I couldn't fall asleep last night, but once I did I woke back up at 4 a.m. with a sinus headache. I could feel my sinuses packed, and I have pain pills, but no allergy pills here. Just Kaylee's Zyrtec, and if I take that it makes me all druggy, which I can't do in the morning before a long day of flying on low sleep as it is. I got up and got moving and got my sinuses moving a little too, and finally felt better around 7.
I was halfway to the airplane this morning when it occurred to me that we'd locked the 340 and I had better have the key on me or I wasn't getting in that airplane. I tore through my bag and finally found it where I'd left it, thank heavens. I got out to the airplane, got it thoroughly preflighted (sitting outside for a few days at a busy airport you'd better pay attention), hopped in, and a guy came up to my window and said "Are you guys getting ready to leave?" I said "Yeah, I'm getting ready to go." He said "Don't fire up there--I'll tug you out so you don't get your prop blast on the planes behind you." I said "Great plan, thanks!" I then sat there for the next 15 minutes while he didn't come back. Finally I went inside and asked what the hold up was. They sent the guy back out, who said "Oh, sorry about that, I was waiting for the pilot". Badda Bum! He was flustered when I said I was the pilot and I needed to get going before I got any later...
The flights today were long. I took off VFR out of Fond du Lac and flew on top of a layer of clouds for an hour and a half back to Kokomo. Landed in Kokomo, topped off, picked up Dustin and Terry, and took off for Alabama. Three hours later we were there, topped back off, grabbed a burger, and flew 3.3 hours back to Kokomo. Topped off there, picked up his wife, and flew an hour and a half to Waterford, Illinois. Dropped off those two, and flew VFR back into Fond du Lac by myself. Twelve hours total later, I was back on the ground finally. I got to a gas station to top off the car I was borrowing when 1) A P-51 blasted by overhead, right overhead and 2) I remembered I'd left stuff in the airplane. So...turned around and got my stuff. The rest of the campers were all at a Chicago Concert, which I was too late to go to, but that's okay, I was so tired anyway. I stopped for dinner and came back here in time to sit around the fire and zone out until it's time to go to bed.
There were a few adventures but I don't feel like typing them out. Nothing too exciting...
Monday, July 29, 2013
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Frostkosh!
That was the title of the "AirVenture Today" newspaper that went out today. Every morning we get a copy of the newspaper, and it tells us what happened the previous day and what is scheduled to happen tomorrow, along with some cool photos, weather, and various news items. I laughed when I saw "Frost-kosh", (from folks who were here through "Sloshkosh" too.) It's fairly appropriate--it was downright chilly last night, and off and on today. I think the high was in the lower 60s, and mostly overcast. Today is the last day it's supposed to be this cool though. Tomorrow, the first day I'm going to be gone all day, is supposed to be sunny and warm. And :P on that! That's also the day they're going to Kodiak Jack's, because our group was invited for a guy's birthday Monday. Since I'll miss it, and I was whining about it, they're going to go back another night just for me. ;)
Speaking of whining about it, we were unable to get the camp sites right across from us, which was our original plan, so we could put the tents over there and see the air show from our group area. Perfect plan, but there was nowhere we could get that set up even that far in advance. There were a lot of tags over there though, so we were hoping it was a bunch of tents. Nope. Instead it's a ginormous rig. I mean a huuuuuge trailer, taller than the big busses. And he parked it sideways right in front of us instead of long-ways. It completely blocks our view of the air show and runway traffic. And there's not a darned thing we can do about it, either. Not real happy about it, but like I said, nothing we can do about it, so we'll just see what we can see around or over the top of the thing. The guy also had a huge vehicle on top of their huge truck. This set up is hard to describe. I went over and took pictures while he drove his giant utility/ATV vehicle off of the top of his truck and onto the ground. He has a trailer he can hook up to this vehicle, and he can haul 13 people on this one thing. It's impressive. We're not happy that somebody came along and showed us up on the whole shebbang. Bigger tent, bigger rigs, better transportation...they stink. We're talking about going out and renting a big hydraulic platform so we can lift ourselves up high enough to see over his stupid rig for the show. ;)
The guys went to the store today to load up on all the food and drinks we'll need for the week. The meals have been planned out, and it takes a massive effort and a lot of money to get it all together. Everybody chips in an amount per person, and it makes it a lot easier. It takes a lot of organization to make it good for the group of 20 people we have here for most of 10 days.
The arrivals have started pouring in today. We're listening to the radio for Oshkosh tower, and they are non-stop talking. You land, you base, you cleared to land orange dot, you go right on the grass, you go around, go around, you over the shoreline turn final NOW, etc. It's fun to listen to. We heard one guy say "Mooney, put your gear down! Land on the green dot" (which was further down the runway than originally planned to give him time to get his gear down.) Another was "Just Set it down right there and get off the runway!" Heh. This is always a good part of the entertainment, listening to the chatter in the background.
The T-6s arrived today, we watched that. Nathan told me that some day if I get a FAST card I'll be able to fly that well, 'cause that's the trick to flying the T-6 properly. Maybe some day. ;) (Yes, I'm kidding and so was he, in case you can't tell.)
A bunch of warbirds made it in today, Mustangs, TBMs, Corsairs, B-25s, the Texas Flying Legends, all this afternoon. The skies were full of warbird noises. Gotta like that.
Tonight's dinner is BBQ chicken and BBQ pork loin, baked beans, and mac and cheese at the campground. A few more folks have made it in for our group, with a few more coming tomorrow and the rest Tuesday.
I have to go to bed early tonight if I can, as I have to get up at 6 to get to Fond du Lac by 7 to get to Kokomo by 10 to get to Alabama by 2. I'll fill up in Alabama, leave hopefully by 2:30, back to Kokomo by 5:30, top off and get back to Fond du Lac by 7:30 p.m., back to the campground by 8:15. A nice 13 hour day or so...I'm really hoping it stays VFR so I don't have to worry about getting a time slot and filing the flight plan 6 hours in advance and all that stuff. If I can just get from Kokomo to FLD VFR, it will make my life a lot easier, and after getting up at 6 a.m. and flying for 9-10 hours, I'll take as simple as I can get. ;)
Speaking of whining about it, we were unable to get the camp sites right across from us, which was our original plan, so we could put the tents over there and see the air show from our group area. Perfect plan, but there was nowhere we could get that set up even that far in advance. There were a lot of tags over there though, so we were hoping it was a bunch of tents. Nope. Instead it's a ginormous rig. I mean a huuuuuge trailer, taller than the big busses. And he parked it sideways right in front of us instead of long-ways. It completely blocks our view of the air show and runway traffic. And there's not a darned thing we can do about it, either. Not real happy about it, but like I said, nothing we can do about it, so we'll just see what we can see around or over the top of the thing. The guy also had a huge vehicle on top of their huge truck. This set up is hard to describe. I went over and took pictures while he drove his giant utility/ATV vehicle off of the top of his truck and onto the ground. He has a trailer he can hook up to this vehicle, and he can haul 13 people on this one thing. It's impressive. We're not happy that somebody came along and showed us up on the whole shebbang. Bigger tent, bigger rigs, better transportation...they stink. We're talking about going out and renting a big hydraulic platform so we can lift ourselves up high enough to see over his stupid rig for the show. ;)
The guys went to the store today to load up on all the food and drinks we'll need for the week. The meals have been planned out, and it takes a massive effort and a lot of money to get it all together. Everybody chips in an amount per person, and it makes it a lot easier. It takes a lot of organization to make it good for the group of 20 people we have here for most of 10 days.
The arrivals have started pouring in today. We're listening to the radio for Oshkosh tower, and they are non-stop talking. You land, you base, you cleared to land orange dot, you go right on the grass, you go around, go around, you over the shoreline turn final NOW, etc. It's fun to listen to. We heard one guy say "Mooney, put your gear down! Land on the green dot" (which was further down the runway than originally planned to give him time to get his gear down.) Another was "Just Set it down right there and get off the runway!" Heh. This is always a good part of the entertainment, listening to the chatter in the background.
The T-6s arrived today, we watched that. Nathan told me that some day if I get a FAST card I'll be able to fly that well, 'cause that's the trick to flying the T-6 properly. Maybe some day. ;) (Yes, I'm kidding and so was he, in case you can't tell.)
A bunch of warbirds made it in today, Mustangs, TBMs, Corsairs, B-25s, the Texas Flying Legends, all this afternoon. The skies were full of warbird noises. Gotta like that.
Tonight's dinner is BBQ chicken and BBQ pork loin, baked beans, and mac and cheese at the campground. A few more folks have made it in for our group, with a few more coming tomorrow and the rest Tuesday.
I have to go to bed early tonight if I can, as I have to get up at 6 to get to Fond du Lac by 7 to get to Kokomo by 10 to get to Alabama by 2. I'll fill up in Alabama, leave hopefully by 2:30, back to Kokomo by 5:30, top off and get back to Fond du Lac by 7:30 p.m., back to the campground by 8:15. A nice 13 hour day or so...I'm really hoping it stays VFR so I don't have to worry about getting a time slot and filing the flight plan 6 hours in advance and all that stuff. If I can just get from Kokomo to FLD VFR, it will make my life a lot easier, and after getting up at 6 a.m. and flying for 9-10 hours, I'll take as simple as I can get. ;)
The Big Chill
I did something I don't really get to do much of at Oshkosh--I slept in this morning. The low last night was around 49 degrees out here, but we have so many blankets with us that we were cozy. The guys in the tents were a little chippier, but they had extra stuff too. We woke up to a Tummers breakfast of chocolate chip (for me and the kids) pancakes, with whipped cream, real crispy bacon, eggs with ham, all sorts of delicious things, sausage, etc. I didn't want to come out though, and I didn't want to get ready, plus by the time I did it would be gone, so I just stayed in bed...and Steve brought me a plate of food special for me. Aww. He said not to get used to it though, it was a one-time deal. ;) So I stayed in bed until like 9:30 a.m. or so, which up here is sleeping in a lot!
Kaylee's friend Alyssa from last year is up here again, and they've already reconnected, and I now see her when she gets hungry or when they want to play in our little trailer to get warm. I'm so glad she has a friend here to hook up with and have fun with--it makes the whole experience that much better when you have someone to enjoy it with. She was complaining about the cold, but I just laughed at her, because she bundles up and then goes and plays. When it's hot, she lies around in the trailer moaning that it's too hot to go outside and do anything. I'll take cooler over hotter any day. You can dress up to warm up, you can't do much to undress to cool down. At least not legally, and even then, it wouldn't really help. So I'd say she's doing just fine.
It IS chilly though. The winds are blowing around 20 mph, the sky is completely overcast, and it's 59 degrees the last time I looked. So even with a t-shirt, jeans, and a sweatshirt on, I'm still chilly out in the wind. We set up a wind break area, kind of a temporary stop to the breeze, which helps. At night you have to wear an actual coat. Or if you're my mom you'd already be in a parka. :) It's not miserable though, it's just...chilly.
Tummers and I took a golf cart and some cameras and ran out to the flight line to watch the Bonanzas' Mass Arrival. There were something like 105 airplanes that all came in in formation, and made landings three at a time. They got all those planes down in under 23 minutes. Not bad. We had three that had to do a go-around when they got too tight on each other, and more than one that struggled with the 70 degree 17 knot crosswind, a few plops and bounces and too many people that let go of the controls once they're on the ground and then dribble around a little, but all in all they did pretty well. I went past the airplane of one of my Facebook friends that I haven't met in person yet, but I wasn't in the mood to be sociable. I may go back later and say hi.
We've had store runs and I think the world's biggest McDonald's drive-thru order, and are slowly getting the campsite settled in and set up. So far so good.
Kaylee's friend Alyssa from last year is up here again, and they've already reconnected, and I now see her when she gets hungry or when they want to play in our little trailer to get warm. I'm so glad she has a friend here to hook up with and have fun with--it makes the whole experience that much better when you have someone to enjoy it with. She was complaining about the cold, but I just laughed at her, because she bundles up and then goes and plays. When it's hot, she lies around in the trailer moaning that it's too hot to go outside and do anything. I'll take cooler over hotter any day. You can dress up to warm up, you can't do much to undress to cool down. At least not legally, and even then, it wouldn't really help. So I'd say she's doing just fine.
It IS chilly though. The winds are blowing around 20 mph, the sky is completely overcast, and it's 59 degrees the last time I looked. So even with a t-shirt, jeans, and a sweatshirt on, I'm still chilly out in the wind. We set up a wind break area, kind of a temporary stop to the breeze, which helps. At night you have to wear an actual coat. Or if you're my mom you'd already be in a parka. :) It's not miserable though, it's just...chilly.
Tummers and I took a golf cart and some cameras and ran out to the flight line to watch the Bonanzas' Mass Arrival. There were something like 105 airplanes that all came in in formation, and made landings three at a time. They got all those planes down in under 23 minutes. Not bad. We had three that had to do a go-around when they got too tight on each other, and more than one that struggled with the 70 degree 17 knot crosswind, a few plops and bounces and too many people that let go of the controls once they're on the ground and then dribble around a little, but all in all they did pretty well. I went past the airplane of one of my Facebook friends that I haven't met in person yet, but I wasn't in the mood to be sociable. I may go back later and say hi.
We've had store runs and I think the world's biggest McDonald's drive-thru order, and are slowly getting the campsite settled in and set up. So far so good.
Friday, July 26, 2013
The Arrival
Not much of anything about today went as planned, but that's life sometimes. We hadn't heard back by bedtime last night--after 2 a.m.--what the plan was for today. So we made up our own plan, by which Steve and Kaylee left the house at 7:30 a.m. and headed to Oshkosh by car with Nathan and Steve T. Meanwhile I stayed and made phone calls and dealt with a bunch of problems in a row. There was enough going on that if I tried to write it all out, I wouldn't even know where to start to make it flow. It was...annoying. Frustrating. Finally I got the call that the 340 was put back together and ready for me to pick up. I'm watching the weather, and it's iffy for a VFR flight. My pilot taking me over isn't IFR current, which is fine for me getting there, since I'm with him, but not so fine for him going home on his own. We watch the rain, watch the ceilings, and after a line moves through, we launched. Got a little bit of rain, a few clouds, but nothing serious. When we landed in Aurora, we stopped and checked the weather, and I ended up spending several hours sitting on the ground watching a line of storms move through the area in which I needed to go. My chase pilot took off for home, and I just waited it out. Here's part of the problem of the day. The Oshkosh NOTAM said you had to have a specific time slot in order to be able to land at Fond du Lac (or the others). In order to get a time slot, you have to pick the time you are going to land, you have to make it to your destination within 15 minutes of your scheduled time slot, and you have to file that flight plan 6 hours in advance. Six hours in advance I didn't even know when the plane was going to be done, let alone anything else. But I made my best guess, and scheduled a time slot for 6 p.m. local time, just in case the weather didn't get nice enough to let me go in VFR. If it's VFR, you can just show up. But of course today it wasn't VFR. So I waited, and waited, and waited, and did I mention waited? I was watching that line of storms, watching everything roll through, watching my timing, and I thought, you know, I think I can hit this. I left a little early so that I could have extra time for thunderstorm dodging, and I launched IFR into the system. I did end up dodging several storms and at one point I was given vectors that aimed me right at a big ole hot pink cell on my nexrad, which I told them wasn't going to work for me. They were very accommodating, I'll give them that. Anyway, so all that said and done, you know what time I touched down at Fond du Lac? 6:01 p.m. I NAILED it. :D
Steve and Jim Z were there waiting for me to pick me up--I got everything set up there, and we came on back and had a really good dinner at a new to us restaurant up here. Fratellos. I had ahi tuna, we had calamari, and bam bam shrimp...yum. Came home and had cake and ice cream for Chuck's birthday. :)
Our camper this year is tiny. It's supposed to sleep three, but one of them has to be a kid. Kaylee made us laugh when she told Steve "Three people may be able to sleep in here, but they won't all be able to stand up at the same time!" It's fine though--we just sleep in there for the most part, don't need a ton of space.
