Just a song that stuck in my head once I realized today was the last day of September...
Kaylee had another tennis tournament after school today, this time at Maconaqua School in Bunker Hill, IN. She and her partner lost their match, though they did win two games. Her coach came over and watched for awhile and yelled "Nice return, Kaylee!" to her once when she shot the ball right back at the girl across the net. She had a couple really good returns. I was free today so I was able to drive out to her match. You get there at 4:15, and all the kids play a match. Your kid plays one match, and you get home at 7 p.m. That's a lot of time commitment for one game, but she enjoys it, and I enjoy watching her enjoy herself, so that counts for something. :)
There was no internet out there, and I mean nothing. No wifi at the school, no 3G available, no extended internet, I couldn't make a phone call, send a text, I tried to activate my Hot Spot and it all came up with...nothing. So when Kaylee wasn't playing she came up to me "STARVING, Mom! I'm gonna DIE!", I asked where the nearest town was, because the high school was out in the middle of nowhere. Nobody on my side knew. Siri didn't work, Maps didn't work, nothing worked, so I just drove in a direction where I saw more than one car going on the back roads there. No town water towers showing up, no gas stations, no fast food, for miles, and then finally I found a little grocery store thing; they had turkey and cheese sub sandwiches and a lemonade, which I brought back to Kaylee, who decided she could survive after all. I really don't blame her. Kaylee eats a lot of food, she has since she was a baby. She could eat more than I could at any given meal when she was half the age she is now. She'll eat something every hour or two. School can be hard on her. She'll have lunch there, which isn't a lot, and then she's there for another 3.5 hours with no more food already, and then she has an after school activity going until sometimes 7 p.m. and no way to get a snack or something? That doesn't work for her...
She has one more tournament, I'm waiting to find out what the date is, but I know it's a "home" game at her school, so we'll try to make that final game too. :)
Monday, September 30, 2013
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Weekend Warriors
A common weekend routine continued this weekend too. It's comfortable and familiar and provides a little productive R&R. Out at the airport Steve got a few things put away from the BBQ Bash, while Nathan worked on a few airplanes, while Kaylee went off and played sometimes in the sunshine and sometimes in the hangar, while we all ate and relaxed some and watched some aerobatics practice.
On Sunday I kept noticing both my arms were a little sore, and I wondered if my neck/back thing was flaring up again. Then I remembered the portable 100 gallon fuel tank on a trailer that I'd pulled out of a hangar and then pulled back in place. I have no beef with a little soreness for good old fashioned muscle use.
Kaylee was looking at downloading an app, and then stopped and said "They can't even use proper spelling and grammar in their description. I don't trust their app." Good for you!
She was laying on me, we were talking, and I was looking at the little curls of hair at the base of her neck when it's up in a ponytail, at the way her ears notch in, both of which look exactly like they did when she was a toddler. We're just sitting there talking, I'm enjoying the conversation, and the thought runs across my mind that nothing else measures up to having her. There have been times I felt downright discouraged, or weighed down about some various problem or other, and then she comes in and she's happy and healthy and goofy and sarcastic and comes up and lays her head on my shoulder, rests her hands around my neck, at peace, and it's a good way to remember that the rest of it doesn't matter nearly as much as it wanted you to think. People's eyes are indeed the windows to the soul. Some people have learned how to mask it, but not most people. It's one of the reasons I can't look at people's faces in Children's Hospitals. But I love looking into Kaylee's eyes. :)
Here's a photo taken from the GoPro on the wing for Saturday's rides. Thought this turned out pretty cool...
On Sunday I kept noticing both my arms were a little sore, and I wondered if my neck/back thing was flaring up again. Then I remembered the portable 100 gallon fuel tank on a trailer that I'd pulled out of a hangar and then pulled back in place. I have no beef with a little soreness for good old fashioned muscle use.
Kaylee was looking at downloading an app, and then stopped and said "They can't even use proper spelling and grammar in their description. I don't trust their app." Good for you!
She was laying on me, we were talking, and I was looking at the little curls of hair at the base of her neck when it's up in a ponytail, at the way her ears notch in, both of which look exactly like they did when she was a toddler. We're just sitting there talking, I'm enjoying the conversation, and the thought runs across my mind that nothing else measures up to having her. There have been times I felt downright discouraged, or weighed down about some various problem or other, and then she comes in and she's happy and healthy and goofy and sarcastic and comes up and lays her head on my shoulder, rests her hands around my neck, at peace, and it's a good way to remember that the rest of it doesn't matter nearly as much as it wanted you to think. People's eyes are indeed the windows to the soul. Some people have learned how to mask it, but not most people. It's one of the reasons I can't look at people's faces in Children's Hospitals. But I love looking into Kaylee's eyes. :)
Here's a photo taken from the GoPro on the wing for Saturday's rides. Thought this turned out pretty cool...
Friday, September 27, 2013
Tar Heels
I watched the sun rise from 19,000' today on the way to Asheville, North Carolina. It was a smooth, clear morning. The only quirk on the flight is that when we left, our destination was fogged in and below minimums. (I told you so by the way.) But this was a mandatory bid meeting, meaning he HAD to be there and signed in by a particular time, or the trip was for nothing, so we left as scheduled and hoped the visibility would come up even 1/4 of a mile in the next two hours. I didn't figure it would that early in the morning, but you never know. The good news is that there was an airport nearby that wasn't in that valley, and it was VFR, as were several others nearby, so there were options. As we got within 10 minutes of the airport, it was still reporting below minimums. I told him we could go take a look if he wanted, but the airport is surrounded by mountains on every side, some of them quite tall, and we are not going to goof around down there. Not that we goof around anyway on a minimums approach, of course. He elected to divert to the other airport, where he didn't have a rental car set up, and was a farther drive to his meeting, which was an excellent decision, and so we did. Hunting down another car and driving further put him back some, but he made his mandatory meeting with seven minutes to spare. The trip home was severe clear all the way, and when we got about 15 miles out, we canceled IFR and worked on some single engine stuff. It wasn't hugely realistic as I was very careful and gentle with the engines, which took awhile to set up properly and such, but he hadn't done any of that in the 340, just in a Seminole, so we both wanted him to do some in the 340. We also talked about some real world application stuff outside of multi checkride prep. Why you don't always just arbitrarily climb like crazy for blue line when you're cruising along at 10,000' and 165 knots, for one example. :) Anyway, it was a good flight, we had a couple of good lessons in there in a few areas, and it was a pretty day to fly, especially once I didn't have to shoot an approach down in a valley down to minimums...
Our original airport is in the gap there, in the valley, under the fog layer. There's a 6100' mountain off the screen to the right too.
Here is where we ended up, nice and pretty and clear.
This was a little restaurant right on the airport field. A tiny café with a total of five tables, two of them outdoors.
This was the gent who runs the place. You place your order, and see that stove behind him? This building is tiny, and the other wall is just on the other side of that stove. He takes your order, then turns around on that old stove and fixes whatever you order. And it's delicious. The man can cook. I had a Cajun grilled chicken sandwich with cheese for lunch, and it was one of the best I've had.
At the FBO, this sign is in the entryway when you walk in.
You take the white pen and sign the wall, and the whole room is covered in signatures, which is pretty cool. I added my name up there too. Why not?
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Get To It
Judy B. posted an article that I enjoyed the other day. In part:
Sharon Tinkler quoted words her ill husband, Bill Tinkler, often said to her. She’d be at home doing the routine things people do, and Bill, who could no longer fly, would say “Sharon, fly now, fly now, it’s later than you think.” He passed away about a later. It was followed by this poem:
Sharon Tinkler quoted words her ill husband, Bill Tinkler, often said to her. She’d be at home doing the routine things people do, and Bill, who could no longer fly, would say “Sharon, fly now, fly now, it’s later than you think.” He passed away about a later. It was followed by this poem:
Life/Flying Balance
In a hangar at the airport, where a brooding pilot blinks,
Deeply graven is the message — It is later than you think.
The clock of life is wound but once, and no man has the power
To tell just when the hands will stop, at late or early hour.
Now is the time you own; the past’s a golden link.
Go flying now, my brother — It’s later than you think.
Deeply graven is the message — It is later than you think.
The clock of life is wound but once, and no man has the power
To tell just when the hands will stop, at late or early hour.
Now is the time you own; the past’s a golden link.
Go flying now, my brother — It’s later than you think.
Author unknown
Then she ended with this video that was sent to her the very next day. Listen to the words on the music-she said it was like somebody was trying to send her a message. I think Judy does a pretty good job taking advantage of flying things already. She's always buzzing around somewhere. :)
I don't know if I was born with it or if it was imparted upon me, but I always have often heard clocks ticking on various things in life. It can be a problem if you let it, because it's hard to fully enjoy something if you're trying too hard not to lose it. But it also helps you get through bad times, because you know that it won't always be. You never know what's around the corner, and most of the time it seems that what is around the corner is something you never expected. That's called hope, in my world anyway.
It's one of life's little ironies that this whole week has been drop dead gorgeous flying weather and I have had one flight, in the 172, all week. So what's going to happen is, next week when there are storms all over they're going to want me to fly all over the place again. Because we wouldn't want to take trips when it's beautiful out, no, we need to take trips when it's fog and ice and storms, dontyaknow! ;)
Kaylee news! First, tonight she had two tennis matches. She lost the first match, 4 games to 2. That also means, of course she won two games at least. And then she won her second match! Like I said, she's getting better, and she's having fun, and it's good exercise, and fun camaraderie, so what's not to like? Also, Kaylee's Junior High band had auditions to have "chairs". You know what that means, right? Well, today the band director announced who won what chairs, and for Alto Sax, Kaylee won First Chair! There are five 7th and 8th graders that play alto sax, so she took top "honors" there, and for this being her first year playing the Sax, that's pretty good! Way to go Kay!
It's one of life's little ironies that this whole week has been drop dead gorgeous flying weather and I have had one flight, in the 172, all week. So what's going to happen is, next week when there are storms all over they're going to want me to fly all over the place again. Because we wouldn't want to take trips when it's beautiful out, no, we need to take trips when it's fog and ice and storms, dontyaknow! ;)
Kaylee news! First, tonight she had two tennis matches. She lost the first match, 4 games to 2. That also means, of course she won two games at least. And then she won her second match! Like I said, she's getting better, and she's having fun, and it's good exercise, and fun camaraderie, so what's not to like? Also, Kaylee's Junior High band had auditions to have "chairs". You know what that means, right? Well, today the band director announced who won what chairs, and for Alto Sax, Kaylee won First Chair! There are five 7th and 8th graders that play alto sax, so she took top "honors" there, and for this being her first year playing the Sax, that's pretty good! Way to go Kay!
