We needed today. I slept in, took a giant nap in the afternoon, and after sitting here most of the day doing pretty much nothing, I feel ready to face the world--tomorrow. Steve's the same way, finally recuperating today. Kaylee has always been fine even though she's been extra busy too. But she's 13, she's supposed to have almost limitless stores of energy. ;)
I caught up my electronic logbook from just the last week, and have to catch up my paper logbook from the last couple of weeks sometime soon here.
Quiet day, peaceful, good, needed.
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Dragger Day
I ended up sleeping in until 9 am, and Steve slept a lot later than that, which is almost unheard of with him. I guess we both needed it. I didn't really recuperate from headache/stomachache/bleh feeling until this evening, but now that it's almost bedtime I feel pretty good. Figures. ;) At least we have tomorrow off too. Kaylee's church group isn't even meeting tomorrow, so it's just a quiet day. Monday I have the Indian Hills Fly-In to do, but also have two students scheduled for flying in the Cub, so tomorrow will have to cover the "day of rest" portion of the weekend.
This afternoon Steve, Justin, Nathan and I went up in the Aerostar so Nathan could calibrate the new AOA (Angle of Attack) Indicator. It was the first time I'd been in it since the new wingtip extensions and winglets were put on. It's looking really snazzy! It's a slick airplane--I had the power almost all the way back, in a pretty steep turn, and it just didn't feel like slowing down without throwing the drag out there too. So smooth and responsive on the controls.
While I wanted to go to Marion and give rides today, I was better off hanging out mostly earthbound this time. Next year hopefully we'll be able to have the T-6 and maybe even a Twin Beech to take over. :)
Bedtime, I'm stupid tired still...
This afternoon Steve, Justin, Nathan and I went up in the Aerostar so Nathan could calibrate the new AOA (Angle of Attack) Indicator. It was the first time I'd been in it since the new wingtip extensions and winglets were put on. It's looking really snazzy! It's a slick airplane--I had the power almost all the way back, in a pretty steep turn, and it just didn't feel like slowing down without throwing the drag out there too. So smooth and responsive on the controls.
While I wanted to go to Marion and give rides today, I was better off hanging out mostly earthbound this time. Next year hopefully we'll be able to have the T-6 and maybe even a Twin Beech to take over. :)
Bedtime, I'm stupid tired still...
Friday, August 29, 2014
Beat
I hit a bit of a wall yesterday--I was done. Well, I was done emotionally, but I wasn't literally done, and that's not great. ;) I started off tired for the first flight of the day, but had a good time going over to Kokomo in the Cub with a student and practicing crosswind takeoffs and landings on the concrete there. We flew for two hours before coming back in and me setting him loose in the tailwheel for the first time. We ate lunch, and I had another tailwheel guy in the Champ for awhile. I got to save what would have been two groundloops. The good thing about that was that it was an eye-opening experience for them to see how fast it can start to go wrong when you put the wrong inputs in. Normal landing, normal landing, it's all fine, no big deal, and then suddenly normal landing without enough crosswind correction, the wind picks up the wing, he doesn't keep the tail down, the nose yaws, and he mistakenly puts the aileron downwind trying to bring the nose around, and... He commented a few times that he was glad I grabbed it--it made an impression. It was a good object lesson in respecting the little wheel in the back. I was very tired after those two flights, and looking forward to going home and maybe resting a little. I get home and my shoes off and I get a text that says "I'm running 5 minutes late." Huh? I pull up my schedule--I had another guy out at Kokomo in 15 minutes and hadn't realized it. I text back "I'm running 5 minutes late too", put my shoes back on, and go out there. It's really muggy out and the sun is beating down into the airplane, and I'm worn down, and it's hot, and we're just staying in the pattern again, where I've been for hours every day for two days straight, and I blinked once after takeoff and decided to open my eyes again on base. (Don't panic--I can hear and feel what the airplane is doing with my eyes closed in the air). He had a breakthrough on the flare, which is great, and means he's just bumped his chances of soloing soon up way high. I could still teach, I was just worn down. ;) After him I came home for awhile, and waited, because I had another guy who wanted to fly right at 8:30 pm so he could watch the sun set from the air. So for a couple of hours you have to just wait, knowing you're not done yet. At 8 pm I leave to drive out to the airport, and as I arrive, he calls and says that there are clouds blocking the sun over to the west, and he wants to wait for another day when he can actually see the sun, even though it's clear everywhere else and fine to fly. I turn around and drive home and have some blackberry pie (home made) and Eagle Rare for dinner. Seemed like the right idea... I enjoyed hanging out with Steve and some of the guys for awhile before hitting the bed earlier than I normally would on a Friday night...especially since I won't be getting up early and taking the T-6 to Marion for their fly-in to give rides or do some formation stuff tomorrow. Sorry to miss that, but, well, nothing you can do about it but be content in the circumstances in which you find yourself, which is a morning off instead.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Wisconsin Day
This day ran like it was on rails--even when things went wrong, which they did a few times, as you'll see, it still worked out on timing perfectly.