It's very quiet here. There are already a lot of trailers set up, but people are quiet. The moon was rising up over behind us, the stars are out, and it's chilly out, which actually feels kind of good. We're sitting around the fire, having a good time, but everybody got about 2-3 hours of sleep last night, including me. Hopefully we all sleep like logs tonight...
Steve and Jim Z were there waiting for me to pick me up--I got everything set up there, and we came on back and had a really good dinner at a new to us restaurant up here. Fratellos. I had ahi tuna, we had calamari, and bam bam shrimp...yum. Came home and had cake and ice cream for Chuck's birthday. :)
Our camper this year is tiny. It's supposed to sleep three, but one of them has to be a kid. Kaylee made us laugh when she told Steve "Three people may be able to sleep in here, but they won't all be able to stand up at the same time!" It's fine though--we just sleep in there for the most part, don't need a ton of space.
It's very quiet here. There are already a lot of trailers set up, but people are quiet. The moon was rising up over behind us, the stars are out, and it's chilly out, which actually feels kind of good. We're sitting around the fire, having a good time, but everybody got about 2-3 hours of sleep last night, including me. Hopefully we all sleep like logs tonight...
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Life in Aviation
This afternoon D and I flew the 340 over to Aurora, and Steve C. picked us up and brought us home in the 172RG. We did this because I'm going to be gone to Oshkosh for the next 10 days, the 340 has some maintenance stuff that needs done on it, no flights were scheduled, and it's a perfect time. And then we got the call. Now there are two important flights that need to be done this upcoming week. Both are on the other side of the country in southern Alabama. None of the maintenance items are "no go" items. And the dance begins on what to do and when and how. It involves the RG, the 340, the maintenance shop, four pilots, a kid, changing every plan that we had, and a lot of various legs of trips that need to happen somehow or other. And we have to have it figured out by tonight, because otherwise I'm supposed to leave at 7:45 a.m. tomorrow morning with Tummers in his car to drive up to Oshkosh. I'd try to explain everything we need to do and every idea we have and the obstacles that go with each one, but Steve and I both already have a headache from swapping around options and trying to figure out how to get this all done where even me just staying home most of the week wouldn't solve half the logistical problems. It is a good thing that the person I'm flying Monday and Wednesday wants to fly. There's some added pressure in that these are important flights, of a very long distance, and I'll be getting to spend six out of my ten days at Oshkosh dealing with these two big flights (and a few other smaller ones) in one way or another, from weather watching to airplane shuffling to actually flying all day. Not quite the vacation I was looking forward to, but it has its benefits too. I can tell you this much--I know what nights they had better NOT make it Steak Night or Kodiak Jack Night. ;)
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Out and About
What a gorgeous weather day, in the 70s, light winds, blue skies, I could live in a weather day like today's all the time.
Chuck, Judy, AE, Kenny, Sam and Ann are all up at Oshkosh, setting up at camp. I'm kind of jealous. I have to finish packing tomorrow, but I'm pretty much ready to go now. For awhile there I was so busy and behind and a few other things that I wasn't really mentally ready for it, let alone ready ready. But now, if I can figure out how to get back from Aurora tomorrow after dropping off the 340, I will be in good shape for Oshkosh the next day. It will be good to be there.
I took Kaylee out to Glenndale tonight and we rode around on the 4-wheeler for awhile, did some flying, and then drove around on the 4-wheeler some more. I used the 4-wheeler as an example for some airplane taxi assistance too. For example, she'd go to turn around and either try to turn too fast or get stopped and have trouble getting going on the turn, on the 4-wheeler. So I told her to come up to where she wanted to turn, and get slow first, then start the turn and add in some power to help with the turn, let off the power and straighten back out, then power up and go straight. Told her it works for taxiing the taildragger as well as turning the 4-wheeler. So she'd come up to a turn on the 4-wheeler, and recite it. "Slow down, start the turn, add power, back off, straighten out, and then GO!" So when we got in the airplane she did the same thing, and did better the second time than the first. She still isn't fond of taxiing, says it's too much work, which I know, it actually is. On the takeoff she did the first half of adding the power in, I finished it up and added full power as she got real busy with her feet then. She held the stick and kept us straight with the rudders, and when I said, she rotated. I had to help a bit right after takeoff as she pitched up too high and let a wing drop, but after that it was all her. She did some turns, remembered the "seat of your pants" thing, did some coordinated turns. The only problem was that the trim tab wouldn't stay put, it kept slipping back, so you had to push the stick forward the whole time to keep from climbing. If you let off at all, it would climb pretty good. I need to go in and figure out how to adjust that. So the whole straight and level thing was pretty hard to do. We went over and looked at the wind farm, then she wanted a break, so I flew us back towards Glenndale. Once I got us on downwind, I turned it back over to her, and talked her through a landing. She did the whole pattern; carb heat, power, pitching for an airspeed, lining up on the runway, level off and flare, herself. The only thing I did was on short final I pulled the power to idle as she was really busy keeping us straight and I didn't want to distract her with the power at the end. Her landing was actually really pretty, and I didn't touch the stick or rudder all the way down. She did a great job following directions and handling the controls smoothly. Then as soon as her wheels were down, I helped for a second on the rudders while I reminded her that she was now taxiing really fast again, but then she took over and did the rest until we were stopped, and then taxiied us back to the hangar. She takes it very seriously, is hard on herself, thinks she didn't do a good job, and is nervous about goofing up. Hopefully I can get her to relax a little, cause she's doing well. I have lots of grown-ups who don't keep us anywhere close to that straight as they're taking off and landing. But she just assumes she should be great right out of the gate. Darn it, I know where she got that...
We all left Glenndale at the same time and went to Harvey Hinklemeyers for dinner, with an elephant ear split for dessert. Since we missed the Fair, it only seemed fair. :) When we got back, the concert in the park by our house was going on. We've not really made it down there, and it was the perfect night for it, so while Steve stayed here to work on some stuff, Kaylee and I walked down to listen to and enjoy the music. There was an orchestra playing tonight, and they did a great job, doing a lot of cartoon or Disney music, and sounding very good. The weather was cool, the sun was going down, the locusts were chirping in the woods, and Kaylee was fixing my hair into a braid while we sat and listened to the music. It was a beautiful evening, and we really enjoyed it. On the way home, Kaylee started running up the big hill by our house, so I chased her. Full out running, both of us. I was catching her, and we made it to the top, and then I felt the exact moment I ran out of gas. It wasn't like my tank sputtered or started slowly draining, it's like it was all there, and then it was all gone. Fortunately she ran out of gas pretty quickly too, and we walked the rest of the way home huffing. That's sad. I have an excuse. Two excuses. I'm old and chubby. And that's a big hill. ;) Looks like I need to work on cardio more now that my strength is almost back...
Tonight we were all sitting in our living room, when Kaylee freaked out because there was a spider right by my chair. I couldn't see it, it was under my foot rest, so Steve got up and grabbed a piece of balled-up paper to squish it, and I was watching him, and suddenly he jumped and kept saying "oh" as he was squishing and squishing. I thought "Man, that spider is jumping around a lot and he keeps missing!" And then he says "Get something!" I don't know what that means. A paper towel? I look closer and I see lots of tiny things all over, thought it was spider parts at first, but they were moving. I said "Oh, do we have ants there?" and he said "Don't ask what they are, just GET SOMETHING." At that point the realization hits that those are baby spiders that have exploded off of the mom and are running all over our floor. Tiny specks of evil. I jumped up and got the only thing we had, roach and ant spray, and hosed down the area. Steve grabbed the vacuum, and I swept the area for a long time. I'm still not happy. There was a bazillion of them. They are now loose. I hope they die without their mother. I am skeeved out and I am Not Happy. Not. Happy.
So I will end on a happier note. Pictures. Here are pictures of Kaylee riding the four-wheeler, in the airplane, and down at the park today...
Chuck, Judy, AE, Kenny, Sam and Ann are all up at Oshkosh, setting up at camp. I'm kind of jealous. I have to finish packing tomorrow, but I'm pretty much ready to go now. For awhile there I was so busy and behind and a few other things that I wasn't really mentally ready for it, let alone ready ready. But now, if I can figure out how to get back from Aurora tomorrow after dropping off the 340, I will be in good shape for Oshkosh the next day. It will be good to be there.
I took Kaylee out to Glenndale tonight and we rode around on the 4-wheeler for awhile, did some flying, and then drove around on the 4-wheeler some more. I used the 4-wheeler as an example for some airplane taxi assistance too. For example, she'd go to turn around and either try to turn too fast or get stopped and have trouble getting going on the turn, on the 4-wheeler. So I told her to come up to where she wanted to turn, and get slow first, then start the turn and add in some power to help with the turn, let off the power and straighten back out, then power up and go straight. Told her it works for taxiing the taildragger as well as turning the 4-wheeler. So she'd come up to a turn on the 4-wheeler, and recite it. "Slow down, start the turn, add power, back off, straighten out, and then GO!" So when we got in the airplane she did the same thing, and did better the second time than the first. She still isn't fond of taxiing, says it's too much work, which I know, it actually is. On the takeoff she did the first half of adding the power in, I finished it up and added full power as she got real busy with her feet then. She held the stick and kept us straight with the rudders, and when I said, she rotated. I had to help a bit right after takeoff as she pitched up too high and let a wing drop, but after that it was all her. She did some turns, remembered the "seat of your pants" thing, did some coordinated turns. The only problem was that the trim tab wouldn't stay put, it kept slipping back, so you had to push the stick forward the whole time to keep from climbing. If you let off at all, it would climb pretty good. I need to go in and figure out how to adjust that. So the whole straight and level thing was pretty hard to do. We went over and looked at the wind farm, then she wanted a break, so I flew us back towards Glenndale. Once I got us on downwind, I turned it back over to her, and talked her through a landing. She did the whole pattern; carb heat, power, pitching for an airspeed, lining up on the runway, level off and flare, herself. The only thing I did was on short final I pulled the power to idle as she was really busy keeping us straight and I didn't want to distract her with the power at the end. Her landing was actually really pretty, and I didn't touch the stick or rudder all the way down. She did a great job following directions and handling the controls smoothly. Then as soon as her wheels were down, I helped for a second on the rudders while I reminded her that she was now taxiing really fast again, but then she took over and did the rest until we were stopped, and then taxiied us back to the hangar. She takes it very seriously, is hard on herself, thinks she didn't do a good job, and is nervous about goofing up. Hopefully I can get her to relax a little, cause she's doing well. I have lots of grown-ups who don't keep us anywhere close to that straight as they're taking off and landing. But she just assumes she should be great right out of the gate. Darn it, I know where she got that...
We all left Glenndale at the same time and went to Harvey Hinklemeyers for dinner, with an elephant ear split for dessert. Since we missed the Fair, it only seemed fair. :) When we got back, the concert in the park by our house was going on. We've not really made it down there, and it was the perfect night for it, so while Steve stayed here to work on some stuff, Kaylee and I walked down to listen to and enjoy the music. There was an orchestra playing tonight, and they did a great job, doing a lot of cartoon or Disney music, and sounding very good. The weather was cool, the sun was going down, the locusts were chirping in the woods, and Kaylee was fixing my hair into a braid while we sat and listened to the music. It was a beautiful evening, and we really enjoyed it. On the way home, Kaylee started running up the big hill by our house, so I chased her. Full out running, both of us. I was catching her, and we made it to the top, and then I felt the exact moment I ran out of gas. It wasn't like my tank sputtered or started slowly draining, it's like it was all there, and then it was all gone. Fortunately she ran out of gas pretty quickly too, and we walked the rest of the way home huffing. That's sad. I have an excuse. Two excuses. I'm old and chubby. And that's a big hill. ;) Looks like I need to work on cardio more now that my strength is almost back...
Tonight we were all sitting in our living room, when Kaylee freaked out because there was a spider right by my chair. I couldn't see it, it was under my foot rest, so Steve got up and grabbed a piece of balled-up paper to squish it, and I was watching him, and suddenly he jumped and kept saying "oh" as he was squishing and squishing. I thought "Man, that spider is jumping around a lot and he keeps missing!" And then he says "Get something!" I don't know what that means. A paper towel? I look closer and I see lots of tiny things all over, thought it was spider parts at first, but they were moving. I said "Oh, do we have ants there?" and he said "Don't ask what they are, just GET SOMETHING." At that point the realization hits that those are baby spiders that have exploded off of the mom and are running all over our floor. Tiny specks of evil. I jumped up and got the only thing we had, roach and ant spray, and hosed down the area. Steve grabbed the vacuum, and I swept the area for a long time. I'm still not happy. There was a bazillion of them. They are now loose. I hope they die without their mother. I am skeeved out and I am Not Happy. Not. Happy.
So I will end on a happier note. Pictures. Here are pictures of Kaylee riding the four-wheeler, in the airplane, and down at the park today...
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Epic
First thing this morning we had an appointment with thirty-one kids ages 4-6. It was a church preschool group coming out to the airport. I guess some of the parents had been concerned that there would be nothing at the airport to entertain the kids, and they were worried the kids would get bored. I think it's fair to say that didn't happen. Steve took them around and let them climb in the various airplanes, then afterwards everyone sat outside the hangar on the concrete in the shade and watched while Rob Holland went up and practiced his routine. The kids Loved it. He would flip upside down and they would scream and clap and cheer. He'd dive down to the ground and they'd yell "OOOOOH!" and start clapping and jumping up and down; it was sweet, and they were SO excited and fascinated by the airplane flipping around. Earlier they had asked if I went upside down, and I said yes. So somebody watching Rob asked Steve if that's what I did. Hahaha, No. :D The kids loved it, the adults loved it, heck, we loved it. After Rob finished up and landed, one 5-year-old kid turned to another and said "THAT was EPIC!!" and his little friend said "I'm WITH you, Bro!!" Cracked. Us. Up.