Mom, this one's for you. Anybody else, if this doesn't make you saw "Awwwwwww", then go find yourself a heart somewhere. ;) Skip to about 25 seconds in if you want to get to the part where he finds the kitten. Yes, I am posting a kitten video.
I have a lot of thank yous to write for the BBQ Bash donation. I'm ahead of the game by getting everything deposited so early, so I need to keep that momentum going for the important part-letting people know how much I appreciate their help and donations. I should get to that now that I'm done looking at helpless kitten videos on YouTube...
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Boulders
So, it looks like this year brought in around $7500 for the BBQ Bash. :) That's less than typical, but we had lighter crowds the whole weekend, probably due to lack of advertising and a few other things going on at the same time. Steve and Cindy S. already have come up with some good ideas for next year to get the word out better, and I already have a new type of airplane that most people haven't flown yet set up to give "special rides", that I found on Facebook of all places, and I think next year will be even better. But no matter what, we're grateful for everybody coming out and donating time and money and airplanes and food and work and everything that everybody puts into this week! It's a LOT more work than you can imagine, trust me. And I just deposited about $7500 into SMA Support's account today, which means I have a few things I can get done to help out some folks. Love that. :)
I think I've found a conspiracy, by the way! This occurred to me today. Originally when I was going to get a FAST card I thought it was like a weekend thing. Not quite. When the T-6s didn't have anything I could reasonably do, I had the opportunity to go to the FFI clinic for the Bonanza guys, and had a recommendation to go to their advanced clinic and get my formation card there, via the Baron. Even had someone to likely split the gas with me down to their clinic. And then the Baron sold, before the next FFI clinic. Awhile later, two more opportunities came up. One in the Mustang, for a Fighter FAST card, for this Spring, one weekend and done. The Mustang sold first. Another not-sealed-but-likely-opportunity with a friend's Bonanza. His Bonanza--also gone before I could do that. Right now there are at least three scheduled formation fly-ins left this season, all coming up fast, that I was planning on hitting and hopefully finishing up on before this flying season ended, so that I was good to go for the next flying season. The T-6 is now down for annual, probably for awhile. Now, I'll also admit that odds are good that any to all of the remaining three formation events would have had some kind of cancellation or issue anyway too. Because this is the conspiracy, designed to make sure I can't ever complete this one task. I think...I think I may just be Sisyphus, Part II! ;)
Kaylee had a tennis match yesterday and lost her game soundly, 0 to 6. But she did pick up a few more things to help her next time. Each time she learns something, and gets better. She only has four matches left this year, and practices, of course. Tomorrow she has another match, in Peru. We'll see how it goes. I'm just glad she stuck with it and keeps learning.
On to the Season Premiers. Woot!
I think I've found a conspiracy, by the way! This occurred to me today. Originally when I was going to get a FAST card I thought it was like a weekend thing. Not quite. When the T-6s didn't have anything I could reasonably do, I had the opportunity to go to the FFI clinic for the Bonanza guys, and had a recommendation to go to their advanced clinic and get my formation card there, via the Baron. Even had someone to likely split the gas with me down to their clinic. And then the Baron sold, before the next FFI clinic. Awhile later, two more opportunities came up. One in the Mustang, for a Fighter FAST card, for this Spring, one weekend and done. The Mustang sold first. Another not-sealed-but-likely-opportunity with a friend's Bonanza. His Bonanza--also gone before I could do that. Right now there are at least three scheduled formation fly-ins left this season, all coming up fast, that I was planning on hitting and hopefully finishing up on before this flying season ended, so that I was good to go for the next flying season. The T-6 is now down for annual, probably for awhile. Now, I'll also admit that odds are good that any to all of the remaining three formation events would have had some kind of cancellation or issue anyway too. Because this is the conspiracy, designed to make sure I can't ever complete this one task. I think...I think I may just be Sisyphus, Part II! ;)
Kaylee had a tennis match yesterday and lost her game soundly, 0 to 6. But she did pick up a few more things to help her next time. Each time she learns something, and gets better. She only has four matches left this year, and practices, of course. Tomorrow she has another match, in Peru. We'll see how it goes. I'm just glad she stuck with it and keeps learning.
On to the Season Premiers. Woot!
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Photos
Here are a few of the Six on Sunday from various photographers. First three Irving Washington, next two Ashley Plemmons, next one Stephanie Otherson, last two Justin Gould. The one is the cropped version of the other. I don't have the photos of Kaylee yet, and don't have any numbers yet, but soon I'll have more photos and more info. :)
Monday, September 23, 2013
Post Bash
Mostly this is probably a weekend that should just be told through pictures. One of the photographers took several photos of Kaylee and the girls, and they're hysterical, we love them. She said she'd get them to me tonight, and I'll try to post them up tomorrow. I've seen several photos from the weekend, flying and people shots, a couple of videos of a low pass, and even an 11 second sideways video clip from Trey's backseater of us in formation. It's fun to see from other people's lenses. :)
Today is Kaylee's hard day. She got out of school and had one hour to work on her homework before going to Taekwondo. I had to then take her out of class 25 minutes early and drive her out to Greentown so she could be 25 minutes late for the start of her tennis practice. After tennis ended at 7 pm, she had a drama club meeting to go over a section of the script. :Play Practice I guess you call it. That ended at 8:20 pm. She got home at a quarter to 9 pm and has to finish up her homework again. It just makes for an awful long Monday. Fortunately it's just the one day that's like this, and the rest of the week is much easier, with nothing at all going on Fridays.
The BBQ Bash went fine. Everybody did a great job, it was safe, the weather was beautiful particularly on Sunday, and there were no major hiccups. The crowd was down this year, but I think in the end we still somehow came out doing better than I thought we were going to. Sunday actually picked up a bit--I think a lot of people were busy doing other things on Saturday, but had Sunday afternoon free and came on out, and that helped. We were in competition with several other big local events, and we're thinking of trying to move it forward by a week to avoid the same situation next year. We'll see. I got to fly a Stinson 108 for the first time, and that's a fun airplane with very responsive ailerons. I always love getting to try out a new airplane. :)
Saturday Nathan flew the T-6 for the rides, and ended up doing 8 of them, and Sunday I flew the rides and had 10 of them. The regular rides stayed fairly busy, and the Champ/Stinson rides seemed good. The helicopter seemed a little down this year too but I may be wrong there. The pedal plane did great. And the kids did a fantastic job of working at the event too. Kaylee, Maggie and Grace worked in the food tent behind the counter and did a great job, and Jamie, Andrew and another friend worked in the food tent taking care of business too, and they all took it seriously, worked really hard, and just did a fantastic job. They're growing up on us!
I'll post photos and numbers once I've got them organized and ready to go...
Today is Kaylee's hard day. She got out of school and had one hour to work on her homework before going to Taekwondo. I had to then take her out of class 25 minutes early and drive her out to Greentown so she could be 25 minutes late for the start of her tennis practice. After tennis ended at 7 pm, she had a drama club meeting to go over a section of the script. :Play Practice I guess you call it. That ended at 8:20 pm. She got home at a quarter to 9 pm and has to finish up her homework again. It just makes for an awful long Monday. Fortunately it's just the one day that's like this, and the rest of the week is much easier, with nothing at all going on Fridays.
The BBQ Bash went fine. Everybody did a great job, it was safe, the weather was beautiful particularly on Sunday, and there were no major hiccups. The crowd was down this year, but I think in the end we still somehow came out doing better than I thought we were going to. Sunday actually picked up a bit--I think a lot of people were busy doing other things on Saturday, but had Sunday afternoon free and came on out, and that helped. We were in competition with several other big local events, and we're thinking of trying to move it forward by a week to avoid the same situation next year. We'll see. I got to fly a Stinson 108 for the first time, and that's a fun airplane with very responsive ailerons. I always love getting to try out a new airplane. :)
Saturday Nathan flew the T-6 for the rides, and ended up doing 8 of them, and Sunday I flew the rides and had 10 of them. The regular rides stayed fairly busy, and the Champ/Stinson rides seemed good. The helicopter seemed a little down this year too but I may be wrong there. The pedal plane did great. And the kids did a fantastic job of working at the event too. Kaylee, Maggie and Grace worked in the food tent behind the counter and did a great job, and Jamie, Andrew and another friend worked in the food tent taking care of business too, and they all took it seriously, worked really hard, and just did a fantastic job. They're growing up on us!
I'll post photos and numbers once I've got them organized and ready to go...
Friday, September 20, 2013
Pre-Bash
I was supposed to go to Aurora today. The forecast was terrible. I told him the night before the forecast was terrible, and you could see the line of storms out there, huge. This morning the line had died down and we could make it out, and I told him we'd probably be out there until 7 pm or so when the line fired back up that afternoon. He decided to drive. The storms never hit. All day. Sure, it dribbled rain, but the 90% chance of storms, the "fire back up this afternoon", the 8 nearby TAFs, the weather channel, all got it wrong. It was fine. A little dreary, but fine. Good grief I hate it when that happens.
Instead, though, I had time to do some BBQ Bash stuff. I hit the bank, picked up some t-shirts and hats, ran a few other errands, picked up Kaylee from school, and then tonight was Round One. Pizza Hut donated a huge amount of food, and we ended up running out of food. There were probably 75 people or so there. We had pizzas, cinnamon sticks and icing, breadsticks and cheese dip, salad and fixings, wings, and a couple desserts. It was amazing, Pizza Hut really outdid themselves this year, and I'm really appreciative and amazed that they're doing so much for us 10 years past the last time I flew for them. Alan is fantastic. And Coke, same thing, they brought us so many Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, etc. fountain drinks, years and years after I last flew for Coca-Cola. Just...I really appreciate it. Awesome.
The weather was dribbly, but we had a very nice tent, and it was warm enough, and we hung out in the tent and ate and drank and chatted and had a lovely evening. Ron tried to light a huge fire, but the rain kept everyone away from it.
We had a nice evening. Hopefully tomorrow's weather will hold out and we will have a busy, productive, fun day. :)
Instead, though, I had time to do some BBQ Bash stuff. I hit the bank, picked up some t-shirts and hats, ran a few other errands, picked up Kaylee from school, and then tonight was Round One. Pizza Hut donated a huge amount of food, and we ended up running out of food. There were probably 75 people or so there. We had pizzas, cinnamon sticks and icing, breadsticks and cheese dip, salad and fixings, wings, and a couple desserts. It was amazing, Pizza Hut really outdid themselves this year, and I'm really appreciative and amazed that they're doing so much for us 10 years past the last time I flew for them. Alan is fantastic. And Coke, same thing, they brought us so many Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, etc. fountain drinks, years and years after I last flew for Coca-Cola. Just...I really appreciate it. Awesome.
