Saturday morning I had to get up at 7:30 a.m. to get down to Sheridan for the CAF meeting. Sunday morning I had to get up at 6:30 a.m. to go down to Indy Exec and do my PT-26 checkout. Monday morning I had to get up at 5:30 a.m. to take a trip to Hannibal, Missouri. And tomorrow morning I have to get up at 4:30 a.m. to take a trip to Kansas City. If my phone goes off for a trip on Wednesday, I'm not answering it, because if I have to do 3:30 a.m. next, somebody's going to die. ;)
I've been flying the T-6, and last Sunday got checked out in a Yak, and this Sunday got checked out in the PT-26. This is not the proper direction of progression--horsepower should be going up, not down, right? ;) Okay, on this one I'm kidding. I'm really glad to be able to fly both airplanes, for different purposes. I don't really think you can go too backwards on flying new airplanes, because the smaller ones have just as much to teach you as the bigger ones.
When I learned to fly, I learned in an AG-5B Tiger, with 180 hp. Then came the C-172RG for the other ratings. The Super Decathlon for aerobatics and tailwheel. All 180 hp airplanes. I then went backwards, unfamiliar with how to handle a low to underpowered airplane. You know, there are some important lessons to be learned in low to underpowered airplanes!
Something personal I thought was kind of interesting--when I first started studying for the first airplane, the Yak, I'd sit at night and try to read through, and I was just having a hard time focusing or processing or something. But the more I started studying stuff, the faster it sank in, until this last time when I read the PT stuff the night before, it all just stuck, like things used to, even the little insignificant stuff. The check pilot mentioned an RPM setting for something that had been mentioned one time in the 42 page manual, and I remembered it without any hesitation. It was like I had a flash of my old memory back. I could speed read it, process it, file it away and have it, and move on to the next thing, no problem. I tried it with a couple other things, and for some reason, right now, I seem to actually be able to retain information again. I don't know if it's because I've had so much to study lately that I knocked something loose and it started working again, or if it's one last flash in the pan before it fades into foggy old age, but man, I'll take it--I missed it!
One thing Steve reminded me about at lunch that kind of made me laugh. For the checkride, the check pilot made it clear that on go-arounds, balked landings (after you've already touched down), and soft field takeoffs--basically any time you are leaving the runway and you have flaps in--that he doesn't want to see a person touch the flaps until they are at least 200' above the ground and climbing out at 80 mph. The only problem with that plan is that the airplane is underpowered (see above), and I don't care what the book says, by the feel of it alone, Vx has to be more around 70 mph than 80. (The book doesn't have any Vx listed, just one climb-out speed of 80 mph). So I do a balked landing, full flaps in, touch down, and he says "Go around!" I add the power, keep the nose down to try to get to 80, and we are flying down the runway, nose down, about 75' in the air, not gaining any altitude or airspeed at all. We're in a stalemate here. If I raise the nose to 70, which I know the plane wants me to do, I bust his 80 mph rule. If I get rid of some of the drag, I bust his 200' rule. So I bomb down the length of the whole runway like this, pushing the nose down to hold 80 mph and not climbing anywhere, until finally I am coming up to the end of the runway with obstacles ahead and it's time to be PIC whether I flunk the rules or not, and I say "I'm going to go ahead and get off some of these flaps so we can start climbing here." He didn't think that was a bad idea after all. ;) Oh, he was also kind of surprised that when given the choice between landings, I chose three point over wheel. He said most people don't want to do three point landings. When I said I was a three-point kind of girl, he liked that, said he was too (not the girl part). He flies everything--the bombers, all the fighters, the trainers, and the airliners--and he's still a nice guy, down to earth, easy to work with. Here are two pictures he took yesterday and emailed me last night.
So, today was Hannibal, Missouri. I had the exact amount of fuel I needed to get there and have an hour's reserve, and even that's hard for me. I get twitchy when I get down to an hour fuel on trips. I guess because I know crap happens, weather changes, routings change, and I just like extra breathing room. But it was clear VFR, so that worked fine. I had five of us in the airplane, so I told him exactly, to the pound, how much beef he could put in the plane for me to be willing to take off in it. He had a bigger guy drive down with all their baggage, and the rest of them showed up having not eaten breakfast, holding no bottles of water, and no heavy jackets. ;) That meant I had to refuel in Hannibal, of course, and it was spitting icy water at me, wind was blowing in the 20 knot range, and it was FREEZING. Down low the turbulence was pretty bad, so I stayed high, swung wide with minimal bank, then dropped down quickly and straight in to minimize turning or time down in the pattern. So they only had the last three miles or so down final to get tossed around, to minimize their terror. The last flight one of them had gone on was the one where we were outrunning a storm and got hit with turbulence so violent that it knocked the AHRS (computer that reads out attitude information) off line, in the clouds. He was pretty white when we landed from that flight, and that was his last memory. This one was better for most of the ride, anyway. ;)
I see tomorrow we're looking at IFR to maybe low IFR at our destination, which is already at close to the end of our fuel range with reserve. Crud. I hate stopping for gas and adding an hour to a trip. But as already mentioned, I hate worse staring at fuel gauges and calculating every 15 seconds whether or not it's still "enough". Especially when we'll be driving into a nice stiff headwind. If that means we have to leave an hour earlier, then I DO have to get up at 3:30, and I am NOT going to be happy about it! I hope it's not a mandatory bid meeting, where he has to be there at the exact time, or I'd better go to bed right now at 7 p.m...as if.
Well, I think I've decided that Kaylee is now too old to go Trick or Treating. Not because of her specific age, but because it just occurred to me that for the first time this year, she kept her own bag of candy, I have no idea where it is, and I did not get to pick out all the good stuff without her knowing it. If she's too old for me to be able to sneak the good stuff out, then she's too old to be trick-or-treating. The end. ;)
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