I got all of our bedding, towels, extra shoes, all the bulky items put into big black trash bags and into my car to take out to Glenndale this afternoon for AE to put into his trailer and haul on up to Oshkosh tomorrow morning. Stuff's gettin' real, now. ;) I'm not actually sure as of now when I'm going up. Originally I was going up on Friday with Tummers. But now MBros may have a flight for me on Saturday, and if I do that, I'm not real sure how or when I'd get up to OSH. I'm not going to spend any time planning it until I learn if I even need to though. Nothing's more annoying than spending hours trying to figure out what to do on something only to learn you didn't need to worry about it in the first place.
Went to dinner with the Z-man tonight; he's stopping through here on his way up to Oshkosh too.
I got the rest of the camp pictures up on Kaylee's Site. I have lots of pictures to put up on various places, but for now that's all that will get done. :)
Here are a few photos from this morning. I have lots more that will go up on the site eventually...
I got all of our bedding, towels, extra shoes, all the bulky items put into big black trash bags and into my car to take out to Glenndale this afternoon for AE to put into his trailer and haul on up to Oshkosh tomorrow morning. Stuff's gettin' real, now. ;) I'm not actually sure as of now when I'm going up. Originally I was going up on Friday with Tummers. But now MBros may have a flight for me on Saturday, and if I do that, I'm not real sure how or when I'd get up to OSH. I'm not going to spend any time planning it until I learn if I even need to though. Nothing's more annoying than spending hours trying to figure out what to do on something only to learn you didn't need to worry about it in the first place.
Went to dinner with the Z-man tonight; he's stopping through here on his way up to Oshkosh too.
I got the rest of the camp pictures up on Kaylee's Site. I have lots of pictures to put up on various places, but for now that's all that will get done. :)
Here are a few photos from this morning. I have lots more that will go up on the site eventually...
Monday, July 22, 2013
Ramping Up
Somehow I have managed to not have any students this week. Two of my guys are off with the cross-country instructor right now, and two others are off on vacation, while another is out of the state helping a friend and yet another won't be hitting it hard until after Oshkosh. So for a few days here I find myself with some extra time for once!
Of course time is worse than space--if you have it, something will come to fill it up. Right now, that something is Oshkosh prep. It's not just about Oshkosh itself, but about getting everything ready so that you can be away from home for 10 days without things imploding while you're gone. We are a pretty self-contained business, so people can schedule their own airplanes, fill up with gas, schedule an instructor who will be there, pay their bill online, buy pilot supplies by themselves; all these things people can do without us sitting there. But still, it takes planning to have the fuel, fuel account, aircraft maintenance, etc. all set up and ready to go run on its own for awhile. You also have to take care of getting things ready for the house, pets, bills, Kaylee's activities, etc. Last but not least you have to pack up everything you own that you're taking to Oshkosh with you and get it all organized and ready to go for 10 days. This process has started with me doing laundry on every piece of clothing we own. ;)
I took Kaylee to lunch with me today, and afterwards she ran a round of errands with me, because she wanted to stop at the store with me and get some milk. So after lunch I take her to a bank, where I get two pieces of paper notarized. Next I drag her to the post office, where I overnight express my CFI renewal paperwork, and mail off another tax thing or two. There is a line for this one too. I pick up the mail at the PO Box, go through it and then go to the other bank and make several deposits, after which we run out to Glenndale so I can drop off some stuff to Steve. From there we go to the grocery store, and after the store we have to haul it all in and put it all away. By now it's 3 p.m., and Kaylee says "I am no longer looking forward to getting my driver's license, because I can see it now. You and Daddy are going to have me running all over doing this stuff." I said "Yeah, but at least you'll be able to drive yourself and you won't have to go with us everywhere." Then I said "What, don't you think errands are fun and exciting?" I got an eyeroll for that one. Then I said "See why sometimes after doing stuff like that for a day it's nice to just sit down and put your feet up and chill out for awhile?" She said "Yeah". She probably won't ever go run errands with me again, but at least she knows I'm not out having a grand time while I'm doing it. ;)
On the way to Tae Kwon Do today, I pulled into the right hand lane when we got closer, and Kaylee said "Mom, do NOT pull into the Japanese restaurant parking lot." I said "Why would I do that?" She said "Well, Daddy did it, and it looked like you were looking at it." Made me laugh, because the Japanese restaurant DOES look a lot like her TKD building, and more than once I've eyeballed it only to keep rolling past it.
We were sitting at a stop light, when "Black Betty" came on the radio. Instantly both our heads started moving, and I looked over at the car next to us, where two black women were sitting with their windows rolled down, and I said to Kaylee "Whatever you do, don't start singing this song really loudly right now." She looked confused, looked over, and burst out laughing. She decided they might not appreciate that.
Now that my CFI stuff is done and on its way to Florida so that I can continue to be an instructor after all, I have three more days to get everything else around here caught up and ready, and I have lots to do. No rest for the wicked, you know. ;)
Of course time is worse than space--if you have it, something will come to fill it up. Right now, that something is Oshkosh prep. It's not just about Oshkosh itself, but about getting everything ready so that you can be away from home for 10 days without things imploding while you're gone. We are a pretty self-contained business, so people can schedule their own airplanes, fill up with gas, schedule an instructor who will be there, pay their bill online, buy pilot supplies by themselves; all these things people can do without us sitting there. But still, it takes planning to have the fuel, fuel account, aircraft maintenance, etc. all set up and ready to go run on its own for awhile. You also have to take care of getting things ready for the house, pets, bills, Kaylee's activities, etc. Last but not least you have to pack up everything you own that you're taking to Oshkosh with you and get it all organized and ready to go for 10 days. This process has started with me doing laundry on every piece of clothing we own. ;)
I took Kaylee to lunch with me today, and afterwards she ran a round of errands with me, because she wanted to stop at the store with me and get some milk. So after lunch I take her to a bank, where I get two pieces of paper notarized. Next I drag her to the post office, where I overnight express my CFI renewal paperwork, and mail off another tax thing or two. There is a line for this one too. I pick up the mail at the PO Box, go through it and then go to the other bank and make several deposits, after which we run out to Glenndale so I can drop off some stuff to Steve. From there we go to the grocery store, and after the store we have to haul it all in and put it all away. By now it's 3 p.m., and Kaylee says "I am no longer looking forward to getting my driver's license, because I can see it now. You and Daddy are going to have me running all over doing this stuff." I said "Yeah, but at least you'll be able to drive yourself and you won't have to go with us everywhere." Then I said "What, don't you think errands are fun and exciting?" I got an eyeroll for that one. Then I said "See why sometimes after doing stuff like that for a day it's nice to just sit down and put your feet up and chill out for awhile?" She said "Yeah". She probably won't ever go run errands with me again, but at least she knows I'm not out having a grand time while I'm doing it. ;)
On the way to Tae Kwon Do today, I pulled into the right hand lane when we got closer, and Kaylee said "Mom, do NOT pull into the Japanese restaurant parking lot." I said "Why would I do that?" She said "Well, Daddy did it, and it looked like you were looking at it." Made me laugh, because the Japanese restaurant DOES look a lot like her TKD building, and more than once I've eyeballed it only to keep rolling past it.
We were sitting at a stop light, when "Black Betty" came on the radio. Instantly both our heads started moving, and I looked over at the car next to us, where two black women were sitting with their windows rolled down, and I said to Kaylee "Whatever you do, don't start singing this song really loudly right now." She looked confused, looked over, and burst out laughing. She decided they might not appreciate that.
Now that my CFI stuff is done and on its way to Florida so that I can continue to be an instructor after all, I have three more days to get everything else around here caught up and ready, and I have lots to do. No rest for the wicked, you know. ;)
Sunday, July 21, 2013
FIRC
Dear Diary,
Today I spent the day working on my CFI Renewal Course. The End.
Every two years your CFI (Certified Flight Instructor) certificate expires and you have to go through a FIRC (Flight Instructor Renewal Course), and pass it, before you expire, or you're no longer legal to be an instructor. Mine expires in 9 days, and we leave for Oshkosh soon, so I basically had today, my day "off", to get it done. It's a little mind-numbing. Okay, it's a lot mind-numbing. I had to read over 8 sections of information then take 8 quizzes and pass each one with at least a 70%. I ended up scoring 100% on every quiz I took, but I was mostly just grateful to be done with the thing. Next I have to take a bunch of paperwork and my existing CFI certificate, get a paper notarized, and FedEx it all off to this place who will process the paperwork for me so I don't have to go down to the Indy FSDO in person to do it. If all is in order, my temporary certificate gets sent to me shortly and the real one comes from the FAA within 120 days.
Trust me, this is even more exciting for me to do in person than it was for you to read about it. ;)
Today I spent the day working on my CFI Renewal Course. The End.
Every two years your CFI (Certified Flight Instructor) certificate expires and you have to go through a FIRC (Flight Instructor Renewal Course), and pass it, before you expire, or you're no longer legal to be an instructor. Mine expires in 9 days, and we leave for Oshkosh soon, so I basically had today, my day "off", to get it done. It's a little mind-numbing. Okay, it's a lot mind-numbing. I had to read over 8 sections of information then take 8 quizzes and pass each one with at least a 70%. I ended up scoring 100% on every quiz I took, but I was mostly just grateful to be done with the thing. Next I have to take a bunch of paperwork and my existing CFI certificate, get a paper notarized, and FedEx it all off to this place who will process the paperwork for me so I don't have to go down to the Indy FSDO in person to do it. If all is in order, my temporary certificate gets sent to me shortly and the real one comes from the FAA within 120 days.
Trust me, this is even more exciting for me to do in person than it was for you to read about it. ;)
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Awkward
Mom and Ernie booked out this morning, and it was great to see them. :) Here's a picture of Kaylee and Grandma with the Warrior Cats quilt. The back is rainbow cloth--it's very colorful and pretty, and all sorts of cool little details on it. Ernie said if Kaylee didn't want it, he'd take it, because he likes the Warrior Cat series too! :)
We all went out to the airport after that. Steve went out to help AE pack up the trailer for Oshkosh, and Kaylee went out to play. I had a flight to Virginia. They loaded up the plane with big ole machine parts, and they were bulky enough that I had a hard time crawling past them to get into the front seat. I fell on my face once, but at least nobody saw me. ;) It was just me on the way down, and I had some storms to go around, nothing too terrible, but it was building fast and looked to be a problem for my trip home. So after I landed in Virginia I topped off with gas so I'd have plenty of time and options in the air, and took a good look at what I had. I was going to have a passenger on the flight home, and one who doesn't enjoy or do well with turbulence. I ended up planning on and going about 30 minutes out of my way, which on a normally 90 minute trip is a decent percentage of time, but it was sure better than the alternative. The system was big, the tops were at 45,000' or so, and it was pretty wicked looking from the air. Basically I had a gap to shoot. It wasn't even a real small gap or anything, it was decent sized, but it was in between two lines of storms. As I got close to it, I was in the clear, and looking out my window it looked a whole lot better off to my left than it did my right. To the right was where that towering wall of clouds were...but it was also where my gap was. I debated for a minute or two, because I really didn't feel like turning towards that, but my onboard radar, my onboard nexrad and my iPad weather all showed the same thing, so...at that point you trust it. I did scoot further away from it than my onboard weather said I needed to, but at some point you also trust your eyeballs, and the weather had moved east since it last updated on my screen, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out not to fly into it. I warned my passenger that it might get bumpy, but thankfully it stayed pretty smooth. I got on the back side of that system, turned around and gave the passenger a thumbs-up and told him we'd be home in 45 minutes, then turned on some tunes to relax for the rest of the flight. Cruising along at 16,000', at one point a song came on I liked, so I moved the mic from my mouth, and started singing along loudly. At that point I remembered that 1) I had a passenger in the back seat and 2) he didn't have a headset on, so he could probably hear me, without the benefit of music. Not good. ;)
I canceled IFR 20 miles from Kokomo because the aerobatic box was active, and I knew I could just call in and talk to them vs having Grissom have a problem with it. When I taxiied up to the hangar, AE, Nathan, Kenny and the kids were sitting out on chairs in front of the hangar watching the wa-wa airplanes do their thing, and they held out "7" fingers as a landing score for me. Harsh, man...maybe accurate, but still. ;)
I wanted to try the "savory" crepes from this crepe place, and I was really hungry, having not had much food that day. So here's how it was supposed to go: I call ahead and order 9 crepes of the same thing, and they're ready for me when I get there to pick them up, I bring them back to Kokomo, and we all eat savory steak crepes. Here's how it really went: I call ahead and they don't have enough steak for 9 crepes. I don't know what else they have, so tell them to make me as many steak crepes as they can and I'll tell them what else to make when I get there. I get there and they haven't started on any of the steak crepes either, waiting for me. They have enough for 3 steak crepes. I order then 4 chicken, bacon and cheese crepes for the kids, and two BBQ chicken, bacon and cheese crepes for the other adults. She drops one of the steak crepes on the floor, so make that three BBQ chicken crepes. She has to make them two at a time, and it takes about an hour to get all of them made. I eat mine while I'm sitting there waiting on the others. I fidget and twitch, figuring how hungry and annoyed people were probably getting. I finally get to leave with my 9 crepes, and I drive back to the hangar in about 7 minutes flat. I won't tell you how many miles that is or what my airspeed indicator was reading. ;) The lady behind the counter said "This is the biggest order I've ever had here!" Well, I'm glad to be of note!
We finished eating and Kaylee and I headed home. I was kind of wiped out; it feels good to be home. Here are a few photos from today...
This doesn't look like much here, but it's the mushroom cloud of one of the thunderstorm lines, and it's about 100 miles ahead of me. I'm at 16,000', and that towers well above that, and from that kind of distance. Storms really are a powerful and majestic sight.
If Stephen King were a pilot, I'd bet he could write an awesome story involving aviation. As I was flying along, I saw one buildup that looked like a giant gorilla. I mean, you could see the head, the face, the arms, the big back, all of it. I tried to grab my camera, but by the time I got it set up, it had shifted. But I was flying by these buildups, next to, around, beside, and I was going by at around 220 mph, and even going by that fast, you could look at them and watch them morph, build, grow, balloon out and up, moving like something alive. Then you look over into the dark blue to black of the heart of a storm, with a flicker of lightning, and it just looks...wicked. The force of nature is really awe inspiring, and you're pretty insignificant up there. Not a bad thing to remember...