The weather was dribbly, but we had a very nice tent, and it was warm enough, and we hung out in the tent and ate and drank and chatted and had a lovely evening. Ron tried to light a huge fire, but the rain kept everyone away from it.
We had a nice evening. Hopefully tomorrow's weather will hold out and we will have a busy, productive, fun day. :)
Thursday, September 19, 2013
The Day Before
Steve is still pretty far behind on getting ready for the Bash, which kicks off tomorrow. So since I got my PowerPoint Presentation and brochures done last night, I was going to take his students today. The first one was supposed to be at 8 a.m., but it was raining and cloudy, so he canceled. Instead I've been sending out emails and posts about this weekend, and then I took 1/2 of a step towards upgrading to the new Apple operating system. A lot of people were unhappy, but then again, a lot of people usually are no matter what. So I updated my iPad first and am leaving my phone alone for now. I don't know that I care how it looks, although it seems plainer now, like it was designed by children, but I'm fine as long as everything works like it's supposed to. The first thing I tried out was Garmin Pilot, of course. So far so good on the iPad, but like I said, I'll give it a little time before doing my phone. I still think this would be a great way to do something dastardly in the world. Set loose a virus on a massive part of the population, change the phone over to a bomb, something wicked. I read too much.
Speaking of reading too much, I bought a book awhile ago (no!) and Amazon sent me a promotional thing saying that because of my purchase, I could buy any of the below books for $1 each. Well, hello! Cool! I look down, and they're all romance novels. Now, Amazon, I know you know me better than that since you track everything I buy. Why on earth would you think I'd be interested in buying romance novels? Have I EVER bought a romance novel? (The answer to that is no, I have not.) So I ignored that one. A week later I bought another book (oops) and I got another promotional email. "You can buy all these books for $1!" This time they are mystery/thriller books. Now we're talking. For $1 each, I can read a lot of books. ;)
My (Steve's) second flight of the day also canceled for weather, so I went out to Kaylee's school to watch her play another tennis match, this time against Northwestern. Unfortunately they didn't have enough players to play all of her team, so she ended up just playing a singles match against one of her own teammates, one that has been better than she. She won 3 matches, but lost the game. But she really has improved, her returns are getting fairly consistent. Serving needed a little help tonight, but she's rapidly picking it up, so that's a lot more fun to watch!
I got a last-minute call to fly to the Chicago area tomorrow at 7:30 a.m. The problem is, tomorrow's weather is forecasting an 80% chance of storms, with a very big line of them already out there. We are still progressing as if we are going, but I don't really see how we are going to be going. I don't mind working around weather, but as of tonight that one doesn't look like anything to work around, it looks like something to stay down for. I tried to provide that warning tonight in case they needed to leave earlier to drive it, but other than that, I'll just have to make the final determination very early in the morning...then hope that if it's good enough to get out, that I'll be able to get in at a reasonable hour Friday late afternoon, since our Bash Begins then and I don't want to be spending the night in Chicago. ;)
Speaking of reading too much, I bought a book awhile ago (no!) and Amazon sent me a promotional thing saying that because of my purchase, I could buy any of the below books for $1 each. Well, hello! Cool! I look down, and they're all romance novels. Now, Amazon, I know you know me better than that since you track everything I buy. Why on earth would you think I'd be interested in buying romance novels? Have I EVER bought a romance novel? (The answer to that is no, I have not.) So I ignored that one. A week later I bought another book (oops) and I got another promotional email. "You can buy all these books for $1!" This time they are mystery/thriller books. Now we're talking. For $1 each, I can read a lot of books. ;)
My (Steve's) second flight of the day also canceled for weather, so I went out to Kaylee's school to watch her play another tennis match, this time against Northwestern. Unfortunately they didn't have enough players to play all of her team, so she ended up just playing a singles match against one of her own teammates, one that has been better than she. She won 3 matches, but lost the game. But she really has improved, her returns are getting fairly consistent. Serving needed a little help tonight, but she's rapidly picking it up, so that's a lot more fun to watch!
I got a last-minute call to fly to the Chicago area tomorrow at 7:30 a.m. The problem is, tomorrow's weather is forecasting an 80% chance of storms, with a very big line of them already out there. We are still progressing as if we are going, but I don't really see how we are going to be going. I don't mind working around weather, but as of tonight that one doesn't look like anything to work around, it looks like something to stay down for. I tried to provide that warning tonight in case they needed to leave earlier to drive it, but other than that, I'll just have to make the final determination very early in the morning...then hope that if it's good enough to get out, that I'll be able to get in at a reasonable hour Friday late afternoon, since our Bash Begins then and I don't want to be spending the night in Chicago. ;)
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
It's Hump Day
Kaylee had Taekwondo in their new facility for the first time today. She came out and talked about how much her legs hurt. They started hurting after her tennis matches yesterday, and got worse after Taekwondo. I told her that's called "Exercise", and it's good for her. ;)
I was glad to not have any flights today. I worked on some stuff around the house and put together a PowerPoint Presentation for the BBQ Bash. Tonight/tomorrow I need to work on brochures or handouts for Ann to have to give out, and then I need to look over and prepare for a pilot briefing for Saturday. Steve's going to be busy so I get to do that part.
Oh. Yesterday a pilot crashed at an airshow in China. The interesting thing about this guy is that he has been a problem pilot for a very long time. (That very biased link seems to have crashed, maybe too much activity right now or something). He buzzed the Santa Monica Pier in a L-39, scaring the pants off of a lot of people. His licenses were suspended after that, then revoked fully a few years later when he was illegally selling rides in his L-39 and an airplane he was flying formation with also giving illegal rides crashed and killed two on board. He also participated in a formation flight into the clouds with a Bonanza that clipped trees on a mountain. The guy was bad news. So he was using his Canadian pilot certificates to fly an airshow in China, because he couldn't fly in the US. He took an 18 year old Chinese kid with him, went up in the rain, against the locals' advice, and took his Lancair and tried to ski on the lake with it. With tiny little tires and a nosewheel. And crashed, killing both himself and this poor kid. And not one person is surprised. But worst of all, most of the aviation community had the exact same thing to say: "We knew it was coming, just wish he wouldn't have taken out somebody with him." or "Couldn't have happened to a better guy." or "Finally." Wow, can you imagine that being your legacy? I haven't heard one person, anywhere, have anything good to say about him as a person or a pilot. Pretty sad, really, but as I said when I passed on the news, "Well, Riggs is done flying for good, now."
Anyway, on a different topic, I enjoyed the quote from today:
"One cool judgment is worth a dozen hasty councils. The thing to do is to supply light and not heat."
-- Woodrow Wilson
And if you're a pilot, go back and listen to the video below this post again. Every time I listen to it, when VooDoo (the first plane) goes by, I feel like standing up, throwing my arms up over my head, screaming something, and then hopping in an airplane and doing something terribly aggressive. Which is why I've never been allowed to go to Reno in person...
I was glad to not have any flights today. I worked on some stuff around the house and put together a PowerPoint Presentation for the BBQ Bash. Tonight/tomorrow I need to work on brochures or handouts for Ann to have to give out, and then I need to look over and prepare for a pilot briefing for Saturday. Steve's going to be busy so I get to do that part.
Oh. Yesterday a pilot crashed at an airshow in China. The interesting thing about this guy is that he has been a problem pilot for a very long time. (That very biased link seems to have crashed, maybe too much activity right now or something). He buzzed the Santa Monica Pier in a L-39, scaring the pants off of a lot of people. His licenses were suspended after that, then revoked fully a few years later when he was illegally selling rides in his L-39 and an airplane he was flying formation with also giving illegal rides crashed and killed two on board. He also participated in a formation flight into the clouds with a Bonanza that clipped trees on a mountain. The guy was bad news. So he was using his Canadian pilot certificates to fly an airshow in China, because he couldn't fly in the US. He took an 18 year old Chinese kid with him, went up in the rain, against the locals' advice, and took his Lancair and tried to ski on the lake with it. With tiny little tires and a nosewheel. And crashed, killing both himself and this poor kid. And not one person is surprised. But worst of all, most of the aviation community had the exact same thing to say: "We knew it was coming, just wish he wouldn't have taken out somebody with him." or "Couldn't have happened to a better guy." or "Finally." Wow, can you imagine that being your legacy? I haven't heard one person, anywhere, have anything good to say about him as a person or a pilot. Pretty sad, really, but as I said when I passed on the news, "Well, Riggs is done flying for good, now."
Anyway, on a different topic, I enjoyed the quote from today:
"One cool judgment is worth a dozen hasty councils. The thing to do is to supply light and not heat."
-- Woodrow Wilson
And if you're a pilot, go back and listen to the video below this post again. Every time I listen to it, when VooDoo (the first plane) goes by, I feel like standing up, throwing my arms up over my head, screaming something, and then hopping in an airplane and doing something terribly aggressive. Which is why I've never been allowed to go to Reno in person...
Heh
I could listen to this all day long. Silence, the quiet wind-up, and then Zchoooooooooom! Turn it up--puts a grin on my face and gets my blood pumping. Every. Single. Time.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Winning
Before I went to bed last night, I told Steve that none of the forecasts were calling for it, but I was going to wake up to fog. I knew I was. I knew it so clearly that when I woke up at 5:30 a.m. the first thing I did was pull up the weather and be completely unsurprised to find my destination at < 1/4 mile and fog. Yup. I Told You So, Weather people.
I had a full airplane today, with all five seats filled. That meant I could only carry a limited amount of gas, and I had to get the weight and balance spreadsheet out to figure out where to put everybody and how much gas I could take. It worked out just about perfect. I gave myself an hour reserve, which is my own personal minimum, but it also meant that it had to be VFR. If I was going to have to shoot an approach and have enough gas to go to an alternate, etc., I'd have to stop after 45 minutes to refuel. So I told them that I'd let them know when the fog burned off, and until then we were sitting it out, and that it would probably be around 9 a.m. before that happened. Even though the forecast still didn't even have fog in it let alone when it should burn off. Originally we were supposed to leave at 7. By the way, it was 8:45 or so when the fog started breaking up down there. Yep.
