Airport Day

The student taking his checkride did cancel because the winds were supposed to be high today.  In the end it's good he did cancel, because there are different kinds of windy days.  The same number of knots of wind speed on two different days can feel very different, and today it felt very rough indeed.  He would not have fared well on doing soft field takeoffs and landings in particular in this.

Instead, we had an airport day, hangar door open, warm breeze (warm hurricane, really), Nathan working on airplanes and the rest of us learning a thing or two and helping when we weren't hindering.  "We" (Nathan) timed the mags on the T-6, and now the T-6 is pretty much done and ready to put back together, though it's trapped behind the PT, which is apart and will take a couple more weeks to be done anyway.  Next up was timing the mags on the PT-26, and the guys did a few other things, enjoying the nice day out at the airport.

I had one flight today, Steve's student, who hasn't soloed yet (only because he doesn't have his medical), and he wanted to go up and practice in today's winds anyway.  The gust factor was high, the winds were high, and it was between 30-40 degree crosswind angle, not huge there at least, but it was really turbulent in the air.  We took off and he was immediately surprised by how it felt, and he wrestled it around the pattern.  Coming down to land, he got too low and slow and had to add full power just to not land short of the runway, and I was telling him to go around, and he was struggling to get the plane level and climbing.  As he finally got a positive rate of climb and started climbing out of it, he piped up with "I think I made a terrible mistake! Get me out of here!  I miss my CAR!  With FOUR wheels!  All on the GROUND!"  This was all said in humor, by the way, not in true fear.  It cracked us both up and we laughed every time we got tossed around as we went around the pattern.  He only wanted to go around three times, but by the third time he controlled and landed it very well, and then he was all done with this wind stuff for the day.  It was a good experience for him, and it was pretty entertaining for me.  :)

Richard and Ann made it home from Florida today!  They're back in sunny Kokomo, unpacking and resting up.  Kaylee and her crew left Florida this morning, got to Tennessee and are stopping for the night.  That's good because they need the rest, it's bad because that means she won't get home until 5 p.m. or so tomorrow evening, and she'll have no day off before school starts in.  Hopefully they'll ease them back in to school the first day or so and she doesn't end up with a bunch of homework too...