We all went out to the airport after that. Steve went out to help AE pack up the trailer for Oshkosh, and Kaylee went out to play. I had a flight to Virginia. They loaded up the plane with big ole machine parts, and they were bulky enough that I had a hard time crawling past them to get into the front seat. I fell on my face once, but at least nobody saw me. ;) It was just me on the way down, and I had some storms to go around, nothing too terrible, but it was building fast and looked to be a problem for my trip home. So after I landed in Virginia I topped off with gas so I'd have plenty of time and options in the air, and took a good look at what I had. I was going to have a passenger on the flight home, and one who doesn't enjoy or do well with turbulence. I ended up planning on and going about 30 minutes out of my way, which on a normally 90 minute trip is a decent percentage of time, but it was sure better than the alternative. The system was big, the tops were at 45,000' or so, and it was pretty wicked looking from the air. Basically I had a gap to shoot. It wasn't even a real small gap or anything, it was decent sized, but it was in between two lines of storms. As I got close to it, I was in the clear, and looking out my window it looked a whole lot better off to my left than it did my right. To the right was where that towering wall of clouds were...but it was also where my gap was. I debated for a minute or two, because I really didn't feel like turning towards that, but my onboard radar, my onboard nexrad and my iPad weather all showed the same thing, so...at that point you trust it. I did scoot further away from it than my onboard weather said I needed to, but at some point you also trust your eyeballs, and the weather had moved east since it last updated on my screen, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out not to fly into it. I warned my passenger that it might get bumpy, but thankfully it stayed pretty smooth. I got on the back side of that system, turned around and gave the passenger a thumbs-up and told him we'd be home in 45 minutes, then turned on some tunes to relax for the rest of the flight. Cruising along at 16,000', at one point a song came on I liked, so I moved the mic from my mouth, and started singing along loudly. At that point I remembered that 1) I had a passenger in the back seat and 2) he didn't have a headset on, so he could probably hear me, without the benefit of music. Not good. ;)
I canceled IFR 20 miles from Kokomo because the aerobatic box was active, and I knew I could just call in and talk to them vs having Grissom have a problem with it. When I taxiied up to the hangar, AE, Nathan, Kenny and the kids were sitting out on chairs in front of the hangar watching the wa-wa airplanes do their thing, and they held out "7" fingers as a landing score for me. Harsh, man...maybe accurate, but still. ;)
I wanted to try the "savory" crepes from this crepe place, and I was really hungry, having not had much food that day. So here's how it was supposed to go: I call ahead and order 9 crepes of the same thing, and they're ready for me when I get there to pick them up, I bring them back to Kokomo, and we all eat savory steak crepes. Here's how it really went: I call ahead and they don't have enough steak for 9 crepes. I don't know what else they have, so tell them to make me as many steak crepes as they can and I'll tell them what else to make when I get there. I get there and they haven't started on any of the steak crepes either, waiting for me. They have enough for 3 steak crepes. I order then 4 chicken, bacon and cheese crepes for the kids, and two BBQ chicken, bacon and cheese crepes for the other adults. She drops one of the steak crepes on the floor, so make that three BBQ chicken crepes. She has to make them two at a time, and it takes about an hour to get all of them made. I eat mine while I'm sitting there waiting on the others. I fidget and twitch, figuring how hungry and annoyed people were probably getting. I finally get to leave with my 9 crepes, and I drive back to the hangar in about 7 minutes flat. I won't tell you how many miles that is or what my airspeed indicator was reading. ;) The lady behind the counter said "This is the biggest order I've ever had here!" Well, I'm glad to be of note!
We finished eating and Kaylee and I headed home. I was kind of wiped out; it feels good to be home. Here are a few photos from today...
Again, doesn't necessarily look like much, but trust me, you wouldn't want to be over there.
If Stephen King were a pilot, I'd bet he could write an awesome story involving aviation. As I was flying along, I saw one buildup that looked like a giant gorilla. I mean, you could see the head, the face, the arms, the big back, all of it. I tried to grab my camera, but by the time I got it set up, it had shifted. But I was flying by these buildups, next to, around, beside, and I was going by at around 220 mph, and even going by that fast, you could look at them and watch them morph, build, grow, balloon out and up, moving like something alive. Then you look over into the dark blue to black of the heart of a storm, with a flicker of lightning, and it just looks...wicked. The force of nature is really awe inspiring, and you're pretty insignificant up there. Not a bad thing to remember...
Friday, July 19, 2013
Friday
I had a checkride prep flight in the 180 this morning, you know, when it was nice and cool and only 85, prior to it getting up to 90 or so. :o I came home and picked up Mom & Kaylee and took them out to Glenndale for Fried Chicken Friday lunch. Later on we girls went to Greentown to a crepe place, and holy cow. I'll be going back there. I'm still not hungry, hours later. Their sweet cream crepe...wicked good. Kaylee wanted to get two crepes, and they're huge. Big time winning food, here.
While I was up with the student this morning, we were at 800' AGL doing ground reference maneuvers, when a crop duster flew right underneath us. The student said "There's another plane!" I said "Yes, but don't worry, he's not going to get all the way up to 800'." He just stayed on the deck dusting the field, and I really enjoyed watching him work.
Here are Kaylee and Grandma in the garden. :)
While I was up with the student this morning, we were at 800' AGL doing ground reference maneuvers, when a crop duster flew right underneath us. The student said "There's another plane!" I said "Yes, but don't worry, he's not going to get all the way up to 800'." He just stayed on the deck dusting the field, and I really enjoyed watching him work.
Here are Kaylee and Grandma in the garden. :)
Thursday, July 18, 2013
The Heat is On
I had to be awake at 4:30 a.m. for a flight to Virginia--so of course I woke up at 2:45 a.m. Groan. I could not get back to sleep, so I finally just got up at 4. The first thing I saw was that the area in Virginia I was going to was fogged over for about 50 miles. I sent a text to the fellow I was taking down, and told him to push back by an hour. It was supposed to clear off by 8, by the time we were to get there, but I know how that goes. We were supposed to leave at 6:30, so instead we met at the airport at 7:30, when it had started lifting. I do one last check of the weather, and guess what--it had naturally gone back downhill. Out in the mountains down there it just kept going up and down. So I dragged my feet a little bit, powered back and slowed down the trip down to give it more time to burn off. Now it was supposed to be cleared off by 9, and I was set up to get there by 9:30. Again, yeah, right. I warned him we may have to go to another airport that had a lower approach, because this one was in the hills and I may not be able to go as low as I needed to be able to get in, but I'd give it a go and see what we got when we got there.
All the way down I kept an eye on the weather there, and it lifted to 600' and 4 miles, which is just dandy, and I thought finally we were headed for that severe clear that was forecasted. Nope. About 30 minutes out, the weather went right back down to minimums. So I ended up shooting a nice LPV GPS approach into there. Once again the airplane yelled "MINIMUMS!" at me right as I broke out. That's happened a lot this last year, not 100' higher, but right then. I came in and landed, and my passenger asked me "Are we at the right airport?" He knew I might have to go somewhere else, and was glad when I said we were where we wanted to be. He said "It was all gray out there and suddenly we were landing." Yep. Kinda cool how that works, really.
About 20 minutes after I landed, another airplane was trying to get in. He called in over Unicom and asked if anyone else had made it in, and the FBO guy said "Yes, a 340 just landed a few minutes ago, says it was right at minimums." So we stand by the window and watch, and soon we see this Saratoga or Cherokee Six come diving down out of the clouds, not on any kind of glideslope I can imagine, aiming for the runway. He then levels off, floats halfway down the runway, then decides he needs to get it down because he can't really do a go-around at that point, so he forces his nose down and drives the airplane onto the runway, at which point he dribbles and porpoises the rest of the way down the runway, finally coming to a halt at the other end. He slowly taxiied up to the ramp, where he sat in his airplane for a good 15 minutes before finally coming inside. I'm not sure if he was trying to calm his nerves back down, was embarrassed, or had a really, really long post-flight checklist to accomplish, but it took him awhile to come in. After all that, he said he was an Angel Flight, supposed to meet up with another airplane there who was dropping off the patient, only to find out the other flight hadn't even left yet. You know why he probably hadn't left yet? Because the airport was up and down below minimums, maybe? The guy that did get in finally just left after all that, because the other half of the deal wasn't going to be coming in while the weather was that low, which is not really a bad plan as far as I'm concerned.
I left out of there alone, and made it back home right at noon, came home and took a nap; I was exhausted from my lack of sleep followed by some decent concentration early in the morning.
On the way down I ended up with a squawk code of 0000, which is the first time I've ever had that. I thought that was different.
Later, Mom & Ernie made it up, about an hour after I woke back up. We had a nice easy dinner, and hung out. Mom had made Kaylee a Warrior Cats quilt, which is pretty cool! It has a lot of the various characters from the book series, and lots of applique features, cat paw quilting pattern, little birds and critters. It's very colorful and pretty. I'll have to get a picture later. :)
All the way down I kept an eye on the weather there, and it lifted to 600' and 4 miles, which is just dandy, and I thought finally we were headed for that severe clear that was forecasted. Nope. About 30 minutes out, the weather went right back down to minimums. So I ended up shooting a nice LPV GPS approach into there. Once again the airplane yelled "MINIMUMS!" at me right as I broke out. That's happened a lot this last year, not 100' higher, but right then. I came in and landed, and my passenger asked me "Are we at the right airport?" He knew I might have to go somewhere else, and was glad when I said we were where we wanted to be. He said "It was all gray out there and suddenly we were landing." Yep. Kinda cool how that works, really.
About 20 minutes after I landed, another airplane was trying to get in. He called in over Unicom and asked if anyone else had made it in, and the FBO guy said "Yes, a 340 just landed a few minutes ago, says it was right at minimums." So we stand by the window and watch, and soon we see this Saratoga or Cherokee Six come diving down out of the clouds, not on any kind of glideslope I can imagine, aiming for the runway. He then levels off, floats halfway down the runway, then decides he needs to get it down because he can't really do a go-around at that point, so he forces his nose down and drives the airplane onto the runway, at which point he dribbles and porpoises the rest of the way down the runway, finally coming to a halt at the other end. He slowly taxiied up to the ramp, where he sat in his airplane for a good 15 minutes before finally coming inside. I'm not sure if he was trying to calm his nerves back down, was embarrassed, or had a really, really long post-flight checklist to accomplish, but it took him awhile to come in. After all that, he said he was an Angel Flight, supposed to meet up with another airplane there who was dropping off the patient, only to find out the other flight hadn't even left yet. You know why he probably hadn't left yet? Because the airport was up and down below minimums, maybe? The guy that did get in finally just left after all that, because the other half of the deal wasn't going to be coming in while the weather was that low, which is not really a bad plan as far as I'm concerned.
I left out of there alone, and made it back home right at noon, came home and took a nap; I was exhausted from my lack of sleep followed by some decent concentration early in the morning.
On the way down I ended up with a squawk code of 0000, which is the first time I've ever had that. I thought that was different.
Later, Mom & Ernie made it up, about an hour after I woke back up. We had a nice easy dinner, and hung out. Mom had made Kaylee a Warrior Cats quilt, which is pretty cool! It has a lot of the various characters from the book series, and lots of applique features, cat paw quilting pattern, little birds and critters. It's very colorful and pretty. I'll have to get a picture later. :)
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Wrong
This was a pretty messed up day. As of 2:30 p.m. I had gotten one bill to the insurance company, and that is all I had accomplished after a day full of running around. It started with me sleeping in an extra 10 minutes because I was so tired, then rushing to get ready for my flight only to have the hot water not be working. So I sent that student off solo, instead, and thought, "Fine, I have stuff to do that I can get done anyway!" Instead, the cleaning lady brought her 10 year old daughter with her, and I ended up taking the two of them to Kokomo where they drove around on the golf cart for awhile. I was going to leave them there with the other folks while I did stuff, but the other girl was very shy, not talking a lot, and I didn't feel right about leaving. So I was out there with them until lunch time, took them to lunch with us, and then dropped her off back at our house where her mom was, and took Kaylee back out to Kokomo to wash Tre's car with one of my students. At this point I needed gas, and dropped off the bill, and had several other things to do including go to the grocery store, which also didn't go as planned, nor did my run to Glenndale to pick up a borescope (sp?) for Jon. I didn't get back home until 4, unloaded some groceries, and went right back out to Kokomo to pick up Kaylee. My second student for the day I sent on a solo flight too, and we were both happy about that one. Although I did watch a few of his landings before I left, though he doesn't know I did that. I'm not worried about him, but different day, different conditions, wanted to see how he did. Which was fine, of course. A little high on the flare the first time, corrected for it after that, and looked good. Steve's day, well, if it could go wrong it pretty much did. He's not had a pleasant week thus far. I hope tonight while he's up north he's wrapping up the worst of it now...
This paragraph is not very sensitive of me, so feel free to skip. Three things I'm tired of hearing about. Will and Kate's baby, Trayvon Martin, and Cory, the Glee kid. Why do we care SO much about another country's royalty's child? As for Zimmerman, he was found not guilty for good reason, and the people all up in arms over Trayvon are hand picking a situation to play the race card. A Hispanic neighborhood watch guy gets in an altercation with an African-American male, shoots him when attacked, and somehow now whites are racist. There are tens of thousands of black men and women and children, and white men, women and children, killed by other black men and women and children, for less cause, but that's not a problem for anybody. Just this poster case that brainless people are jumping on the bandwagon to champion because it's "cool". I've heard a few celebrities say they want to boycott Florida until the "Stand Your Ground" law is repealed. Go for it. No loss for Florida. And while you're at it, I halfway hope some day you're forced to defend yourself and see how you feel about the law when you feel like it's your life on the line. Last but not least, Cory. People are bemoaning how this happened to him, etc. This didn't happen TO him. He did it to himself. He made choices. A lot. He liked to party, he liked to drink and do drugs, and in the end, like so many others, it killed him. The end. Why do we have to idolize him and the others? He was a singer on a tv show who overdosed on heroin. Great role model. And while I'm at it, what's the deal with Rolling Stone putting the "Boston Bomber" on their cover, hair blowing in the wind, looking like a rock star? Whaaaaat?? Is that the kind of publicity they want? I hope their magazine takes a huge dive after that one, that people vote with their feet. I'm sick of our media idolizing and focusing on the perpetrators of violent crimes. Stop feeding the trolls, as they say on internet forums.