Once the fog was gone, it was a perfectly nice flight down there. I was just dropping them off and coming home, so while I was there and getting fueled up for my trip home, I stopped in at the restaurant on the field and had a quick lunch. There was a C-150 up on the roof, tied down and bolted. It had some damage to it, and I'd be interested in the rest of the story. I had fish tacos made on a grill, and they were actually really good. I'd eat there again anytime. Inexpensive and fresh made and tasty, and hey, you're eating under an airplane. How much better can it get?
There was a bomb threat at Western School today. Apparently the school was evacuated and the kids sent home. I heard a rumor that there was another bomb threat at a different school the day before. Kaylee's school was not involved although I heard they put her school in a lockdown mode after they heard about the other. I don't know if that's true though, as I forgot to ask her and they didn't notify us or post anything about it on their Facebook page, which is what they usually do when they go into lockdown mode. And how sad it is that the words "what they usually do in lockdown mode" exist? I don't know who is calling in bomb threats or why, but I hope they're caught and beaten.
Kaylee is selling candy bars now, for choir this time (last fundraiser was for band), and she's having trouble not buying them and eating them all herself. ;) This one only lasts for 10 days. She has a distinct advantage coming up here though--we're going to let her take them to the BBQ Bash. Surely there will be people there who will buy candy bars for a buck. Heh.
I had one more flight this afternoon, checkride prep. While I was doing that, Steve was in Greentown watching Kaylee at her next tennis tournament. AND...tonight she WON a match!! I didn't see her, but Steve said she went from about a 5% completion rate on getting serves in bounds to about a 90% valid serve. She had some volleys. She moved quickly and went after it. He said her improvement was huge...and she won her first match! She was so excited. We went out for a celebratory dinner at Applebees. Woot!
Here's a photo of where I had lunch today. No flying photos-they'd have just been of a blue sky with a wing in the middle. ;) But yes, the plane was real. I wonder how it does on super windy days...
I had a full airplane today, with all five seats filled. That meant I could only carry a limited amount of gas, and I had to get the weight and balance spreadsheet out to figure out where to put everybody and how much gas I could take. It worked out just about perfect. I gave myself an hour reserve, which is my own personal minimum, but it also meant that it had to be VFR. If I was going to have to shoot an approach and have enough gas to go to an alternate, etc., I'd have to stop after 45 minutes to refuel. So I told them that I'd let them know when the fog burned off, and until then we were sitting it out, and that it would probably be around 9 a.m. before that happened. Even though the forecast still didn't even have fog in it let alone when it should burn off. Originally we were supposed to leave at 7. By the way, it was 8:45 or so when the fog started breaking up down there. Yep.
Once the fog was gone, it was a perfectly nice flight down there. I was just dropping them off and coming home, so while I was there and getting fueled up for my trip home, I stopped in at the restaurant on the field and had a quick lunch. There was a C-150 up on the roof, tied down and bolted. It had some damage to it, and I'd be interested in the rest of the story. I had fish tacos made on a grill, and they were actually really good. I'd eat there again anytime. Inexpensive and fresh made and tasty, and hey, you're eating under an airplane. How much better can it get?
There was a bomb threat at Western School today. Apparently the school was evacuated and the kids sent home. I heard a rumor that there was another bomb threat at a different school the day before. Kaylee's school was not involved although I heard they put her school in a lockdown mode after they heard about the other. I don't know if that's true though, as I forgot to ask her and they didn't notify us or post anything about it on their Facebook page, which is what they usually do when they go into lockdown mode. And how sad it is that the words "what they usually do in lockdown mode" exist? I don't know who is calling in bomb threats or why, but I hope they're caught and beaten.
Kaylee is selling candy bars now, for choir this time (last fundraiser was for band), and she's having trouble not buying them and eating them all herself. ;) This one only lasts for 10 days. She has a distinct advantage coming up here though--we're going to let her take them to the BBQ Bash. Surely there will be people there who will buy candy bars for a buck. Heh.
I had one more flight this afternoon, checkride prep. While I was doing that, Steve was in Greentown watching Kaylee at her next tennis tournament. AND...tonight she WON a match!! I didn't see her, but Steve said she went from about a 5% completion rate on getting serves in bounds to about a 90% valid serve. She had some volleys. She moved quickly and went after it. He said her improvement was huge...and she won her first match! She was so excited. We went out for a celebratory dinner at Applebees. Woot!
Here's a photo of where I had lunch today. No flying photos-they'd have just been of a blue sky with a wing in the middle. ;) But yes, the plane was real. I wonder how it does on super windy days...
Monday, September 16, 2013
Wildlife
The alarm went off at 5:30 this morning, when it was still good and dark. I was headed to Hannibal, Missouri by 7:15 a.m. In my front seat there was a gent from Texas who had never flown on a small plane before, and my back seat passenger was a usual. It was IFR/overcast, but I was on top by about 4,000', and we watched the sun rise behind us the rest of the way, on top of the layer. It was very pretty...
When we got to Hannibal, I needed to shoot the RNAV approach down. The guy in the front seat thought the whole thing was pretty cool. The "cloudy" take off, the sunrise over the deck, the "cloudy" landing and then the runway was right in front of us, etc. After I landed, I was on the initial roll-out when a deer ran in front of my airplane. It wasn't very far in front of me, but far enough...I started braking and looked left and a baby deer was right behind it. A few seconds later a third little deer came out, and this one was a little close. I swerved around him while braking, and hoped he kept running across and didn't freeze or turn around or turn towards me, or we were both going to be in a little trouble. Fortunately he didn't. The guy from Texas was a little more bothered by the deer than he was the IMC and the approach. :) A few minutes later when they were dropped off, it was time to go. I started my takeoff roll, got going pretty well, and then saw beyond the dip that there was a whole flock of birds on the runway. They didn't move until I got close to them, and then they lifted up right into me. I heard a couple of thuds, but none of the birds got up into my engines or any other critical surface, which was good, because I was taking off at an airport surrounded by tree-covered hills into IFR conditions. Later when I got back to Kokomo, Jon said he found evidence of at least one strike, which he cleaned up for me. This now officially makes me a Bird Ace, by the way.
I had to shoot the RNAV approach back into Kokomo, broke out about pattern altitude, and I was home by around 10:30 a.m. When we went to lunch, I had told the waitress that it was Steve's birthday, but NO singing, and just stick a candle in his salad or something to be funny. Instead she waited until after the meal and brought out a dessert with a candle in it, and we all sang, but at least not the whole loud restaurant crew doing their jingle!
After lunch I had another flight in the 172, until about 3:30. I ran home, and Steve picked me up there and we went out to Greentown to watch Kaylee play a tennis match. The other school goofed up and didn't send enough people to play everyone, so Kaylee ended up just playing a doubles match against her own team. She's doing a little better, still has a ways to go. Mostly it was a little painful watching the four of them. Most of the serves didn't get over the net or in bounds if they did. Most of the ones that did weren't returned. Kaylee had one really nice return, where she shot it right back at the girl with a pretty high force. She's getting better. :)
After her match we took Kaylee into town and got some food, then took her right back out to Greentown for the first reading of her play with the drama club. It started at 7 pm and went until 8:30. Steve picked her up at 8:30, and as soon as she got home she had to start in on her homework. She finally finished around 11 p.m. Long day.
We all have some BBQ Bash stuff to do--the week before is always a little crazy. My jobs are tiny compared to Steve's, and probably Justin's, but I'm still behind and having a little trouble with them...
Well, for tonight I need to head back to bed as it's back up at 5:30 a.m. for another likely IFR trip. Here are a few photos from this morning.
When we got to Hannibal, I needed to shoot the RNAV approach down. The guy in the front seat thought the whole thing was pretty cool. The "cloudy" take off, the sunrise over the deck, the "cloudy" landing and then the runway was right in front of us, etc. After I landed, I was on the initial roll-out when a deer ran in front of my airplane. It wasn't very far in front of me, but far enough...I started braking and looked left and a baby deer was right behind it. A few seconds later a third little deer came out, and this one was a little close. I swerved around him while braking, and hoped he kept running across and didn't freeze or turn around or turn towards me, or we were both going to be in a little trouble. Fortunately he didn't. The guy from Texas was a little more bothered by the deer than he was the IMC and the approach. :) A few minutes later when they were dropped off, it was time to go. I started my takeoff roll, got going pretty well, and then saw beyond the dip that there was a whole flock of birds on the runway. They didn't move until I got close to them, and then they lifted up right into me. I heard a couple of thuds, but none of the birds got up into my engines or any other critical surface, which was good, because I was taking off at an airport surrounded by tree-covered hills into IFR conditions. Later when I got back to Kokomo, Jon said he found evidence of at least one strike, which he cleaned up for me. This now officially makes me a Bird Ace, by the way.
I had to shoot the RNAV approach back into Kokomo, broke out about pattern altitude, and I was home by around 10:30 a.m. When we went to lunch, I had told the waitress that it was Steve's birthday, but NO singing, and just stick a candle in his salad or something to be funny. Instead she waited until after the meal and brought out a dessert with a candle in it, and we all sang, but at least not the whole loud restaurant crew doing their jingle!
After lunch I had another flight in the 172, until about 3:30. I ran home, and Steve picked me up there and we went out to Greentown to watch Kaylee play a tennis match. The other school goofed up and didn't send enough people to play everyone, so Kaylee ended up just playing a doubles match against her own team. She's doing a little better, still has a ways to go. Mostly it was a little painful watching the four of them. Most of the serves didn't get over the net or in bounds if they did. Most of the ones that did weren't returned. Kaylee had one really nice return, where she shot it right back at the girl with a pretty high force. She's getting better. :)
After her match we took Kaylee into town and got some food, then took her right back out to Greentown for the first reading of her play with the drama club. It started at 7 pm and went until 8:30. Steve picked her up at 8:30, and as soon as she got home she had to start in on her homework. She finally finished around 11 p.m. Long day.
We all have some BBQ Bash stuff to do--the week before is always a little crazy. My jobs are tiny compared to Steve's, and probably Justin's, but I'm still behind and having a little trouble with them...
Well, for tonight I need to head back to bed as it's back up at 5:30 a.m. for another likely IFR trip. Here are a few photos from this morning.
Sunday, September 15, 2013
True
Well, tis true that today was spent quietly and off the grid and with nothing exciting happening. Steve doesn't mind spending his birthday this way this time. :) We're watching/listening to the Reno Air Races, rooting on Matt in Strega, while watching Peyton battle Eli Manning on the TV. Peyton won and Matt came in second place--Matt would have been able to make a real race out of it if he hadn't had to be on the outside to start with, but he moved all the way from the back up to 2nd place within like a lap, and then just couldn't catch the #1 guy. He cut down on the time from 9 seconds to 7 seconds lead or so, but just didn't have enough laps or enough speed difference to be able to do it. It was a good race, and afterwards he got on the air and said "Good race, Steve-O".
