Oh, I got a 100% on the 20 question quiz, too. Thank you very much. ;) I printed off my certificate and got my little card for my wallet, and it's good for life (at least so far, until they decide to make everybody do it annually for a nice fee to increase funding.)
Next on the list is to pick up a decent way to study for the ATP Written exam. I looked it up, and King is doing a 50% discount on their ATP Written programs until August 1st, for this very reason, of course. Their course is still $150 though. But Steve says we can get a discount if we go through Gleim. They have an already cheaper online study course, plus our discount, plus if we get one and can both work off it, that would be helpful too. We'll see how it goes.
Yesterday afternoon I had a flight to Lawton, Oklahoma. I left around 5 p.m., and headed west. Lawton is at the edge of my fuel range in the 340, so any time I go out there I treat it as if I Will be stopping in Missouri for fuel. This time I picked Springfield because they are open 24 hours, and filed to go there first. I've found a power setting and fuel flow setting that gets me to Lawton with one hour left of fuel. As long as it's VFR out, the winds stay around 25-30 knots at the altitude I'm at so I can average a groundspeed around 150 knots, and the weather is decent, I can make it. This is also only possible if the line guys get the airplane completely full, which they often don't do unless I'm standing there reiterating that need to them, if you burn the aux tanks down to fuel flow drop off (and engine stumble if you're too slow) rather than leaving a few gallons in each tank, and with the help of the fuel totalizers on board. No more watches and ancient gauges, you can actually see that you have say 3 hours and 7 minutes of fuel remaining, and 83 gallons of fuel left, which you can look over at the ancient fuel gauges and verify that way too. You can see each engine is burning 17.3 gph and monitor in real time as the fuel is used and what is remaining in gallons, distance and time. It's really pretty danged precise and accurate.
Anyway, last night was a night I could make it, which was helpful. The FBO down there closed at 8 pm their time, 9 pm my time, and I got an hour late start, which pushed me back to get me down there after they were going to close. So when I called them up before I left, they told me they'd charge me $50 cash to stay there late and leave the building open for my guy to wait for me, and fill me back up with gas. Okay. When I got there, it was about 35 minutes after they were supposed to close, and I chatted with them a bit, and then handed the one guy the $50 cash. Five minutes later the other guy came up to me and gave it back. They liked me! It helped that I bought 140 gallons of gas and was friendly and ready to get back out of there asap without causing them too many headaches or making them stay too much later.
The trip out was a little bumpy down at 10,000' where I was, and around St. Louis I had to do some cumulonimbus dodging. They weren't really developed cells for the most part, though I did go around a few of those too, but just clouds you didn't really want to deliberately toss around in. Once I got past St. Louis the sky above was clear, and there was an undercast layer, and a gorgeous, gorgeous sunset to watch. I ended up taking like 30 photos of it. It's been awhile since I had a really good sunset to photograph, so I was glad for this one.
The trip home was a little more interesting. Part of the problem is that you're almost 4 hours away, so whatever is happening now while you're on the ground in Oklahoma, you have to try to judge what will be happening on an unstable night filled with thunderstorms four hours down the road. There was a line popping up right around Kokomo, and if it filled in, I'd have to divert and spend the night elsewhere. Off to my left, there was a line of thunderstorms, big, and very active, with cloud to cloud lightning shooting off non-stop. Off to my right there was another solid line of thunderstorms, very big and very active with lightning non-stop. We had it out both sides (at an appropriate distance, of course), and it was very beautiful in the dark. At one point the city of Tulsa was lighting up the layer of clouds below me with its lights, the moon was shining down on those clouds from above, and all around us the thunderstorms were putting on their light show. It looked like something out of a scary movie. Beautiful and wicked and powerful. The thought "Something wicked this way comes" popped into my head. It was so mesmerizing that my backseater watched it most of the way home instead of sleeping, until the end, and I watched it most of the way home instead of reading. I really can't describe it properly. I tried to take a video of it, or a photo, but I just didn't have the low light camera equipment available with me to get anything out of it, so it'll have to just live up in my noggin.
The last 30 minutes was the interesting part. That line of storms in between me and home did start filling in, but it worked out, because unlike the lines off to my left and right, which were giant blocks of huge CB clouds with a ton of activity that only an idiot would get anywhere near, these were low, tiny little cells banding together with low tops and good VFR visibility down below. Grissom came on and basically said "Um, there are some extreme precipitation cells between you and Kokomo, and one headed right for Kokomo. Let me know what you want to do about it." I told him exactly how I wanted to deviate, he cleared me for it, and then I pushed the mixtures up more and went as fast as I could, stayed high and above it all as long as I could, then dove down through the clouds and broke out on the bottom side. I called Kokomo in sight, and on my Nexrad it was showing red right at Kokomo, but I could visually see where it was, and it wasn't there. I landed, my passenger said "It's raining here, huh?" and I said "Yep, and it's about to be raining a lot harder in a few minutes here, so let's get our stuff out of the plane and get going." ;) I landed at 1:35 a.m. Long evening, but it worked out.
Once I got home I was too wound up to sleep, so I was awake past 3 a.m., then got back up at 6 to get Kaylee up, then went back to sleep until like 9:30 when I couldn't sleep any more because my mind was running on several things I needed to do today.
One thing, after Kaylee got out of school, I took her shopping for Spring Break stuff she needed. She, when she leaves the house tomorrow morning for school, she won't be back for 9 days. And we hadn't had a single night to shop for anything or pack. So tonight was the only option, and thankfully all she had was school until 4 pm then play practice from 6:30-8:30 pm. Sheesh. But we got it done. We went to Kohl's for flip flops, tank tops, etc., and after I dropped her off at play practice I went to Target for shorts (Kohl's shorts were AWFUL. They were so short they crawled right up your rear, even in appropriate sizing. They were made to be worn by teenagers with perfect butts and legs who want to show them off.) and a few other things. When we got home, Kaylee had to do her homework, which took her until almost 11 p.m., and then she had to pack and get ready to be gone for 9 days. Yeah. It's now almost 1 a.m. and she's taking a last-minute shower before a busy day.
The girl cannot pack on her own properly though. So I went through her pack, dumped it out, and started over. Organizing, folding nicely, getting rid of extras, making sure what was needed was actually there. That took awhile. It takes me 5 minutes to pack. She wants to bring everything she owns, and she wads it all in there. Gah. But we got it finally. I told her to pick between three tank tops and she said "HOW can you LIVE this way?? How do I know which one I will want? I want them ALL!" It was funny.
I also may have found a way to solve a sunglasses problem I have. See, it's hard for me to find sunglasses that fit my head. Men's sunglasses are too big, and so are most women's sunglasses. But guess what I found at Kohl's today? JUNIOR Sunglasses. They aren't the kiddie glasses with pink hearts, they were just smaller sized normal sunglasses. Well praise all that's holy, I tried a pair on, and they FIT my head! I may be able to throw away the 8 pairs of men/women's sunglasses I have by the door that I rotate through trying to find one that will stay on my head that day now that my one-armed glasses that did fit finally bit the dust. ;)
Here are a few of the photos from last night, and I'll see if I can get the kid in bed before it gets any later. She has a 20+ hour drive tomorrow after a full day of school.
Part of a line of thunderstorms that later that night blew into the pretty lightning show.
Sun starts going down...
Going...
Going...
Gone.
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