Here's a story I found pretty fascinating. All these people you've never heard of, the stories that SHOULD be movies but aren't yet. I know, instead of remaking Superman for the fourth time, how about you do a movie on the WASPS? Or on the Night Witches? How cool is this? For those of you link challenged, this woman was a Soviet aviator who became one of the most famous so-called "Night Witches", female military pilots who terrorized Nazis with their night time air raids during WWII. She volunteered at age 19 and became a squadron commander in her "swashbuckling all-female regiment". She flew 852 combat missions including 18 in ONE night, in the most feared of the three women's regiments, the bombers, and was honored as a hero. Most countries, like the US, used women pilots only as support roles, but the Soviets ran out of pilots so they dispatched their women pilots on recon and combat raids to take out enemy targets. Their planes were rickety two-seaters made of plywood and canvas and were "jerry-rigged" up to be bombers. They'd surprise the enemy by shutting off their engines during the bomb run, so the Germans only heard the hiss of the air over their wings, which is why they called them "Night Witches". She said they got tossed all over and their feet would freeze in their boots, but they kept on flying, because those who gave up were gunned down and burned alive on their way down as they had no parachutes. In one night she watched four planes go down in flames with 8 of her friends, and after counting 42 bullet holes in her own plane another night, she told her navigator that they would live a long time. She lived to 91 years old, dying just 9 days ago...she was right. Now THAT'S a story...
This paragraph is not very sensitive of me, so feel free to skip. Three things I'm tired of hearing about. Will and Kate's baby, Trayvon Martin, and Cory, the Glee kid. Why do we care SO much about another country's royalty's child? As for Zimmerman, he was found not guilty for good reason, and the people all up in arms over Trayvon are hand picking a situation to play the race card. A Hispanic neighborhood watch guy gets in an altercation with an African-American male, shoots him when attacked, and somehow now whites are racist. There are tens of thousands of black men and women and children, and white men, women and children, killed by other black men and women and children, for less cause, but that's not a problem for anybody. Just this poster case that brainless people are jumping on the bandwagon to champion because it's "cool". I've heard a few celebrities say they want to boycott Florida until the "Stand Your Ground" law is repealed. Go for it. No loss for Florida. And while you're at it, I halfway hope some day you're forced to defend yourself and see how you feel about the law when you feel like it's your life on the line. Last but not least, Cory. People are bemoaning how this happened to him, etc. This didn't happen TO him. He did it to himself. He made choices. A lot. He liked to party, he liked to drink and do drugs, and in the end, like so many others, it killed him. The end. Why do we have to idolize him and the others? He was a singer on a tv show who overdosed on heroin. Great role model. And while I'm at it, what's the deal with Rolling Stone putting the "Boston Bomber" on their cover, hair blowing in the wind, looking like a rock star? Whaaaaat?? Is that the kind of publicity they want? I hope their magazine takes a huge dive after that one, that people vote with their feet. I'm sick of our media idolizing and focusing on the perpetrators of violent crimes. Stop feeding the trolls, as they say on internet forums.
Here's a story I found pretty fascinating. All these people you've never heard of, the stories that SHOULD be movies but aren't yet. I know, instead of remaking Superman for the fourth time, how about you do a movie on the WASPS? Or on the Night Witches? How cool is this? For those of you link challenged, this woman was a Soviet aviator who became one of the most famous so-called "Night Witches", female military pilots who terrorized Nazis with their night time air raids during WWII. She volunteered at age 19 and became a squadron commander in her "swashbuckling all-female regiment". She flew 852 combat missions including 18 in ONE night, in the most feared of the three women's regiments, the bombers, and was honored as a hero. Most countries, like the US, used women pilots only as support roles, but the Soviets ran out of pilots so they dispatched their women pilots on recon and combat raids to take out enemy targets. Their planes were rickety two-seaters made of plywood and canvas and were "jerry-rigged" up to be bombers. They'd surprise the enemy by shutting off their engines during the bomb run, so the Germans only heard the hiss of the air over their wings, which is why they called them "Night Witches". She said they got tossed all over and their feet would freeze in their boots, but they kept on flying, because those who gave up were gunned down and burned alive on their way down as they had no parachutes. In one night she watched four planes go down in flames with 8 of her friends, and after counting 42 bullet holes in her own plane another night, she told her navigator that they would live a long time. She lived to 91 years old, dying just 9 days ago...she was right. Now THAT'S a story...
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Broiled
The heat index got up to 99 degrees today that I know of, probably higher as it wasn't the hot part of the day when I checked it. Tomorrow's calling for a heat index of 106, and Thursday for 108F. These temps are outside in the open air and whatever breeze there may be. So I had three students today, all in the pattern. This is like driving around in your car with 100 degree heat, the windows rolled up, the vent blowing hot air on very low and not all the time, the sun beaming in on you, no shade, and of course no air conditioning, and staying in there for about 4.5 hours straight. Make sure your car seats are plastic, too, for that extra realistic touch. It's summer, this is what happens in the summer, it gets hot, every summer, so I will do my best not to mention this every day that I sweat to death. But for the record, it stinks. Pun not intended, but it works. You come out of there wilted, red, wiped out, and soaked through. And sometimes, a little fuzzy/groggy. Today I took a bottle of water in the plane with me, which I will do more often. Last year some days I had to bring an extra shirt, but really you need to bring an entire change of clothing. What a pain...
That pretty much describes my entire day, right there. This is better than the day that Steve has had, though.
I got to re-solo one student, and the other two are close to their first soloes.
This quote was on Facebook and it made me laugh: "I’m tired of chasing my dreams; instead, I`m just going to ask them where they are going, and meet them there later..." Yeah. I think that's an excellent idea!
Kaylee's allergies are kicking her butt again. None of the regular meds have helped, so I tried the Claritan D today, chopped up into small pieces so she'd swallow it. So far, 40 minutes later, she's still stuffed up. Dangit. I need to find something to help her...
That pretty much describes my entire day, right there. This is better than the day that Steve has had, though.
I got to re-solo one student, and the other two are close to their first soloes.
This quote was on Facebook and it made me laugh: "I’m tired of chasing my dreams; instead, I`m just going to ask them where they are going, and meet them there later..." Yeah. I think that's an excellent idea!
Kaylee's allergies are kicking her butt again. None of the regular meds have helped, so I tried the Claritan D today, chopped up into small pieces so she'd swallow it. So far, 40 minutes later, she's still stuffed up. Dangit. I need to find something to help her...
Monday, July 15, 2013
Wise
Every once in awhile you find it kind of amusing to have a day where you do something like teach in a Champ for 1.2 or so out of the grass strip, then go play computer pick-up person, then go to Virginia. Kaylee asked me what I was doing today and I said "Going to Virginia", or I was having a conversation with someone on line and a few hours later said "Sorry, had to run to Virginia and back real quick" and none of us really thinks anything about that. It's just kind of funny.
Happy Birthday to Nathan today! It's some anniversary of his 59th Birthday. ;)
Steve had a pretty horrendous Monday, with just about everything that could go wrong doing so. Right before Oshkosh, having things going downhill does not bring him much comfort. Hopefully all this stuff is hitting the fan now so that it won't hit the fan while we're gone.
The trip to Wise, Virginia went fine. I did have to actually pull out the POH and run some numbers again. The density altitude there was around 4800', and there were going to be four of us on board. The strip is up in the hills. So I had to actually calculate runway slope vs tailwind vs obstacles and how much fuel I could carry with the folks on board and runway length and all that good pilot-y stuff. I figured up what it should take me to take off, and I figured up a "safe" margin above that, just in case, and the actual performance was really close to what the reality was supposed to be. As long as you follow the book precisely--end of runway, hold brakes till 38" established, rotate right at 85, etc., it was right on. Always good to verify/know. I ended up at home with right at one hour of reserve fuel, and it worked out well. The guys had left at the crack of dawn, driving down to Virginia, and here they end up back home in 1.5 hours flat. Flying rules. ;)
One of the guys I brought home had called his brother, who wanted to come out to the airport and watch the landing. After I landed, he and his wife came over to the plane and looked around. He'd never been on an airplane before and said he was afraid of heights-his wife had been on a plane when she was 16, but that's it. They asked me 20 minutes worth of flying questions, and were fascinated by the whole thing. I told them about Discovery Flights and suggested they come out and go up in one. He asked if I could take him on one of the trips I go on, and I basically said it would be up to MBros. :) They were really fascinated by the airplane and flying, and by getting somewhere in an hour and a half. It just reminded me of the whole "going to Virginia and back, no big deal" thing.
Here are a couple photos from today. Looking at the hills on the Synthetic Vision is pretty neat...
Happy Birthday to Nathan today! It's some anniversary of his 59th Birthday. ;)
Steve had a pretty horrendous Monday, with just about everything that could go wrong doing so. Right before Oshkosh, having things going downhill does not bring him much comfort. Hopefully all this stuff is hitting the fan now so that it won't hit the fan while we're gone.
The trip to Wise, Virginia went fine. I did have to actually pull out the POH and run some numbers again. The density altitude there was around 4800', and there were going to be four of us on board. The strip is up in the hills. So I had to actually calculate runway slope vs tailwind vs obstacles and how much fuel I could carry with the folks on board and runway length and all that good pilot-y stuff. I figured up what it should take me to take off, and I figured up a "safe" margin above that, just in case, and the actual performance was really close to what the reality was supposed to be. As long as you follow the book precisely--end of runway, hold brakes till 38" established, rotate right at 85, etc., it was right on. Always good to verify/know. I ended up at home with right at one hour of reserve fuel, and it worked out well. The guys had left at the crack of dawn, driving down to Virginia, and here they end up back home in 1.5 hours flat. Flying rules. ;)
One of the guys I brought home had called his brother, who wanted to come out to the airport and watch the landing. After I landed, he and his wife came over to the plane and looked around. He'd never been on an airplane before and said he was afraid of heights-his wife had been on a plane when she was 16, but that's it. They asked me 20 minutes worth of flying questions, and were fascinated by the whole thing. I told them about Discovery Flights and suggested they come out and go up in one. He asked if I could take him on one of the trips I go on, and I basically said it would be up to MBros. :) They were really fascinated by the airplane and flying, and by getting somewhere in an hour and a half. It just reminded me of the whole "going to Virginia and back, no big deal" thing.
Here are a couple photos from today. Looking at the hills on the Synthetic Vision is pretty neat...
R&R
This beautiful weather day was spent with friends in the breeze by the pool with a refreshing beverage, fresh fruit and veggies, and grilled burgers, kids playing in the pool or the front yard, hanging out until sunset.
A lovely way to spend a day off before a busy week begins.
A lovely way to spend a day off before a busy week begins.
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Sheridan Airshow
Just found out Zimmerman was acquitted. We'll see how interesting this gets...
I woke up Kaylee this morning at 8:20 and said "We're going to the Sheridan Air show, and you can ride down in the T-6 with me." She said "No." I said "You don't want to go with me in the Six down to Sheridan's show?" She said "Noooooooo!" I told her I'd fed her fish and not to double-feed them, and she said okay, and I got ready, said goodbye, and left. Later when I came back, she said "What did you ask me this morning?" I told her, and she said "But I wasn't REALLY awake, and I would have wanted to go! I want to do that!" I told her it was a little too late, now! She was really annoyed. I told her she was talking and eyes open and was pretty clear that she didn't want to get up and go, but she had little memory of me talking to her. Maybe I should have hit an air horn by her head before asking her about it. ;)
I did take the T-6 down to Sheridan this morning, got there...I'm not sure. Before 10 sometime. It was a beautiful, cool, smooth morning to fly. I even remembered to put on sunscreen today. ;)
Originally I had planned on going over to Ohio today, to spend the whole day doing formation stuff. And then I found out Sheridan didn't have hardly any warbirds going, and I started feeling kind of bad about it. But I was going to Ohio anyway, because I thought maybe it would be good chance prior to Oshkosh to finish up the formation card. But Sheridan was niggling at me, so I finally sent an email to the guy from Ohio and basically said if he thought there was a chance I could finish up over there, I'd come, but otherwise I probably needed to stay here and help out our local show. As you can see, I stayed here, so that was the answer I got back. Plus, it costs a lot of money to go to Ohio and back, let alone do the three formation flights they were going to do. It would be worth it if it could put an end to this chapter of the book, but since I wouldn't be able to do that, I might as well stay here and save some time and money. I honestly don't know when I will be able to get this done. I was told if I take the Six to Oshkosh that everything and everybody we need is there and he thinks I could finish there. But could I? Am I going to spend my entire Oshkosh vacation 1) Worrying about the Six out on the grass in the whole 10 days worth of stormy weather and 2) Chasing around formation flights and formation pilots and getting up at the crack of dawn and missing out on our dinners because I'm off trying to get in that just one more flight or two (or twenty) more? I'll answer that question for you--no, I'm not. And then it becomes "Well, she had the chance to do it there and there and didn't do it." I just looked it up, and August 2009 was the first formation clinic I ever went to, in Huntington. At least that's only been 4 years, not the 5 years I thought it was. That's much better. ;)
Sheridan went well today. I'm glad I went. I'm sure it was much more enjoyable to fly a few minutes away, fly in the show, get gas for it, and be around a large group of people I can relax around. Besides, there were only two of us 'faster' planes, me and R+10, and then there were 5 'slower' planes in another circuit. We had fun with it.
The rest of the afternoon was spent out at the hangar, and then out to dinner at Applebees. Home late, a fire out in the fire pit in the back yard, the guys hanging out, Kaylee falling asleep in the chair again. Good day.
I woke up Kaylee this morning at 8:20 and said "We're going to the Sheridan Air show, and you can ride down in the T-6 with me." She said "No." I said "You don't want to go with me in the Six down to Sheridan's show?" She said "Noooooooo!" I told her I'd fed her fish and not to double-feed them, and she said okay, and I got ready, said goodbye, and left. Later when I came back, she said "What did you ask me this morning?" I told her, and she said "But I wasn't REALLY awake, and I would have wanted to go! I want to do that!" I told her it was a little too late, now! She was really annoyed. I told her she was talking and eyes open and was pretty clear that she didn't want to get up and go, but she had little memory of me talking to her. Maybe I should have hit an air horn by her head before asking her about it. ;)
I did take the T-6 down to Sheridan this morning, got there...I'm not sure. Before 10 sometime. It was a beautiful, cool, smooth morning to fly. I even remembered to put on sunscreen today. ;)
Originally I had planned on going over to Ohio today, to spend the whole day doing formation stuff. And then I found out Sheridan didn't have hardly any warbirds going, and I started feeling kind of bad about it. But I was going to Ohio anyway, because I thought maybe it would be good chance prior to Oshkosh to finish up the formation card. But Sheridan was niggling at me, so I finally sent an email to the guy from Ohio and basically said if he thought there was a chance I could finish up over there, I'd come, but otherwise I probably needed to stay here and help out our local show. As you can see, I stayed here, so that was the answer I got back. Plus, it costs a lot of money to go to Ohio and back, let alone do the three formation flights they were going to do. It would be worth it if it could put an end to this chapter of the book, but since I wouldn't be able to do that, I might as well stay here and save some time and money. I honestly don't know when I will be able to get this done. I was told if I take the Six to Oshkosh that everything and everybody we need is there and he thinks I could finish there. But could I? Am I going to spend my entire Oshkosh vacation 1) Worrying about the Six out on the grass in the whole 10 days worth of stormy weather and 2) Chasing around formation flights and formation pilots and getting up at the crack of dawn and missing out on our dinners because I'm off trying to get in that just one more flight or two (or twenty) more? I'll answer that question for you--no, I'm not. And then it becomes "Well, she had the chance to do it there and there and didn't do it." I just looked it up, and August 2009 was the first formation clinic I ever went to, in Huntington. At least that's only been 4 years, not the 5 years I thought it was. That's much better. ;)
Sheridan went well today. I'm glad I went. I'm sure it was much more enjoyable to fly a few minutes away, fly in the show, get gas for it, and be around a large group of people I can relax around. Besides, there were only two of us 'faster' planes, me and R+10, and then there were 5 'slower' planes in another circuit. We had fun with it.