Tomorrow I get to get up at 5:30 a.m. This is good, because it's a simple drop off and turn around. Well, simple as long as the weather isn't as scuzzy as I suspect it may be early in the morning. We shall see. I may have a couple more opportunities to take a person along on upcoming flights--for awhile that wasn't happening, but I've gotten a couple in now. I enjoy being able to take someone who has never experienced an IFR cross-country before, or never experienced flying in a twin, and be able to offer a fun learning experience. Or sometimes take a student with a weakness in an area like radio work, or another who was discouraged and needed a little...revitalization. I always have a purpose, and am glad when it works out. :)
Now we're going to watch "A Good Day to Die Hard" to end the quiet birthday weekend...
Tomorrow I get to get up at 5:30 a.m. This is good, because it's a simple drop off and turn around. Well, simple as long as the weather isn't as scuzzy as I suspect it may be early in the morning. We shall see. I may have a couple more opportunities to take a person along on upcoming flights--for awhile that wasn't happening, but I've gotten a couple in now. I enjoy being able to take someone who has never experienced an IFR cross-country before, or never experienced flying in a twin, and be able to offer a fun learning experience. Or sometimes take a student with a weakness in an area like radio work, or another who was discouraged and needed a little...revitalization. I always have a purpose, and am glad when it works out. :)
Now we're going to watch "A Good Day to Die Hard" to end the quiet birthday weekend...
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Pleasantly
Friday ended up differently than we expected. Kaylee was invited to go practice tennis and stay overnight with her friend from school, so she left the house yesterday afternoon and didn't get home until about 5 pm today. So we were childless most of Friday and Saturday.
Originally I was going to maybe go to Ohio this weekend. If not, I was maybe going to go to Iowa. I didn't find out until like 8 this morning that I was in fact definitely not going anywhere. So I slept in. Kaylee was gone, Steve went out to Kokomo and had a flight or two and did some work out there, and me, I spent the day to myself, napping, reading on the couch, and okay, doing laundry, but that was as productive as I got. I've been pretty much offline the last couple days, and that was nice too. Sometimes you need to unplug a bit.
Tonight we watched "Olympus Has Fallen" off of Amazon on our new tv, and enjoyed that. I'd seen it when I was waiting on the Aerostar in Oklahoma, and I knew he'd like it. A clever evil plot, some ruthless dudes on both sides, good winning in the end, of course. It'll keep you tense throughout, the sign of a good movie, I suppose. ;)
Mostly I'm glad that tomorrow isn't Monday yet. I have another day! And then Monday it's leaving at 7 a.m. for Missouri, and Tuesday it's leaving 7 a.m. for Virginia, and Thursday was supposed to be touching down in Alabama at 7 a.m., but thankfully that one's been canceled. ;) But for this weekend, I'm planning on staying mostly unplugged, and unwinding a bit.
As I type this, it's officially Steve's birthday. Fifty-four years old. :o We don't have anything big planned, though we've sort of made it a weekend mini-celebration. If you don't hear from me tomorrow, it's because it was spent a lot like today, maybe. Happy Birthday to Steve, and see you all Monday...
Originally I was going to maybe go to Ohio this weekend. If not, I was maybe going to go to Iowa. I didn't find out until like 8 this morning that I was in fact definitely not going anywhere. So I slept in. Kaylee was gone, Steve went out to Kokomo and had a flight or two and did some work out there, and me, I spent the day to myself, napping, reading on the couch, and okay, doing laundry, but that was as productive as I got. I've been pretty much offline the last couple days, and that was nice too. Sometimes you need to unplug a bit.
Tonight we watched "Olympus Has Fallen" off of Amazon on our new tv, and enjoyed that. I'd seen it when I was waiting on the Aerostar in Oklahoma, and I knew he'd like it. A clever evil plot, some ruthless dudes on both sides, good winning in the end, of course. It'll keep you tense throughout, the sign of a good movie, I suppose. ;)
Mostly I'm glad that tomorrow isn't Monday yet. I have another day! And then Monday it's leaving at 7 a.m. for Missouri, and Tuesday it's leaving 7 a.m. for Virginia, and Thursday was supposed to be touching down in Alabama at 7 a.m., but thankfully that one's been canceled. ;) But for this weekend, I'm planning on staying mostly unplugged, and unwinding a bit.
As I type this, it's officially Steve's birthday. Fifty-four years old. :o We don't have anything big planned, though we've sort of made it a weekend mini-celebration. If you don't hear from me tomorrow, it's because it was spent a lot like today, maybe. Happy Birthday to Steve, and see you all Monday...
Friday, September 13, 2013
Crash
That's probably not a great title on a pilot's blog, but that's what the three people in this family did this afternoon when they got home. I had gone to the store, and left all the non-perishable stuff on the counter while I crawled on the couch and tried to sleep. Kaylee went to her room and passed out. Steve got home, sat down and was out in about 10 minutes. It's Friday the 13th, but I see nothing unlucky about everybody catching up on a little zzzzzs. :)
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Late Day
Originally I was supposed to depart for Missouri at 10 a.m. Instead I was pushed back to 11 a.m., which was fine by me. I was able to catch up on a little sleep plus get a few things done this morning. I took a young man with me on my trip, and we had a nice 600' ceiling to launch into. I had him do the flying on the way there, so he got some good experience in.
When we got to Missouri, I topped off with fuel and my guy was supposed to be there at high noon. He actually didn't make it until 1:30. This put us a bit behind, but no real problem. We came home at 17,000' and made it back just in time for me to fly with my Private Pilot checkride student. Except the plane we were supposed to fly wasn't there. The guy who had it said he'd try to be back by 4 p.m. He finally arrived at 5:40 p.m., while my student and I sat and sweated in the hangar waiting on him. When he does arrive, he leaves, leaving us low enough on gas we had to call the truck ourselves. Not real happy here.
So my student and I finally make it up, two hours past when we were scheduled to go. The winds were 260 @ 11 knots and forecast to stay that way, no big deal. The goal is to work on the takeoffs and landings for the checkride. Crosswind, short, soft and normal. We start off with normal (with a bit of crosswind), and we go through the short field stuff, and it's getting a lot bumpier up there. I listen to AWOS and it still says 11 knots, but it's not 11 knots in the air, that I can tell you. We land, and the spot landing is getting tricky, winds are picking up, but he does well. I glance at the wind sock and it's obviously higher than 11 knots, but still pretty close to 260. We taxi back, talk about the soft field take off, line up and go, and we're rolling and the plane is getting shoved off to the left, hard, and the gusts are big, the nose is high for the soft field takeoff and the stall horn is screeching as we're getting shoved. I take over and wrestle us into the air, and once we're back up, I listen to AWOS again. Winds are now 310@23gusting31. That just blew up out of nowhere. My student goes over to Runway 32 to make the final landing of the day, wrestles it down to the ground, and we put her away from there.
So basically not much went as planned today, but it all worked out in the end. The flights were good experience for the various folks.
Kaylee had her first tennis tournament today, doubles, and lost soundly. The final score was 0-4. Tennis is not her strong suite. She likes the game and wants to learn more and get better, and I'd say it's all good for her. She has another tournament Monday, which won't be enough time for her to get better, but hopefully she learns from each game and starts picking it up here.
Here's a picture I took taking off out of Lafayette the other night. Sunset and headed west...
When we got to Missouri, I topped off with fuel and my guy was supposed to be there at high noon. He actually didn't make it until 1:30. This put us a bit behind, but no real problem. We came home at 17,000' and made it back just in time for me to fly with my Private Pilot checkride student. Except the plane we were supposed to fly wasn't there. The guy who had it said he'd try to be back by 4 p.m. He finally arrived at 5:40 p.m., while my student and I sat and sweated in the hangar waiting on him. When he does arrive, he leaves, leaving us low enough on gas we had to call the truck ourselves. Not real happy here.
So my student and I finally make it up, two hours past when we were scheduled to go. The winds were 260 @ 11 knots and forecast to stay that way, no big deal. The goal is to work on the takeoffs and landings for the checkride. Crosswind, short, soft and normal. We start off with normal (with a bit of crosswind), and we go through the short field stuff, and it's getting a lot bumpier up there. I listen to AWOS and it still says 11 knots, but it's not 11 knots in the air, that I can tell you. We land, and the spot landing is getting tricky, winds are picking up, but he does well. I glance at the wind sock and it's obviously higher than 11 knots, but still pretty close to 260. We taxi back, talk about the soft field take off, line up and go, and we're rolling and the plane is getting shoved off to the left, hard, and the gusts are big, the nose is high for the soft field takeoff and the stall horn is screeching as we're getting shoved. I take over and wrestle us into the air, and once we're back up, I listen to AWOS again. Winds are now 310@23gusting31. That just blew up out of nowhere. My student goes over to Runway 32 to make the final landing of the day, wrestles it down to the ground, and we put her away from there.
So basically not much went as planned today, but it all worked out in the end. The flights were good experience for the various folks.
Kaylee had her first tennis tournament today, doubles, and lost soundly. The final score was 0-4. Tennis is not her strong suite. She likes the game and wants to learn more and get better, and I'd say it's all good for her. She has another tournament Monday, which won't be enough time for her to get better, but hopefully she learns from each game and starts picking it up here.
Here's a picture I took taking off out of Lafayette the other night. Sunset and headed west...
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Mid-Week
It's been a busy two days. Yesterday was Trip Day. I had six total legs of trips, starting at 10 a.m., and landing for the last time at Kokomo at midnight. After the first three legs and before the second three legs I had several hours off in the afternoon to pick up Kaylee from school, help with some homework, get something to eat, etc. It worked out fine, other than I had an 8:30 flight this morning after not getting home until 12:30 or so and not being able to go to sleep right away. It was good and muggy out there, even in an air conditioned airplane. But once I got up to 15,000', I was just fine at least. ;)
This morning I had that 8:30 flight, and we quit right about when it was starting to get good and muggy out there. I picked Kaylee up from school and took her to the doctor to get her sports physical done so she can play in the tennis tournaments coming up. She's now officially 5' 1.5" tall, and passed that strenuous physical with flying colors. (Can you see? Breathe? Have a pulse? Anything hurt? No? You're good.)
