick, and had to just let the hair go.  It was fairly well hopeless after wearing a helmet in the heat and sweating for most of the day.  Steve came and picked me up, we dropped by Nathan & Tre's and picked them up, and we drove back down to the CAF event "Hops & Props".  They gave us the tickets for it, which kind of makes me feel bad because the tickets were $30/each and they were really low on paying people and we didn't stay very long.  But it doesn't make me feel bad because we came down there and supported their event, and the people who came to the day event said they did so in good part because they saw a bunch of airplanes flying around and they came out to check it out.  That and the one caller who left a message that they wanted to call 911 about those scary airplanes too close together flying around and how they were going to crash in their yard and stuff--there's always one.  ;)

 

When we left that event, we all went to eat at Charlston's, and that was my first time there.  The food was excellent, the company was excellent, and it was a nice way to end the evening, just out on the town.  I originally intended on not being sweaty, worn out, and in a Glenndale t-shirt for the evening, but hey, sometimes ya gets what ya gets.  ;)

 

Once you let down from a high-focus thing that you did all day long, and get some food and fluids back in you, it's hard not to crash.  That's me, now...crashing.  I know some folks got some pictures of something from today, so I'll post a few if I get any...as long as they look decent, anyway.  ;)