The rest of the afternoon was spent out at the hangar, and then out to dinner at Applebees. Home late, a fire out in the fire pit in the back yard, the guys hanging out, Kaylee falling asleep in the chair again. Good day.
Friday, July 12, 2013
Home Again
More checkride prep this morning, slips and various take offs and landings, including going over to Glenndale for a "real" short/soft field takeoff and landing. 2500' isn't really short in a 172, and it's sure not a soft runway right now, but it's better for it than 5300' concrete. :)
Today was the day we picked Kaylee back up at camp, from her first week at TILT. This time we decided to take the Viking. It needed test flown anyway. ;) The weather was perfect, there was not a storm in the sky, and we decided we'd burn a lot less gas this way, and at 160 knots it only added about 15 minutes total to the trip anyway. Of course it's not real high up on the comfort, but still. So we went over VFR on our own, and Steve flew, mostly.
Before we landed, we flew over the camp. It was really hard to spot the camp itself, because it's buried in amongst a ton of trees, which is pretty cool. Finally we found it, circled over it, and I took a couple of pictures of it, in which you mostly see...trees. :) Later we asked Kaylee if she'd seen us fly over, and she had seen and heard us--she heard an airplane and looked up, just like a regular pilot. ;) The Viking is loud, too, so it's hard to miss anyway...
We were going to go eat at "The Lodge", a really nice restaurant in Ohio over there, but I said I wanted to eat before we picked up Kaylee, not after, simply because I didn't want to fly the Viking back home loaded with the whole family on board, in the dark. Just didn't feel like it. So we left earlier than we needed to (we thought) in order to eat an early dinner, and then go get The Fred as I call her sometimes. But the Viking had just come out of maintenance and had a couple of things, and the guys piddled with it for a good hour, which then put us kind of close on time. Then we found out the camp area had flooded and some of the roads were impassible, and we may need to go around the "long" way. Okay, we still had time for that. We land at Mansfield, and they told us we had no rental car waiting for us. Now we don't have a way to get to camp. Hmm. Fortunately we had been there several other times recently, and the guy that runs it just handed over the keys to his very nice Dodge Laredo truck, with onboard camera and GPS and all sorts of gizmos. It's not an airport car, it's HIS, and it's nice, and he's just handing it over without asking for anything (other than the Viking on the ramp, which if he only knew, I'd be happy to trade for that truck!) So that was really nice of him, and we really appreciated the gesture, and paid him about what the rental car would have cost anyway. He got us out of a pickle as the rental car place wasn't answering the phone...
So Steve and I go to The Lodge and decide to get this meal of fillet, lobster tail, asparagus and mashed potatoes, with various sauces, and Holy Cow it was good. It was ALL good. Everything was prepared perfectly, it was presented beautifully--they have a real chef back there. We don't know how they got a real chef in the boonies of Ohio, but they did. We got our food fast, ate fast, and were out of there fast and headed to the camp, worried about running late and the closed road. Sure enough, there was a "Road Closed" barricade, but we could see the water had already receded, so we just went around the barricade and went on in to camp to get her.
Kaylee had a great experience. She had fun, they had a good sense of camaraderie, and she worked a lot. She cleaned the bathrooms, she worked at the camp store, she worked at the snack shack, she helped with the little kid campers, they had meetings in the mornings, and a fair amount of responsibilities. They were given TILT t-shirts to wear to identify them, and given different camp jobs each day. What's funny is I asked her what her favorite part was of this week, and she said "All of it." I said "Even cleaning the bathroom?" And she said "Well, maybe not that." She wants to go back next year and do TILT only, not the regular Adventure Camp. She loved being responsible and part of something.
They did a few personality tests on the kids too, and for one of the tests she came back as a "Participative Leader". The definition of that was: "Lewin's study found that participative leadership is generally the most effective leadership style. These leaders offer guidance to group members, but they also participate in the group and allow input from other group members. Children in this group were less productive than members of the authoritarian group, but their contributions were of a much higher quality. They encourage group members to participate, but retain the final say over the decision-making process. Group members feel engaged in the process and are more motivated and creative." They tested the kids for their leadership style because it was a leadership training camp. They're trying to assess the kids, and then tell them their strengths and weaknesses in being a future leader, probably as a building block process to then work on how to utilize those strengths and work around the weaknesses. Kind of interesting.
So Kaylee regaled us with stories and songs all the way home. Well, ME anyway. I was flying left seat for the trip home, and we'd forgotten an extra headset, and she wasn't happy in the loud Viking with earphones and music only, so Steve gave up his headset for her. So *I* was regaled with non-stop singing and stories all the way home. ;) My favorite story is the one her counselor told us when we got there though. Apparently Kaylee won the "Super Sleeper" award, because everyone else would be up except her, everyone else would wake up, but she was hard to wake up (no kidding!). So one morning the counselor could NOT get her to wake up, so she lit off an air horn by her, and that did the job. She said Kaylee wasn't happy with her for awhile, and knowing Kaylee, I don't doubt it, but it served her right. I guess that was also the only time it had to be done. It worked. ;) I liked that. lol
I'm really glad she had a great time though, and learned some stuff, and grew up just a little bit more on us...
Today was the day we picked Kaylee back up at camp, from her first week at TILT. This time we decided to take the Viking. It needed test flown anyway. ;) The weather was perfect, there was not a storm in the sky, and we decided we'd burn a lot less gas this way, and at 160 knots it only added about 15 minutes total to the trip anyway. Of course it's not real high up on the comfort, but still. So we went over VFR on our own, and Steve flew, mostly.
Before we landed, we flew over the camp. It was really hard to spot the camp itself, because it's buried in amongst a ton of trees, which is pretty cool. Finally we found it, circled over it, and I took a couple of pictures of it, in which you mostly see...trees. :) Later we asked Kaylee if she'd seen us fly over, and she had seen and heard us--she heard an airplane and looked up, just like a regular pilot. ;) The Viking is loud, too, so it's hard to miss anyway...
We were going to go eat at "The Lodge", a really nice restaurant in Ohio over there, but I said I wanted to eat before we picked up Kaylee, not after, simply because I didn't want to fly the Viking back home loaded with the whole family on board, in the dark. Just didn't feel like it. So we left earlier than we needed to (we thought) in order to eat an early dinner, and then go get The Fred as I call her sometimes. But the Viking had just come out of maintenance and had a couple of things, and the guys piddled with it for a good hour, which then put us kind of close on time. Then we found out the camp area had flooded and some of the roads were impassible, and we may need to go around the "long" way. Okay, we still had time for that. We land at Mansfield, and they told us we had no rental car waiting for us. Now we don't have a way to get to camp. Hmm. Fortunately we had been there several other times recently, and the guy that runs it just handed over the keys to his very nice Dodge Laredo truck, with onboard camera and GPS and all sorts of gizmos. It's not an airport car, it's HIS, and it's nice, and he's just handing it over without asking for anything (other than the Viking on the ramp, which if he only knew, I'd be happy to trade for that truck!) So that was really nice of him, and we really appreciated the gesture, and paid him about what the rental car would have cost anyway. He got us out of a pickle as the rental car place wasn't answering the phone...
So Steve and I go to The Lodge and decide to get this meal of fillet, lobster tail, asparagus and mashed potatoes, with various sauces, and Holy Cow it was good. It was ALL good. Everything was prepared perfectly, it was presented beautifully--they have a real chef back there. We don't know how they got a real chef in the boonies of Ohio, but they did. We got our food fast, ate fast, and were out of there fast and headed to the camp, worried about running late and the closed road. Sure enough, there was a "Road Closed" barricade, but we could see the water had already receded, so we just went around the barricade and went on in to camp to get her.
Kaylee had a great experience. She had fun, they had a good sense of camaraderie, and she worked a lot. She cleaned the bathrooms, she worked at the camp store, she worked at the snack shack, she helped with the little kid campers, they had meetings in the mornings, and a fair amount of responsibilities. They were given TILT t-shirts to wear to identify them, and given different camp jobs each day. What's funny is I asked her what her favorite part was of this week, and she said "All of it." I said "Even cleaning the bathroom?" And she said "Well, maybe not that." She wants to go back next year and do TILT only, not the regular Adventure Camp. She loved being responsible and part of something.
They did a few personality tests on the kids too, and for one of the tests she came back as a "Participative Leader". The definition of that was: "Lewin's study found that participative leadership is generally the most effective leadership style. These leaders offer guidance to group members, but they also participate in the group and allow input from other group members. Children in this group were less productive than members of the authoritarian group, but their contributions were of a much higher quality. They encourage group members to participate, but retain the final say over the decision-making process. Group members feel engaged in the process and are more motivated and creative." They tested the kids for their leadership style because it was a leadership training camp. They're trying to assess the kids, and then tell them their strengths and weaknesses in being a future leader, probably as a building block process to then work on how to utilize those strengths and work around the weaknesses. Kind of interesting.
So Kaylee regaled us with stories and songs all the way home. Well, ME anyway. I was flying left seat for the trip home, and we'd forgotten an extra headset, and she wasn't happy in the loud Viking with earphones and music only, so Steve gave up his headset for her. So *I* was regaled with non-stop singing and stories all the way home. ;) My favorite story is the one her counselor told us when we got there though. Apparently Kaylee won the "Super Sleeper" award, because everyone else would be up except her, everyone else would wake up, but she was hard to wake up (no kidding!). So one morning the counselor could NOT get her to wake up, so she lit off an air horn by her, and that did the job. She said Kaylee wasn't happy with her for awhile, and knowing Kaylee, I don't doubt it, but it served her right. I guess that was also the only time it had to be done. It worked. ;) I liked that. lol
I'm really glad she had a great time though, and learned some stuff, and grew up just a little bit more on us...
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Good News...
This morning started off kind of iffy. I'd been up until 2 a.m. the night before, just unable to sleep for no apparent reason whatsoever, so when I had to get up to fly this morning, I was groggy and not well rested and not very happy about it. I went to climb in the shower, and we had no hot water, at all. Ice cold. "Steeeeeeeeeve!" So I sit on the couch in a towel for 40 minutes while he fixes the problem and the water re-heats, which puts me 30 minutes late for my morning student. Mutter mutter.
First student of the day was checkride prep, and we got to do the fun stuff. Steep turns, slow flight, power off stalls in a turn, power on stalls, unusual attitude recovery, all that good stuff. We were running a little late, so we quit there so I could eat lunch, because if I missed lunch too, nobody is going to want to be around me the rest of the day. ;) I thought I'd come home after lunch and maybe take a nap and try to recalibrate, but instead I ended up working on making phone calls and sending emails that both involved confronting somebody about something. One was fine but didn't go the way I secretly hoped it would go, and the other I found out *I* was missing some information and had to go back and meet up in person and talk about it. All these things are still not "good news" for a day, right?!
I flew from 4-6 pm with a pre-solo student working on the pattern, and we had a bit of a breakthrough, which was good. Then my 6-8 pm guy ended up getting us started 20 minutes late. He too was a pre-solo student, one who is tired of the pattern, tired of working on takeoffs and landings, but just hadn't gotten them down consistently and acceptably. All the pieces were there, they just weren't all in the exact right place yet. His last several flights have also been in gusty crosswinds. I told him that today my goal was to sit there and say and do nothing, and for him to take me around the pattern repeatedly with no input during the process, we'd critique each one afterwards, it was a quiet wind day, no crosswind to worry about, and just...do takeoffs and landings. He took off, and from the get go something was different, and that's what I've said about instructing before: it's part art, or at least ill-defined science. When you've been doing this awhile, you can just...tell when somebody feels it, HAS it, long before they actually get to the landing part of it. He took off, came around, and made an excellent centerline full stall landing. Next one had something I told him a bit on drift. The next three in a row, even with two other planes in the pattern throwing off his pattern and distracting him...nailed them, with me sitting there arms and feet crossed and mouth shut. I hadn't told him to bring his medical or his logbook on board, because he hadn't been close or consistent yet, and normally I make them show me more than one day of nice landings. But he HAD it. Five in a row is better than most of us get on good landings. ;) Fortunately he had his stuff with him anyway, so I told him to let me out, and I soloed him on the spot, unexpected to both of us.
Afterwards he said to me that he'd been thinking about solo, and had been worried about it, but he said "For the first time when I was thinking about it, I wasn't nervous at all today. I knew I was good to go today, I knew I could do it." I could tell. I told him that's why this is a long process, why we spend so much time in the pattern, why it's so repetitious; because there's so much to cover, and both he and I have to know he's ready, and that happens when it happens and can't be forced a moment sooner.
I've only had two students I can recall that made me nervous when I soloed them. When I solo someone, I'm comfortable that they're good to go, and I do not stress in the least over it. I watch and enjoy. The two exceptions fell back to the art part of it. I soloed them because it had been a long, long, long process, they'd worked hard, it had taken an inordinate amount of time to get where they were but they worked through it, and, final piece of the decision, of course, they were making perfectly acceptable takeoffs and landings. So why was I nervous? Because in a contest between the airplane and them, the airplane was the Alpha Male. Know what I mean? They didn't HAVE it. They were going through the right motions, but they were not pilot in command, they were...student. Or pilot-in-suggestion. But I had no excuse to not solo them when they were making fine, safe landings each time. Both of those, I watched with my heart rate up and my jaw clenched until they were down on the ground, knowing that if anything out of the ordinary happened, I had no confidence in their ability to adapt or handle it. That wasn't fun! But normal solos, those are fun, and tonight's was fun. This makes the third young fellow I've soloed in the last few weeks, which is officially all my own pre-solo guys. Now I've got one headed for a checkride soon, and we have two more students, one that is Steve's mostly that I sub on, and one that was mine, then Ty's, then back to me now that Ty's deserting us for a month, that are next up on the solo train. They're getting there...