Steve had a student at 6 pm, but he is also overwhelmed right now. He already was, but then he found out he has something he HAS to do by the end of tonight, something pretty big and time consuming, completely outside of the Bash or anything else. Then he's also working on Bash stuff. And while he was trying to get something accomplished at Glenndale, who walks in but the TSA guy who comes and does security checks on airports, wanting to see documentation and all this stuff. And because he's there, then you apparently have to deal with him right then even though maybe you don't have time to deal with him right then. *cough* So anyway, I took Steve's 6 pm student, (when it was good and hot and muggy!), and we went around and practiced basic aircraft control stuff.
Kaylee had to record herself playing the saxophone to submit to the band director by Friday. For the first time they are assigning "chairs" to the junior high band kids, and he said that he would choose who was in what chairs based on how well they did on these recordings. Kaylee is hoping to get "first chair" on the saxophone, but isn't holding her breath because there are 8th graders on the sax too and she's not sure she'd be better than they are or that he'd give first chair to a 7th grader over an 8th grader if they were about the same in skill level. At first she said she'll just hope for second chair because that way she won't be disappointed if she doesn't get first chair. I know exactly how she feels--I try to hedge my bets too sometimes on stuff in life, but I'm here to tell you, even when you try to not get excited for something that you really want, or even if you try to prepare yourself for something really bad, none of it actually works; it's not any better when it doesn't happen--or does. Ya might as well just admit what you're hoping for and go with it. Easier said than done for some things, but that's the way it goes! So anyway, she won't know until next week what the decision is, but she finished her recording tonight, and it sounds good to us. We shall see, but regardless of what seat she gets, she does a very nice job on the sax and we're proud of her. :)
This morning I had that 8:30 flight, and we quit right about when it was starting to get good and muggy out there. I picked Kaylee up from school and took her to the doctor to get her sports physical done so she can play in the tennis tournaments coming up. She's now officially 5' 1.5" tall, and passed that strenuous physical with flying colors. (Can you see? Breathe? Have a pulse? Anything hurt? No? You're good.)
Steve had a student at 6 pm, but he is also overwhelmed right now. He already was, but then he found out he has something he HAS to do by the end of tonight, something pretty big and time consuming, completely outside of the Bash or anything else. Then he's also working on Bash stuff. And while he was trying to get something accomplished at Glenndale, who walks in but the TSA guy who comes and does security checks on airports, wanting to see documentation and all this stuff. And because he's there, then you apparently have to deal with him right then even though maybe you don't have time to deal with him right then. *cough* So anyway, I took Steve's 6 pm student, (when it was good and hot and muggy!), and we went around and practiced basic aircraft control stuff.
Kaylee had to record herself playing the saxophone to submit to the band director by Friday. For the first time they are assigning "chairs" to the junior high band kids, and he said that he would choose who was in what chairs based on how well they did on these recordings. Kaylee is hoping to get "first chair" on the saxophone, but isn't holding her breath because there are 8th graders on the sax too and she's not sure she'd be better than they are or that he'd give first chair to a 7th grader over an 8th grader if they were about the same in skill level. At first she said she'll just hope for second chair because that way she won't be disappointed if she doesn't get first chair. I know exactly how she feels--I try to hedge my bets too sometimes on stuff in life, but I'm here to tell you, even when you try to not get excited for something that you really want, or even if you try to prepare yourself for something really bad, none of it actually works; it's not any better when it doesn't happen--or does. Ya might as well just admit what you're hoping for and go with it. Easier said than done for some things, but that's the way it goes! So anyway, she won't know until next week what the decision is, but she finished her recording tonight, and it sounds good to us. We shall see, but regardless of what seat she gets, she does a very nice job on the sax and we're proud of her. :)
Monday, September 09, 2013
The Week Beginneth
I spent the first half of Sunday with a bad headache, and the second half of Sunday spending 4-5 hours helping Kaylee with a boat load of homework, while recovering from a bad headache, and reading a book in between questions. The book I read was about people who were "special", had skills that "normals" didn't have, and how folks were using In-vitro to try to create these special children, while at the same time they were scared of being overcome by them as they were smarter, faster, stronger, etc. There was some serious government cover-up action, lots of intrigue, an agency created that allowed their agents to even kill "abnormal" US Citizens if they *thought* they were going to do something bad, complete media whitewashing and lying, twists and turns on who the bad guys vs the good guys really were, etc. It was pretty good. A little creepy, a little shadow of where things almost seem to be heading, as it was supposed to be.
Today was the day to get stuff done, as the rest of the week I've got trips. I got quite a bit accomplished, got a lot of things organized, several things responded to or fixed or done, and the house got cleaned too, so it was a pretty productive one for me. I even started the day with an email telling me I was getting an increase in hourly and daily pay for my business trips. It came out of the blue, so that was a nice surprise for a Monday.
I came home Saturday with a burn on the front of my left arm (from touching the toaster) and a big bruise on my upper left arm. Steve asked me where I got that one, and I told him I ran into something. A corner. He shook his head and asked me "How can you claim to be a formation pilot when you run into things that aren't even moving?!" That was pretty funny, but then Chuck's answer to that when I repeated it to him was "The airplanes are moving, so it makes them harder to hit!" I kind of felt like posting that on Facebook, because I think it's pretty funny, but I can just picture some folks who don't know any better taking it the wrong way, so I'll just leave it.
Steve is becoming buried alive under the BBQ Bash prep. The Bash is on in 11 days, and there's so much for him to do. I think it's getting harder every year, too.
Well, tomorrow is a multi-leg trip day that will get me home somewhere around 11 pm or later, so I guess I'll get a few things ready on it before bed here.
Today was the day to get stuff done, as the rest of the week I've got trips. I got quite a bit accomplished, got a lot of things organized, several things responded to or fixed or done, and the house got cleaned too, so it was a pretty productive one for me. I even started the day with an email telling me I was getting an increase in hourly and daily pay for my business trips. It came out of the blue, so that was a nice surprise for a Monday.
I came home Saturday with a burn on the front of my left arm (from touching the toaster) and a big bruise on my upper left arm. Steve asked me where I got that one, and I told him I ran into something. A corner. He shook his head and asked me "How can you claim to be a formation pilot when you run into things that aren't even moving?!" That was pretty funny, but then Chuck's answer to that when I repeated it to him was "The airplanes are moving, so it makes them harder to hit!" I kind of felt like posting that on Facebook, because I think it's pretty funny, but I can just picture some folks who don't know any better taking it the wrong way, so I'll just leave it.
Steve is becoming buried alive under the BBQ Bash prep. The Bash is on in 11 days, and there's so much for him to do. I think it's getting harder every year, too.
Well, tomorrow is a multi-leg trip day that will get me home somewhere around 11 pm or later, so I guess I'll get a few things ready on it before bed here.
Saturday, September 07, 2013
Saturday in Ohio
I'm lying down almost horizontal in my chair now, pooped. I got up at 7 a.m. and went out to the hangar, moved planes around and took off for Ohio. When I got there I did a three-ship formation flight practice before coming in to land. They topped us off with gas, we briefed another flight, a 4th guy was there for part of one flight, and he joined us for several passes down the runway before heading out. We flew for an hour total, and then landed again, got lunch, got gas, and went up for round three, just the three of us again. After we'd flown for awhile, we went our own ways and I headed back to Kokomo. I landed at 6:20 or so. Made for a long day. A good one, but long. It was hot and muggy out there, so I was super sweaty every time I got out of the plane. There was an event going on over at Delaware, OH today, and the airport paid for my gas to get there and for all the flying I did there, which was helpful. There were tons of kids around there, and they'd climb up on (with permission of course) the various planes and check them out. I had several folks ask me questions about flying, and two guys who asked if they could go in the plane with me on our next formation flight. I said no to both, but one was a definite no--a young man who had never even been in a small airplane before. He convinced one of the other guys to take him up, who was a friend of his dad's. When we went flying, we do this thing you may remember me talking about before called "Extended Trail". The airplanes all get spaced out about 500' apart, all in a line, and then start maneuvering, and #2 has to stay within 500' and a "cone" on #1, and #3 has to stay the same from #2, and #4 from #3, and no power adjustments allowed. Well, some of these guys go nuts here, and the guy who had a kid in his back seat is one of them. He'd go straight up vertical, then pull it over the top, he did aggressive, high-G maneuvers, over and over. The kid puked. Luckily he puked in a bag, but still, it was really unnecessary to take a kid up for his first airplane ride ever and make it in a formation flight with rough aerobatics. Poor kid. He'd been talking about going to flight school some day--I hope he's not chased off for good.
What's kind of funny about extended trail, is two of them were doing these big aggressive aerobatic maneuvers, and all I'd do is watch while they went up, wait and see which way they were going, and I'd crank around and dive/climb to cut them off, without doing loops, rolls, or vertical anything, and I stayed right where I was supposed to be, 500' and within the cone. Only once did one of them get me. When he went (pretty much) vertical, he started to roll over as normal, but instead he inverted and came right back at where I was aimed to cut him off, and we were head on to each other. I broke hard right with my body twisted around so I could keep an eye on him, but by then I'd blown the "cone". Lead got on the radio and said "Three, do you have everyone in sight?" I did, and we got back lined up and did it again. Later the other fellow in the flight reminded the first guy that when there are a bunch of airplanes all together up there you gotta watch out not to maneuver backwards right into their path. This is one of the reasons that's not my favorite maneuver. NATA doesn't do that one, but Red Star, that's their "fun" time in formation. Two of the guys were actual former fighter pilots, including the one with the kid in his back seat, and I think it's kind of the same thing. He assumes the kid will be fine doing all this, and he assumes the "student" formation pilot will react appropriately too. I did fine, but honestly, how did he know I would be able to maneuver to avoid him? We're close, they're deliberately randomly and aggressively maneuvering to try to "get" each other to lose the "cone", and most folks out there aren't Air Force and Navy trained fighter pilots. There are plenty of fighter pilot wannabes though. lol It is a fun exercise...
A guy at the airport there wanted to interview me about the four planes and what we were doing, and I sent him over to Ryan, who is more of a social and friendly and chatty fellow. Today we had a T-6, a Yak-52 and an RV, and for awhile another Yak. That was a bit of a motley crew, let me tell you. And I just spelled "motley crew" the wrong way the first time I typed it. There's a blast from the past.
Anyway, Steve, Kaylee and I went out to eat dinner, came home and tomorrow, tomorrow I rest. I sleep in, and I sleep hard, and I rest. The end!
What's kind of funny about extended trail, is two of them were doing these big aggressive aerobatic maneuvers, and all I'd do is watch while they went up, wait and see which way they were going, and I'd crank around and dive/climb to cut them off, without doing loops, rolls, or vertical anything, and I stayed right where I was supposed to be, 500' and within the cone. Only once did one of them get me. When he went (pretty much) vertical, he started to roll over as normal, but instead he inverted and came right back at where I was aimed to cut him off, and we were head on to each other. I broke hard right with my body twisted around so I could keep an eye on him, but by then I'd blown the "cone". Lead got on the radio and said "Three, do you have everyone in sight?" I did, and we got back lined up and did it again. Later the other fellow in the flight reminded the first guy that when there are a bunch of airplanes all together up there you gotta watch out not to maneuver backwards right into their path. This is one of the reasons that's not my favorite maneuver. NATA doesn't do that one, but Red Star, that's their "fun" time in formation. Two of the guys were actual former fighter pilots, including the one with the kid in his back seat, and I think it's kind of the same thing. He assumes the kid will be fine doing all this, and he assumes the "student" formation pilot will react appropriately too. I did fine, but honestly, how did he know I would be able to maneuver to avoid him? We're close, they're deliberately randomly and aggressively maneuvering to try to "get" each other to lose the "cone", and most folks out there aren't Air Force and Navy trained fighter pilots. There are plenty of fighter pilot wannabes though. lol It is a fun exercise...
A guy at the airport there wanted to interview me about the four planes and what we were doing, and I sent him over to Ryan, who is more of a social and friendly and chatty fellow. Today we had a T-6, a Yak-52 and an RV, and for awhile another Yak. That was a bit of a motley crew, let me tell you. And I just spelled "motley crew" the wrong way the first time I typed it. There's a blast from the past.
Anyway, Steve, Kaylee and I went out to eat dinner, came home and tomorrow, tomorrow I rest. I sleep in, and I sleep hard, and I rest. The end!
Friday, September 06, 2013
Success!
Friday Rules. After Kaylee's awful, hectic day yesterday, she did not want to wake up this morning. She never just jumps out of bed, but she never complains, either. Today she asked me to please not make her get up. After she got ready, she came in and laid down with me and fell asleep for another half hour before she had to leave for school, and that actually helped her.
I picked her up at school today, because they were going to post the newly assigned cast members for the play she auditioned for last night, but they weren't going to post it until after school let out, and the kids couldn't go to the library and look at the list and make it back to the bus in time. So I came and got her so she could find out how she did. And she did indeed get a part, and she's pretty excited about it too. Her part was originally for a boy, but they made it into a girl. She has 28 lines, which is a fair amount, but more importantly, she's kind of the book-ends for the play. She and her grandfather are in the opening segment, and they set up the whole play. She is in parts of the play throughout it, and then when the play ends, it's her and her grandfather again closing it out. That's pretty cool, it's a very good part! Her first audition, she left without being selected for anything. She had tears running down her face all the way home, and I hated it. Her second play, everybody who tried out got a part and she basically got a filler part, not a 'real' one, although in the end they gave her a line after all, and it ended up being a great experience after all and opened several doors for her. But the night of the auditions when she saw she was selected as basically a lineless, nameless "other", she again was pretty upset, because she had been told she'd done well at the audition, etc., and came away feeling pretty low. Today when she saw what part she got, and looked up what it entailed, and realized that it wasn't the 109 lines of the lead in the play but was still a very respectable "screen" time, she was so excited she had a hard time sitting still. Third time was the charm for her, I guess. :) The play is a Christmas play, through the school's drama club, so we'll see how it goes. The first script reading is next Monday at 7 p.m. Here goes more late nights back at the school and extra driving. ;) I'm happy for her...
I got the Six out and fueled up and ready to go to Ohio tomorrow morning, and tonight, tonight we relax, all three of us! Next week I already have three trips scheduled for MBros, with probably at least one more in the works, and at least one of those lasting from early morning until midnight, basically. But for tonight, I'm sitting, I'm reading, I'm unwinding...and we all needed this one! Happy Friday!!
I picked her up at school today, because they were going to post the newly assigned cast members for the play she auditioned for last night, but they weren't going to post it until after school let out, and the kids couldn't go to the library and look at the list and make it back to the bus in time. So I came and got her so she could find out how she did. And she did indeed get a part, and she's pretty excited about it too. Her part was originally for a boy, but they made it into a girl. She has 28 lines, which is a fair amount, but more importantly, she's kind of the book-ends for the play. She and her grandfather are in the opening segment, and they set up the whole play. She is in parts of the play throughout it, and then when the play ends, it's her and her grandfather again closing it out. That's pretty cool, it's a very good part! Her first audition, she left without being selected for anything. She had tears running down her face all the way home, and I hated it. Her second play, everybody who tried out got a part and she basically got a filler part, not a 'real' one, although in the end they gave her a line after all, and it ended up being a great experience after all and opened several doors for her. But the night of the auditions when she saw she was selected as basically a lineless, nameless "other", she again was pretty upset, because she had been told she'd done well at the audition, etc., and came away feeling pretty low. Today when she saw what part she got, and looked up what it entailed, and realized that it wasn't the 109 lines of the lead in the play but was still a very respectable "screen" time, she was so excited she had a hard time sitting still. Third time was the charm for her, I guess. :) The play is a Christmas play, through the school's drama club, so we'll see how it goes. The first script reading is next Monday at 7 p.m. Here goes more late nights back at the school and extra driving. ;) I'm happy for her...
I got the Six out and fueled up and ready to go to Ohio tomorrow morning, and tonight, tonight we relax, all three of us! Next week I already have three trips scheduled for MBros, with probably at least one more in the works, and at least one of those lasting from early morning until midnight, basically. But for tonight, I'm sitting, I'm reading, I'm unwinding...and we all needed this one! Happy Friday!!
Thursday, September 05, 2013
Kay's Day
Junior High is busy. They give out a lot of homework, and there are all sorts of activities to do too.
Kaylee got up at 6:15 this morning, was on the bus by 7:25. After school got out at 3 p.m., she went to a tennis tournament until 4:30 or so when Steve picked her up to take her right to Taekwondo until 6:40. I picked her up from Taekwondo and brought her home for 20 minutes while she took a quick shower, then grabbed her bag and I drove her right back out to school where she had an audition for the school's Junior High Drama Club's Christmas play. The audition ended at 8:30. We got home around 9 p.m., and she got to START her homework. It's now 10:45 p.m. and she's finished English Lit and Science and is still working on Math with a whole vocab crossword puzzle and sheet to go.
Yikes.
She feels pretty confident about how the audition went, and feels pretty hopeful on getting a part. We should know tomorrow after school...
Steve shared that video on his Facebook page, and he joked about being in the dog house, but he kind of is. There are people on Facebook that don't know what I look like other than head shots and I like it that way...I do think the video was well done, the reporter did a nice job of it.
Ooh, math is done, on to vocab, it won't be long now, now that it's almost 11 p.m. Poor kid. If this level of busyness keeps up, it's going to be hard to maintain over the winter. She's doing a really good job of handling it so far, but man...
Kaylee got up at 6:15 this morning, was on the bus by 7:25. After school got out at 3 p.m., she went to a tennis tournament until 4:30 or so when Steve picked her up to take her right to Taekwondo until 6:40. I picked her up from Taekwondo and brought her home for 20 minutes while she took a quick shower, then grabbed her bag and I drove her right back out to school where she had an audition for the school's Junior High Drama Club's Christmas play. The audition ended at 8:30. We got home around 9 p.m., and she got to START her homework. It's now 10:45 p.m. and she's finished English Lit and Science and is still working on Math with a whole vocab crossword puzzle and sheet to go.
Yikes.
She feels pretty confident about how the audition went, and feels pretty hopeful on getting a part. We should know tomorrow after school...
Steve shared that video on his Facebook page, and he joked about being in the dog house, but he kind of is. There are people on Facebook that don't know what I look like other than head shots and I like it that way...I do think the video was well done, the reporter did a nice job of it.
Ooh, math is done, on to vocab, it won't be long now, now that it's almost 11 p.m. Poor kid. If this level of busyness keeps up, it's going to be hard to maintain over the winter. She's doing a really good job of handling it so far, but man...
Wednesday, September 04, 2013
Touring the Virginias
This morning dawned with heavy fog covering the two states I was supposed to fly to. I had seen the forecast last night, so I warned my passenger that we weren't going to launch until I could see that the fog was starting to lift. Nothing like flying to an area, getting there, and not being able to land anywhere within 100 miles because the forecast wasn't exactly right on when the fog lifts. It's NEVER right anyway. So until I had at least minimums, we weren't movin'. That did let me get a little extra sleep, since we were originally supposed to leave at 7:30 a.m. and didn't end up leaving until 9:30 a.m...
I ended up in Bluefield, West Virginia, Charleston, West Virginia, and Lonesome Pine, Virginia. All three are really very beautiful airports, surrounded by hills, some of them I'd even call actual mountains. Charleston has a huge ravine off the end of the runway, and I had to shoot an ILS in there. It wasn't low ceilings anymore though, and we were mostly on the ILS because it's a busy airliner airport too and we were all lined up on the approach. The one thing that stuck in my mind on approach at two of the three airports is that you really do not want to be low on the glideslope there. Yowza.
There wasn't really a good way for me to get the photos I wanted in and out of these places, since you're kind of busy right on take off and landing. I needed a photographer along to snap the good stuff while I'm busy. But I did get a few photos that I'll stick up at the end here.
Well, here's the video of what they ended up putting on TV in Marion. I'm not fond of watching myself. I'm not having it go up anywhere public, but here you go, anyway. The clip on me starts at about a minute and 55 seconds into it.
There was an article I saw on Facebook that I thought was pretty good, on teens and social media and self-respect and moral character, etc. I passed it on to a friend of mine who has four teenage boys of her own, and now I'm seeing it all over the place, which is kind of neat.
That about catches me up on today, anyway...here are a few hill photos.
I ended up in Bluefield, West Virginia, Charleston, West Virginia, and Lonesome Pine, Virginia. All three are really very beautiful airports, surrounded by hills, some of them I'd even call actual mountains. Charleston has a huge ravine off the end of the runway, and I had to shoot an ILS in there. It wasn't low ceilings anymore though, and we were mostly on the ILS because it's a busy airliner airport too and we were all lined up on the approach. The one thing that stuck in my mind on approach at two of the three airports is that you really do not want to be low on the glideslope there. Yowza.