So I got done soloing the young lad, and got back to the hangar to find my new-to-me Canon EOS Rebel T1i digital camera that Justin is letting me buy off of him for a friend discounted price sitting on the shelf waiting for me to take it home. A solo AND a new toy! Woot! I took it to dinner with me to dig into it a little, but Steve and Ty and I had too nice of a time talking for me to whip out a camera and mess with it. ;) Later tonight though if I don't fall asleep, I shall!
So, you see, the end result of the day is that I'm going to bed with a smile on my face, after lots of good news. :)
First student of the day was checkride prep, and we got to do the fun stuff. Steep turns, slow flight, power off stalls in a turn, power on stalls, unusual attitude recovery, all that good stuff. We were running a little late, so we quit there so I could eat lunch, because if I missed lunch too, nobody is going to want to be around me the rest of the day. ;) I thought I'd come home after lunch and maybe take a nap and try to recalibrate, but instead I ended up working on making phone calls and sending emails that both involved confronting somebody about something. One was fine but didn't go the way I secretly hoped it would go, and the other I found out *I* was missing some information and had to go back and meet up in person and talk about it. All these things are still not "good news" for a day, right?!
I flew from 4-6 pm with a pre-solo student working on the pattern, and we had a bit of a breakthrough, which was good. Then my 6-8 pm guy ended up getting us started 20 minutes late. He too was a pre-solo student, one who is tired of the pattern, tired of working on takeoffs and landings, but just hadn't gotten them down consistently and acceptably. All the pieces were there, they just weren't all in the exact right place yet. His last several flights have also been in gusty crosswinds. I told him that today my goal was to sit there and say and do nothing, and for him to take me around the pattern repeatedly with no input during the process, we'd critique each one afterwards, it was a quiet wind day, no crosswind to worry about, and just...do takeoffs and landings. He took off, and from the get go something was different, and that's what I've said about instructing before: it's part art, or at least ill-defined science. When you've been doing this awhile, you can just...tell when somebody feels it, HAS it, long before they actually get to the landing part of it. He took off, came around, and made an excellent centerline full stall landing. Next one had something I told him a bit on drift. The next three in a row, even with two other planes in the pattern throwing off his pattern and distracting him...nailed them, with me sitting there arms and feet crossed and mouth shut. I hadn't told him to bring his medical or his logbook on board, because he hadn't been close or consistent yet, and normally I make them show me more than one day of nice landings. But he HAD it. Five in a row is better than most of us get on good landings. ;) Fortunately he had his stuff with him anyway, so I told him to let me out, and I soloed him on the spot, unexpected to both of us.
Afterwards he said to me that he'd been thinking about solo, and had been worried about it, but he said "For the first time when I was thinking about it, I wasn't nervous at all today. I knew I was good to go today, I knew I could do it." I could tell. I told him that's why this is a long process, why we spend so much time in the pattern, why it's so repetitious; because there's so much to cover, and both he and I have to know he's ready, and that happens when it happens and can't be forced a moment sooner.
I've only had two students I can recall that made me nervous when I soloed them. When I solo someone, I'm comfortable that they're good to go, and I do not stress in the least over it. I watch and enjoy. The two exceptions fell back to the art part of it. I soloed them because it had been a long, long, long process, they'd worked hard, it had taken an inordinate amount of time to get where they were but they worked through it, and, final piece of the decision, of course, they were making perfectly acceptable takeoffs and landings. So why was I nervous? Because in a contest between the airplane and them, the airplane was the Alpha Male. Know what I mean? They didn't HAVE it. They were going through the right motions, but they were not pilot in command, they were...student. Or pilot-in-suggestion. But I had no excuse to not solo them when they were making fine, safe landings each time. Both of those, I watched with my heart rate up and my jaw clenched until they were down on the ground, knowing that if anything out of the ordinary happened, I had no confidence in their ability to adapt or handle it. That wasn't fun! But normal solos, those are fun, and tonight's was fun. This makes the third young fellow I've soloed in the last few weeks, which is officially all my own pre-solo guys. Now I've got one headed for a checkride soon, and we have two more students, one that is Steve's mostly that I sub on, and one that was mine, then Ty's, then back to me now that Ty's deserting us for a month, that are next up on the solo train. They're getting there...
So I got done soloing the young lad, and got back to the hangar to find my new-to-me Canon EOS Rebel T1i digital camera that Justin is letting me buy off of him for a friend discounted price sitting on the shelf waiting for me to take it home. A solo AND a new toy! Woot! I took it to dinner with me to dig into it a little, but Steve and Ty and I had too nice of a time talking for me to whip out a camera and mess with it. ;) Later tonight though if I don't fall asleep, I shall!
So, you see, the end result of the day is that I'm going to bed with a smile on my face, after lots of good news. :)
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Stormy
A student and I hit "checkride prep" this morning, and as we were finishing up, I could see that there was some weather out there. The day was so hazy that you couldn't clearly see it, you could just tell the difference from where it was and where it wasn't. In other words, if you were just looking at it, you might not see anything, but when you turned and looked to the east, you could see that it was clear, you could tell the difference. So I was pointing this stuff out, and then said this would be the last landing, mostly because I didn't feel like getting wet putting it away. As we are taxiing back to the hangar, a big bolt of lightning comes down not that far from the airport, and you still couldn't even really see the storm. I got bonus points for ending the flight when I did as opposed to doing "one more take off and landing because there's nothing here yet" as was originally the student's plan. ;)
Later in the afternoon we had a fellow's Cub in the hangar, and Jon had finished up maintenance on it, and wanted it test run. I was supposed to be meeting with somebody, and it was a little breezy, and I said "Oh, I'll just run it up and taxi it around a bit." We fired up, the Cub was a nice specimen of one, and I'd never flown this Cub before, and...I taxied out and just decided to launch. The winds were a light crosswind gusting to 18 knots, and about as soon as I got full power in, it leapt off the runway. I only got about halfway down the runway before deciding it was silly to go all the way to the end, it was going to take forever! So I did a quickie circuit, came in and landed, and taxied up to the owner's hangar where Jon was waiting to put it back where it belonged. I shut down and he leaned over and said "That was an awful high taxi, there." Heh. But the door and window were pinned open, and the wind was blowing around in my hair and face, and there was this stick in my hand, and the sky was blue, and...you know the rule. Other than the Mustang, which didn't count, if ya pull it out and start it up, you need to just go ahead and take it for a spin. Otherwise it's a waste. We can't have that.
A huge line of storms moved through, causing tornadic activity in Peru, scaring the cats to death, and making a few people lose power and have a mess to clean up afterwards. When it went through, I went on a dual IFR cross-country with a student, the good old-fashioned way, with VOR radial Victor Airway tracking the whole way. We were getting back late for a dinner meeting, and I texted Steve, who said "Oh, and I forgot I don't have a car here...I'm going to need a ride."
I just learned that northern Ohio was hit with that big line of storms too, and there are a lot of areas without power. Hmm. I assume the camp couldn't get tonight's pictures up because of internet problems. Those poor kids have been stormed on a LOT this week, but the photos I saw yesterday had several of a very happy, smiling, pleased looking Kaylee. It will be so interesting to talk to her when she gets back and see what she thought and felt about this whole TILT thing!
Well, I'm up way too late, but I couldn't sleep. Now that it's almost 2, I will go give it another try. I have a flight in the morning, and two more late in the evening, so...
Later in the afternoon we had a fellow's Cub in the hangar, and Jon had finished up maintenance on it, and wanted it test run. I was supposed to be meeting with somebody, and it was a little breezy, and I said "Oh, I'll just run it up and taxi it around a bit." We fired up, the Cub was a nice specimen of one, and I'd never flown this Cub before, and...I taxied out and just decided to launch. The winds were a light crosswind gusting to 18 knots, and about as soon as I got full power in, it leapt off the runway. I only got about halfway down the runway before deciding it was silly to go all the way to the end, it was going to take forever! So I did a quickie circuit, came in and landed, and taxied up to the owner's hangar where Jon was waiting to put it back where it belonged. I shut down and he leaned over and said "That was an awful high taxi, there." Heh. But the door and window were pinned open, and the wind was blowing around in my hair and face, and there was this stick in my hand, and the sky was blue, and...you know the rule. Other than the Mustang, which didn't count, if ya pull it out and start it up, you need to just go ahead and take it for a spin. Otherwise it's a waste. We can't have that.
A huge line of storms moved through, causing tornadic activity in Peru, scaring the cats to death, and making a few people lose power and have a mess to clean up afterwards. When it went through, I went on a dual IFR cross-country with a student, the good old-fashioned way, with VOR radial Victor Airway tracking the whole way. We were getting back late for a dinner meeting, and I texted Steve, who said "Oh, and I forgot I don't have a car here...I'm going to need a ride."
I just learned that northern Ohio was hit with that big line of storms too, and there are a lot of areas without power. Hmm. I assume the camp couldn't get tonight's pictures up because of internet problems. Those poor kids have been stormed on a LOT this week, but the photos I saw yesterday had several of a very happy, smiling, pleased looking Kaylee. It will be so interesting to talk to her when she gets back and see what she thought and felt about this whole TILT thing!
Well, I'm up way too late, but I couldn't sleep. Now that it's almost 2, I will go give it another try. I have a flight in the morning, and two more late in the evening, so...
Tuesday, July 09, 2013
Report...
I had a quick test flight on the 340 this afternoon, and took along a couple of students who were out there cleaning airplanes. It was just an up, around, and down thing, but they got a kick out of it. Later I had another young guy who is getting closer to solo, and we went around the pattern for awhile practicing crosswinds before heading over to Greentown to look at the fair from the air for a break. A thunderstorm cell was wandering our way, so we finished up and landed. My car said it was 91 degrees. Inside that airplane I know it was...toasty.
Steve was up in the 172 at the same time I was up in the 180, both of us with pre-solo students. At one point my guy turned downwind and the other guys turned downwind shortly thereafter, and when we went to turn base, my student was looking for them, and I said "It's a good idea to keep an eye out--Steve may try to cut me off purely out of habit to try to beat me to the runway." I was kidding, of course, but we did have a little race to get home in our separate cars. I thought I had him when he turned down a road that had a section that had been closed all day, and I went another way. Alas, they'd reopened that road since I last passed it 2 hours earlier, and he got me by a nose.
I saw a video interview with Dustin Hoffman about "Tootsie" that was interesting. He said that when he made that movie, he told them that if they couldn't make him look like a real woman, not just a guy in drag, that he didn't want to do it. When they got to that point, where he was believable as a woman, he then told them to make him into a Beautiful Woman, because if he's going to be a woman, he should be beautiful. They told him that's as good as it got, that they couldn't make him any more attractive. He said it hit him like a brick, that here his character was, a truly interesting woman as a person, and neither he nor most guys would pay any attention or even give her a chance, because she was plain, wasn't beautiful. He said he wondered how many interesting women he'd never had the chance to know because of his own "brainwashing" about beauty. He said he knew he had to do the movie then, and he actually watered up and got emotional on camera, and ended the interview with an emphatic (Tootsie...) "That was never a comedy for me..." It was neat, actually.
We seem to be having a bulb problem. The light in Kaylee's fish tank went out, so we have to leave the light on in her room during the day to give them some light until we get the unit replaced. And yesterday morning the bulb in our TV blew, with a bad hot smell by the way, and we are waiting for that bulb to get shipped to us so we can watch TV again. At least it's re-run season. ;)
I was kind of pleased today. This morning I got down and I could do five pretty rapid and strong girl-style push ups, and do two decent guy-style push ups, all in a row. I know that sounds pretty "so what"ish, but it's not. I THINK...I think my back/neck/shoulder problem is gone, or close enough. I think the residual weakness is simply muscle weakness now from Nine months' worth of not being able to properly use those muscles. Plain old atrophy. Because I can feel a difference now. Before, I'd try to do something and my arm would give out, and/or I'd feel a stabbing or zinging pain down my arm. Now, I try to do something and I'm just...weaker than I used to be. I looked it up, and Oct. 29th, 2012 was the first time I mentioned I had been having problems for the last three weeks. When it was at its worst, I couldn't put enough downward pressure on my arm to buckle or unbuckle a seatbelt, to climb into an airplane seat, to hold a glass of water away from my body, even turn the steering wheel in my car past a certain point. I couldn't take off a jacket. Raise my arms past my waist. Everything I did, except for flying a (regular) plane, which ironically has no motions I couldn't do other than getting in, securing my seatbelt, and getting the door latched properly, required a lot of close-to-the-body maneuvering and effort. I could fake it in public by only using my arms from the elbow down, and that's exactly what I did, but if I forgot, like the time I tried to hand a dirty glass plate in a restaurant to a waitress that was too far away, it wasn't good. Feeling like a complete invalid wasn't fun, and I'm really grateful to have the issue itself (I think) gone, and left with just rebuilding my strength. In just a few weeks I've really improved on the push up front, starting from not able to even hold myself up straight, let alone push myself up or let myself down without falling on my face. Soon I'll re-challenge my strong 12-year-old to an arm-wrestling match again. I'm feeling lucky. ;)
Steve was up in the 172 at the same time I was up in the 180, both of us with pre-solo students. At one point my guy turned downwind and the other guys turned downwind shortly thereafter, and when we went to turn base, my student was looking for them, and I said "It's a good idea to keep an eye out--Steve may try to cut me off purely out of habit to try to beat me to the runway." I was kidding, of course, but we did have a little race to get home in our separate cars. I thought I had him when he turned down a road that had a section that had been closed all day, and I went another way. Alas, they'd reopened that road since I last passed it 2 hours earlier, and he got me by a nose.
I saw a video interview with Dustin Hoffman about "Tootsie" that was interesting. He said that when he made that movie, he told them that if they couldn't make him look like a real woman, not just a guy in drag, that he didn't want to do it. When they got to that point, where he was believable as a woman, he then told them to make him into a Beautiful Woman, because if he's going to be a woman, he should be beautiful. They told him that's as good as it got, that they couldn't make him any more attractive. He said it hit him like a brick, that here his character was, a truly interesting woman as a person, and neither he nor most guys would pay any attention or even give her a chance, because she was plain, wasn't beautiful. He said he wondered how many interesting women he'd never had the chance to know because of his own "brainwashing" about beauty. He said he knew he had to do the movie then, and he actually watered up and got emotional on camera, and ended the interview with an emphatic (Tootsie...) "That was never a comedy for me..." It was neat, actually.