There wasn't really a good way for me to get the photos I wanted in and out of these places, since you're kind of busy right on take off and landing. I needed a photographer along to snap the good stuff while I'm busy. But I did get a few photos that I'll stick up at the end here.
Well, here's the video of what they ended up putting on TV in Marion. I'm not fond of watching myself. I'm not having it go up anywhere public, but here you go, anyway. The clip on me starts at about a minute and 55 seconds into it.
There was an article I saw on Facebook that I thought was pretty good, on teens and social media and self-respect and moral character, etc. I passed it on to a friend of mine who has four teenage boys of her own, and now I'm seeing it all over the place, which is kind of neat.
That about catches me up on today, anyway...here are a few hill photos.
Airliner underneath me where he belongs? ;)
Tuesday, September 03, 2013
Labored
Well, do I have some catching up to do!
Saturday. Saturday was the Marion Fly-In/Cruise-In that we try to go to each year to support a local airport's shin-dig fundraiser. I was supposed to get in some formation flying this day too, but by the time everyone else arrived, then ate, then the airspace was shut down for almost an hour for a demo flight by the world's smallest jet, and when the airspace opened back up there was a line of thunderstorms coming at both us and headed for Kokomo. There was lightning and thunder right at Marion airport, and I couldn't get out because the airspace was closed. Once it opened back up, I told the Red Star guys that I had to get out of there so I could get back to Kokomo before the Six got dumped on, and that's what I did. We boogied out of there like it was war time and we were under attack. I threw a guy in the back seat who had bought a ride a few weeks ago and didn't get it, fired up and took off with the sound of thunder behind me. Deviated around a couple small cells on the way back to Kokomo, got a couple raindrops on the windshield on downwind for the runway at Kokomo, and got her put away before anything exciting happened. This is a picture that my back-seater, Matt, took, as we were taking off from Marion.
Oh, almost forgot, Nathan got me at Marion. I was sitting in a chair under the wing, talking to a guy who is interested in learning to fly, and talking to him about looking into his medical first, as he had some medical issues. I see this guy out of my peripheral vision holding up a camera at me, but I ignore it for awhile, until finally I turn my head, because he's still standing there with the camera up, and creeping closer, and see that it's Nathan. Cracked me up, made me lose my concentration on my conversation.
I was also approached the second I climbed out of the T-6 by a local TV news reporter who wanted to do an interview with me. It was hotter than hades, I was sweating all over, had seriously flat helmet head hair, and have a sketchy track record on doing well with impromptu interviews. But he micced me up and rolled the camera and asked me a few questions, said it was going to air on the local station, and I don't think it went too badly. He asked me the usual questions about what kind of plane it was, where it was based, what it was used for then and what it's used for now, about why we were there today, and about me being a girl. Nothing too deep or difficult, and the pat answers are easier to come up with after you've been asked the same questions more than once. Here's a photo Jon took of the guy interviewing me. I just found out as I was typing this that the segment was on at 8:30 pm tonight, and Ray's going to get me a copy of the interview. If it's not too humiliating I'll post it. If it is, or I just can't stand watching myself talk, you're out of luck, but here's a photo for you. ;)
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Saturday afternoon when I got back, I ran home, grabbed something to eat, took care of the cats, then raced back out to the airport, where I barely beat out the next round of storms that was moving through. In fact, it was so close I didn't even stop at the main hangar to go to the bathroom. I threw my stuff in the RG, parked the car, ran to the airplane, and took off without picking up my IFR clearance first. I could see the line moving in, and was almost too close and it wasn't pretty. Well, it kind of was pretty, but not to fly into. ;) Anyway, I beat it out, and went to Kentucky.
Sunday we spent in Kentucky, and Steve had a terrible headache and I had a terrible throat ache. We were a pair of pathetic people. Monday morning Steve and Kaylee flew us back to Kokomo while I rode in the back seat and read a book. Yep, and here's the proof! Kaylee asked out of the blue if she could do the landing, so of course Steve let her. When she took over the airplane, she became very focused and serious about it. He controlled the power, she controlled the rest, and she did a really nice job, did a very good level off and flare, even though she had to use peripheral vision since she can't see out the front. This is good practice anyway, for taildraggers. Steve made sure it was a nice touchdown with the power, but she had a really nice flare anyway.
As soon as we landed at Kokomo, he dropped me off at the main hangar, I pulled out the 340 and filled it up with gas, loaded up two MBros guys, and headed to Virginia. On this trip I had to play "Dodge the Thunderstorm". There were two lines of storms in between me and my destination, and another small line right at my destination. The first line was easy to navigate, as I found a big gap. ATC got on to tell me about what was in front of me, and they said that my current course would get me through the first line, but the second line was a lot more dense, and what did I want to do. I told them I'd let them know when I got there. I found a way through that one using onboard radar and nexrad both, without having to deviate all the way to Tennessee, and then they got on and said "The good news is, the (third round of) storms have moved off of your destination airport. The bad news is, there is one right in your way, and another is just a couple miles off the end." The one right in my way was no problem, you just go around it. But the one just off the end of my airport was a problem, because it was in the way of being able to shoot an approach in, and ATC couldn't get me any lower than 6000' out there for terrain and radar coverage for a visual approach. I found a way through that as well, landed safely, shut down the plane, and it started raining like crazy. That one wasn't a storm, it was just a rain cell. I had to call the number on the door because the airport was closed for the holiday and I wanted full tanks for my trip home so I didn't have to worry about fuel while I was deviating around whatever I may need to deviate around. He came out, topped me off, charged me a call out fee which I was happy to pay for a little peace of mind, and I was back on my way home. That leg of the trip was much less exciting. The line of storms had broken apart a lot, and it wasn't even a challenge to get around. It was awful pretty though, and I took about 30 pictures in the air. It's hard to figure out which ones to stick up here, but I'll do a few to end on. I made it home at dark, and basically fell asleep. It was a REALLY busy Labor Day weekend!
Saturday. Saturday was the Marion Fly-In/Cruise-In that we try to go to each year to support a local airport's shin-dig fundraiser. I was supposed to get in some formation flying this day too, but by the time everyone else arrived, then ate, then the airspace was shut down for almost an hour for a demo flight by the world's smallest jet, and when the airspace opened back up there was a line of thunderstorms coming at both us and headed for Kokomo. There was lightning and thunder right at Marion airport, and I couldn't get out because the airspace was closed. Once it opened back up, I told the Red Star guys that I had to get out of there so I could get back to Kokomo before the Six got dumped on, and that's what I did. We boogied out of there like it was war time and we were under attack. I threw a guy in the back seat who had bought a ride a few weeks ago and didn't get it, fired up and took off with the sound of thunder behind me. Deviated around a couple small cells on the way back to Kokomo, got a couple raindrops on the windshield on downwind for the runway at Kokomo, and got her put away before anything exciting happened. This is a picture that my back-seater, Matt, took, as we were taking off from Marion.
I was also approached the second I climbed out of the T-6 by a local TV news reporter who wanted to do an interview with me. It was hotter than hades, I was sweating all over, had seriously flat helmet head hair, and have a sketchy track record on doing well with impromptu interviews. But he micced me up and rolled the camera and asked me a few questions, said it was going to air on the local station, and I don't think it went too badly. He asked me the usual questions about what kind of plane it was, where it was based, what it was used for then and what it's used for now, about why we were there today, and about me being a girl. Nothing too deep or difficult, and the pat answers are easier to come up with after you've been asked the same questions more than once. Here's a photo Jon took of the guy interviewing me. I just found out as I was typing this that the segment was on at 8:30 pm tonight, and Ray's going to get me a copy of the interview. If it's not too humiliating I'll post it. If it is, or I just can't stand watching myself talk, you're out of luck, but here's a photo for you. ;)
+20130824_052++Mairion+Fly-in.jpg)
Saturday afternoon when I got back, I ran home, grabbed something to eat, took care of the cats, then raced back out to the airport, where I barely beat out the next round of storms that was moving through. In fact, it was so close I didn't even stop at the main hangar to go to the bathroom. I threw my stuff in the RG, parked the car, ran to the airplane, and took off without picking up my IFR clearance first. I could see the line moving in, and was almost too close and it wasn't pretty. Well, it kind of was pretty, but not to fly into. ;) Anyway, I beat it out, and went to Kentucky.
Sunday we spent in Kentucky, and Steve had a terrible headache and I had a terrible throat ache. We were a pair of pathetic people. Monday morning Steve and Kaylee flew us back to Kokomo while I rode in the back seat and read a book. Yep, and here's the proof! Kaylee asked out of the blue if she could do the landing, so of course Steve let her. When she took over the airplane, she became very focused and serious about it. He controlled the power, she controlled the rest, and she did a really nice job, did a very good level off and flare, even though she had to use peripheral vision since she can't see out the front. This is good practice anyway, for taildraggers. Steve made sure it was a nice touchdown with the power, but she had a really nice flare anyway.
As soon as we landed at Kokomo, he dropped me off at the main hangar, I pulled out the 340 and filled it up with gas, loaded up two MBros guys, and headed to Virginia. On this trip I had to play "Dodge the Thunderstorm". There were two lines of storms in between me and my destination, and another small line right at my destination. The first line was easy to navigate, as I found a big gap. ATC got on to tell me about what was in front of me, and they said that my current course would get me through the first line, but the second line was a lot more dense, and what did I want to do. I told them I'd let them know when I got there. I found a way through that one using onboard radar and nexrad both, without having to deviate all the way to Tennessee, and then they got on and said "The good news is, the (third round of) storms have moved off of your destination airport. The bad news is, there is one right in your way, and another is just a couple miles off the end." The one right in my way was no problem, you just go around it. But the one just off the end of my airport was a problem, because it was in the way of being able to shoot an approach in, and ATC couldn't get me any lower than 6000' out there for terrain and radar coverage for a visual approach. I found a way through that as well, landed safely, shut down the plane, and it started raining like crazy. That one wasn't a storm, it was just a rain cell. I had to call the number on the door because the airport was closed for the holiday and I wanted full tanks for my trip home so I didn't have to worry about fuel while I was deviating around whatever I may need to deviate around. He came out, topped me off, charged me a call out fee which I was happy to pay for a little peace of mind, and I was back on my way home. That leg of the trip was much less exciting. The line of storms had broken apart a lot, and it wasn't even a challenge to get around. It was awful pretty though, and I took about 30 pictures in the air. It's hard to figure out which ones to stick up here, but I'll do a few to end on. I made it home at dark, and basically fell asleep. It was a REALLY busy Labor Day weekend!
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