We seem to be having a bulb problem. The light in Kaylee's fish tank went out, so we have to leave the light on in her room during the day to give them some light until we get the unit replaced. And yesterday morning the bulb in our TV blew, with a bad hot smell by the way, and we are waiting for that bulb to get shipped to us so we can watch TV again. At least it's re-run season. ;)
I was kind of pleased today. This morning I got down and I could do five pretty rapid and strong girl-style push ups, and do two decent guy-style push ups, all in a row. I know that sounds pretty "so what"ish, but it's not. I THINK...I think my back/neck/shoulder problem is gone, or close enough. I think the residual weakness is simply muscle weakness now from Nine months' worth of not being able to properly use those muscles. Plain old atrophy. Because I can feel a difference now. Before, I'd try to do something and my arm would give out, and/or I'd feel a stabbing or zinging pain down my arm. Now, I try to do something and I'm just...weaker than I used to be. I looked it up, and Oct. 29th, 2012 was the first time I mentioned I had been having problems for the last three weeks. When it was at its worst, I couldn't put enough downward pressure on my arm to buckle or unbuckle a seatbelt, to climb into an airplane seat, to hold a glass of water away from my body, even turn the steering wheel in my car past a certain point. I couldn't take off a jacket. Raise my arms past my waist. Everything I did, except for flying a (regular) plane, which ironically has no motions I couldn't do other than getting in, securing my seatbelt, and getting the door latched properly, required a lot of close-to-the-body maneuvering and effort. I could fake it in public by only using my arms from the elbow down, and that's exactly what I did, but if I forgot, like the time I tried to hand a dirty glass plate in a restaurant to a waitress that was too far away, it wasn't good. Feeling like a complete invalid wasn't fun, and I'm really grateful to have the issue itself (I think) gone, and left with just rebuilding my strength. In just a few weeks I've really improved on the push up front, starting from not able to even hold myself up straight, let alone push myself up or let myself down without falling on my face. Soon I'll re-challenge my strong 12-year-old to an arm-wrestling match again. I'm feeling lucky. ;)
Monday, July 08, 2013
Ironic
There are some pictures of Kaylee at camp this week, even though she's a counselor's assistant and not actually a camper per se. She has her shirt tucked in, and is running, so I'm not sure it's actually HER, but it sure LOOKS like her otherwise. ;)
Irony 1: A massive airliner with 300+ people on board crashes when the pilot with 10,000 hours makes a rookie mistake and gets low and slow and doesn't do anything about it until it's too late. The airplane flips up, breaks off the tail, skids down the runway, and catches fire, and only two people are killed. The terrible irony? That one of those people was likely killed by an emergency responder. You survive what can only be called a pretty bad plane crash, only to die when the person rushing to help you...runs over you. Gah.
Irony 2: I had an interesting meeting this morning. Steve and I met with a potential student, one who would like me to teach him to fly a T-6, so he can build up his hours in one, so that he can fly a Mustang that was recently purchased for him. A shiny, checkertailed Mustang.
It's not a done deal, but me possibly instructing the gent so he can fly that P51, well, who would have ever seen THAT one coming?! He's got a pretty interesting history.
Tonight I had a fly-over of an event a little north of here. They were having a veterans thing at their fair grounds, and I was originally to do a fly-over with a Stearman, and then it became just me. Weather moved in up there and I thought it would be toast, but the weather dissipated and got out of the way just in time. I took one of my students who is also one of our new cleaners/workers with me in the back seat, and we landed up there to get our gas for coming up. She leaned over to me and whispered "There is a group of guys standing over there staring at us like crazy." I told her you kind of get used to that, and there really aren't too many T-6s out there where two girls get out of it, so I don't blame them. ;) They were supposed to start the National Anthem at 6:43, and it was supposed to be one minute and 20 seconds long. All this seems quite precise, right? I launched 10 minutes early, and I had just broken ground when my ground contact said "They already started singing the National Anthem--they're early!" I was still on my way over there when he said "She's finishing up--any time now". Fortunately where I was going was right by the airport, so it ended up working fine, but it's a darned good thing I didn't wait five more minutes like I originally planned, because it was so close to the airport and I didn't want to burn gas unnecessarily. I'd have been five minutes late even though I was right on time. But I wasn't late, I came on by, did a banana pass in front of the crowd, turned around and came back the other way over the water a little lower, and headed on back. They came on the radio and said it looked great and the people were cheering, so that's fun.
On the way home we had to go upside down a couple of times, but I finally got it straightened out and under control again. ;) Kokomo was in a bubble of wind. Everywhere around, winds were calm. Calm to 4 knots, all over. Meanwhile, Kokomo was 250-260 at 17 gusting 22. At least it wasn't bad; the 5 knot gust factor wasn't bad at all. The 10-12 knot gust factor I had once last year in a good crosswind, that one was more problematic. I can still recall too vividly working that one hard and being glad to be down, and I'm even probably smart enough to avoid days with that high of a gust factor in that airplane in the future. That's how much fun that was. ;)
Tonight was beautiful though, it was a great day to fly...
Irony 1: A massive airliner with 300+ people on board crashes when the pilot with 10,000 hours makes a rookie mistake and gets low and slow and doesn't do anything about it until it's too late. The airplane flips up, breaks off the tail, skids down the runway, and catches fire, and only two people are killed. The terrible irony? That one of those people was likely killed by an emergency responder. You survive what can only be called a pretty bad plane crash, only to die when the person rushing to help you...runs over you. Gah.
Irony 2: I had an interesting meeting this morning. Steve and I met with a potential student, one who would like me to teach him to fly a T-6, so he can build up his hours in one, so that he can fly a Mustang that was recently purchased for him. A shiny, checkertailed Mustang.
It's not a done deal, but me possibly instructing the gent so he can fly that P51, well, who would have ever seen THAT one coming?! He's got a pretty interesting history.
Tonight I had a fly-over of an event a little north of here. They were having a veterans thing at their fair grounds, and I was originally to do a fly-over with a Stearman, and then it became just me. Weather moved in up there and I thought it would be toast, but the weather dissipated and got out of the way just in time. I took one of my students who is also one of our new cleaners/workers with me in the back seat, and we landed up there to get our gas for coming up. She leaned over to me and whispered "There is a group of guys standing over there staring at us like crazy." I told her you kind of get used to that, and there really aren't too many T-6s out there where two girls get out of it, so I don't blame them. ;) They were supposed to start the National Anthem at 6:43, and it was supposed to be one minute and 20 seconds long. All this seems quite precise, right? I launched 10 minutes early, and I had just broken ground when my ground contact said "They already started singing the National Anthem--they're early!" I was still on my way over there when he said "She's finishing up--any time now". Fortunately where I was going was right by the airport, so it ended up working fine, but it's a darned good thing I didn't wait five more minutes like I originally planned, because it was so close to the airport and I didn't want to burn gas unnecessarily. I'd have been five minutes late even though I was right on time. But I wasn't late, I came on by, did a banana pass in front of the crowd, turned around and came back the other way over the water a little lower, and headed on back. They came on the radio and said it looked great and the people were cheering, so that's fun.
On the way home we had to go upside down a couple of times, but I finally got it straightened out and under control again. ;) Kokomo was in a bubble of wind. Everywhere around, winds were calm. Calm to 4 knots, all over. Meanwhile, Kokomo was 250-260 at 17 gusting 22. At least it wasn't bad; the 5 knot gust factor wasn't bad at all. The 10-12 knot gust factor I had once last year in a good crosswind, that one was more problematic. I can still recall too vividly working that one hard and being glad to be down, and I'm even probably smart enough to avoid days with that high of a gust factor in that airplane in the future. That's how much fun that was. ;)
Tonight was beautiful though, it was a great day to fly...
Sunday, July 07, 2013
Travel Air & Camp II
Late last night, around 12:30 a.m., Kaylee sent me a text from her room, asking me to come talk to her. She was feeling a little uncertain about this next week of camp, and had some concerns. She knows she'll be the youngest one there, and the kids she will be in part "charge" of, some of them will only be one year younger than her, while most of the other helpers are several years older than she is. So we sat up and talked for awhile, came up with contingency plans, went over what she was supposed to do, etc., until she felt more confident and ready to tackle the new challenge. At one point she asked me, if we got all the way there and she really, really, really didn't want to do this, wanted to go home, would I make her stay. I told her that if she was just a little scared, she should push through and deal with it, it's a safe place with good people who would take care of her; but if something was really, truly wrong with the situation, then I'd take her home. So when we got there today, she hugged us goodbye, and a leader there took her in and called a couple other people over to interact with her, and I leaned in and said "So, you want to come home with us?" She rolled her eyes at me and said "No, of course not!" Well, there ya go. ;) So she is off onto the next adventure, and hopefully having a great time, even if it is supposed to rain there for the next three days. :o
The rest is flying stuff, so you can skip it, Mom. ;)
We had to be there early this time, and I had a flight to Missouri this afternoon, and the weather was calling for thunderstorms again. So this meant we woke up at 8 to look at the weather, because if we had to drive, Steve would have to drive it leaving at 9 a.m., and I'd have to stay here so I could take the trip. The problem was, the weather was not clear. Some places were calling for a 65% chance of storms, "likely thunderstorms", the TAFs here were calling for storms, etc. Last time we had that forecast, I drove to pick her up from camp, and thunderstorms blew up all over a four-state area. This time, neither Steve nor I really thought it was going to do what it said it might. Looking ahead at both flights, neither one had anything on radar in the morning, but...we just didn't see anything that made us that uneasy this time, so we went ahead and flew, and ended up that we didn't see a single thunderstorm the entire flight. Whew. Saved a 10 hour round trip drive for no good reason.
One kind of fortunate thing happened. When I took off out of Kokomo and brought the gear up, I could hear it whirring, but nothing was happening. I elected to get some altitude before messing with it, called up Grissom and told them I needed a minute for a gear issue, tried recycling it and checked the circuit breakers, which were in. No good, it wouldn't come up. Steve, sitting in the right seat, happened to notice that the manual extension handle for the gear, which is underneath my seat in such a handy place that the pilot can't see it because they're sitting on it, was not secured, and was sticking out at an angle he hadn't seen it in before. He reached under the seat and hit the button and moved the handle, and the gear cycled up. I recycled it again to make sure it was working properly, which it was, called back up Grissom that all was well, and we were on our way to Ohio. When I got to Ohio, I climbed over to the other seat where I could see and got the gear handle fully secured back in the clips where it belongs. The reason I say it's a fortunate thing is because it's fortunate that today there was good VFR weather and two pilots there. It's not life or death if the gear won't come up, but if I was single pilot and it was IFR and I took off and had the issue, it would be a lot more of a hassle to deal with at that point.
The trip to Hannibal was uneventful. There's an old, raggedy looking T-6 on the ramp down there. It's got a nice cover on it though. I've wondered if they really needed that cover. ;) Anyway, I went and looked it over while I was waiting for my passenger, and it's an AT-6A. I know the G model and the D model but I'm not sure what the differences are in the A model, so I'll have to go look that up. The poor thing looks like it needs flown, bad. On the other hand, the poor thing looks like it hasn't been flown for awhile, so I doubt I want to be the first. There are trees and hills off the end of the runway, and nowhere real great to put an airplane down if it had a problem...
On the way home from Hannibal, my passenger pulled out a blanket and fell fast asleep in the back, while I played tunes off my iPad and watched the weather stay out of my way like a Good Mother Nature. In fact, he was SO asleep, that I canceled IFR early, flew over the top of Glenndale, then did a high-ish and gentle turns fly-by at Indian Hills where Jim was having dinner. I knew Steve had gone to it, but I was kind of late; the doors were open but the cars were gone by then. My passenger had no clue he participated in a fly-by, he didn't wake up until I turned final to land at Kokomo. Perfect. :)
The rest is flying stuff, so you can skip it, Mom. ;)
We had to be there early this time, and I had a flight to Missouri this afternoon, and the weather was calling for thunderstorms again. So this meant we woke up at 8 to look at the weather, because if we had to drive, Steve would have to drive it leaving at 9 a.m., and I'd have to stay here so I could take the trip. The problem was, the weather was not clear. Some places were calling for a 65% chance of storms, "likely thunderstorms", the TAFs here were calling for storms, etc. Last time we had that forecast, I drove to pick her up from camp, and thunderstorms blew up all over a four-state area. This time, neither Steve nor I really thought it was going to do what it said it might. Looking ahead at both flights, neither one had anything on radar in the morning, but...we just didn't see anything that made us that uneasy this time, so we went ahead and flew, and ended up that we didn't see a single thunderstorm the entire flight. Whew. Saved a 10 hour round trip drive for no good reason.
One kind of fortunate thing happened. When I took off out of Kokomo and brought the gear up, I could hear it whirring, but nothing was happening. I elected to get some altitude before messing with it, called up Grissom and told them I needed a minute for a gear issue, tried recycling it and checked the circuit breakers, which were in. No good, it wouldn't come up. Steve, sitting in the right seat, happened to notice that the manual extension handle for the gear, which is underneath my seat in such a handy place that the pilot can't see it because they're sitting on it, was not secured, and was sticking out at an angle he hadn't seen it in before. He reached under the seat and hit the button and moved the handle, and the gear cycled up. I recycled it again to make sure it was working properly, which it was, called back up Grissom that all was well, and we were on our way to Ohio. When I got to Ohio, I climbed over to the other seat where I could see and got the gear handle fully secured back in the clips where it belongs. The reason I say it's a fortunate thing is because it's fortunate that today there was good VFR weather and two pilots there. It's not life or death if the gear won't come up, but if I was single pilot and it was IFR and I took off and had the issue, it would be a lot more of a hassle to deal with at that point.
The trip to Hannibal was uneventful. There's an old, raggedy looking T-6 on the ramp down there. It's got a nice cover on it though. I've wondered if they really needed that cover. ;) Anyway, I went and looked it over while I was waiting for my passenger, and it's an AT-6A. I know the G model and the D model but I'm not sure what the differences are in the A model, so I'll have to go look that up. The poor thing looks like it needs flown, bad. On the other hand, the poor thing looks like it hasn't been flown for awhile, so I doubt I want to be the first. There are trees and hills off the end of the runway, and nowhere real great to put an airplane down if it had a problem...
On the way home from Hannibal, my passenger pulled out a blanket and fell fast asleep in the back, while I played tunes off my iPad and watched the weather stay out of my way like a Good Mother Nature. In fact, he was SO asleep, that I canceled IFR early, flew over the top of Glenndale, then did a high-ish and gentle turns fly-by at Indian Hills where Jim was having dinner. I knew Steve had gone to it, but I was kind of late; the doors were open but the cars were gone by then. My passenger had no clue he participated in a fly-by, he didn't wake up until I turned final to land at Kokomo. Perfect. :)
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