I had a MBros flight this morning, so I had to leave before 7 a.m., which left Kaylee and her friend her this morning to be taken to school by Richard & Ann. When we left Kokomo, it was VFR along the route, and it was supposed to stay that way all day, all along the route of flight. Imagine our surprise when we got about 30 minutes out and started seeing hot pink weather flags at our destination. (That means low IFR). I pull it up, and sure enough, it is "visibility less than 1/4 mile and fog." Well, where did THAT come from?? So I start hunting for an alternate, which I hadn't done before because it was severe clear and supposed to stay that way. I find an airport only 15 miles away that says it's clear, but by the time we go another 10 minutes, it too has gone under fog. So I pick another airport 22 miles away, and it's clear below 12,000' and 10 miles visibility. As we get close to it, the clouds haven't broken yet, and then I see it--one end of the runway is getting clouded over, while the other is severe clear. So, not taking our time at all, we hurry up and get down, and roll out into IFR. Pretty cool looking, really. The airport socks in for quite awhile at that point. The guy had to have someone come get him at the new airport, and wanted to leave from our original airport if at all possible, so basically I waited until the IFR rose high enough to let me safely get into the original airport, at which point I filed and departed. The airports are 22 miles apart, and as soon as I took off and popped into the clouds and called departure, they wanted to know what approach I wanted. Being sometimes smart, I'd figured all that out before I started the airplane, and told them I wanted this Initial Approach Fix for this Approach going straight in, which they gave to me. I hand flew the whole time, because it's been a fair amount of time since I've even really flown it, let alone IFR, let alone busy IFR. So you're climbing out, plugging in the approach they just gave you, switching frequencies, leveling off, setting up the airplane, talking, turning, and going right into the approach. Once I got established on the RNAV inbound I was fine, but I was a little sloppy on the turns with my altitude. Well, sloppy to me was still under 100' off, but I was having to work at it more than I should have to. I broke out, landed, gassed up the airplane, and right then the guys came back and were ready to take off for Kokomo. Perfect. We get in the airplane, head for Kokomo, land, go to put the 340 away, and the hangar door breaks in an attention-getting fashion. We push the PT back, then the T-6 back, then squeeze the 340 in under the crooked door, then dare to try to lower it as far as we can, before one of the guys says he has a ratchet strap and can relieve some of the pressure on the one side. We get the ladder out and he does that, finish up, and it is right now 4:30 pm and my student is ready to go. I fly with her in the 172, finish that, land, and my next student is walking up to preflight. I fly with him, land, we are pushing the airplane away, and the Aerostar flies overhead, and the boys are back. I have enough time to get to the hangar and open the door and be waiting when they land. Boom, boom, boom, the timing just worked everywhere.
Random things.
The airplanes are all stuck in the hangar until further notice, the PT, t he T-6, and the 340, so this Saturday's rides, the best rides event we'll likely have for the season, is shot unless a miracle occurs tomorrow, which I won't hold my breath on. Hopefully we don't need any business trips for a few days either. But obviously it's just a bad deal that the door broke at all--that kind of stinks for Nathan/Kevin, and I'm guessing it won't be super easy or cheap to fix. I'm just glad that if it was going to break, it did it AFTER we got the 340 out this morning for the trip, and that nothing and nobody was hurt when it "blew".
It was good that I had a big breakfast in Wisconsin, something I rarely do, because with the timing the way it worked out, I didn't get a chance to have a single other thing to eat all day until 9 pm. I'd have been sick if I hadn't had bacon, eggs, toast and oatmeal early in the morning, and I never eat that much in the morning normally...glad it worked out.
One of my students follows me on FlightAware and made a comment about how I'd chosen water today instead of land going up to Wisconsin. I said yeah, two of us on board, two engines, the only way I'd lose both, other than some freak one in a billion thing, would be if I ran them out of gas, which I shan't do, and if I lose one or the other, as lightly loaded as we were, I could fly just fine to the next airport. So water doesn't bother me there. I like my backups, including engine. They make me happy. ;)
At the second airport I went to, I walked in and a guy in there looked around and said "Did you fly that in all by yourself?" I was tired, and I just said "Yeeeees." He said I looked too young to have been doing this for very long. I decided to take that as a compliment and go with it. ;)
It's late and I'm really tired. So here are a few photos from today...
I had a MBros flight this morning, so I had to leave before 7 a.m., which left Kaylee and her friend her this morning to be taken to school by Richard & Ann. When we left Kokomo, it was VFR along the route, and it was supposed to stay that way all day, all along the route of flight. Imagine our surprise when we got about 30 minutes out and started seeing hot pink weather flags at our destination. (That means low IFR). I pull it up, and sure enough, it is "visibility less than 1/4 mile and fog." Well, where did THAT come from?? So I start hunting for an alternate, which I hadn't done before because it was severe clear and supposed to stay that way. I find an airport only 15 miles away that says it's clear, but by the time we go another 10 minutes, it too has gone under fog. So I pick another airport 22 miles away, and it's clear below 12,000' and 10 miles visibility. As we get close to it, the clouds haven't broken yet, and then I see it--one end of the runway is getting clouded over, while the other is severe clear. So, not taking our time at all, we hurry up and get down, and roll out into IFR. Pretty cool looking, really. The airport socks in for quite awhile at that point. The guy had to have someone come get him at the new airport, and wanted to leave from our original airport if at all possible, so basically I waited until the IFR rose high enough to let me safely get into the original airport, at which point I filed and departed. The airports are 22 miles apart, and as soon as I took off and popped into the clouds and called departure, they wanted to know what approach I wanted. Being sometimes smart, I'd figured all that out before I started the airplane, and told them I wanted this Initial Approach Fix for this Approach going straight in, which they gave to me. I hand flew the whole time, because it's been a fair amount of time since I've even really flown it, let alone IFR, let alone busy IFR. So you're climbing out, plugging in the approach they just gave you, switching frequencies, leveling off, setting up the airplane, talking, turning, and going right into the approach. Once I got established on the RNAV inbound I was fine, but I was a little sloppy on the turns with my altitude. Well, sloppy to me was still under 100' off, but I was having to work at it more than I should have to. I broke out, landed, gassed up the airplane, and right then the guys came back and were ready to take off for Kokomo. Perfect. We get in the airplane, head for Kokomo, land, go to put the 340 away, and the hangar door breaks in an attention-getting fashion. We push the PT back, then the T-6 back, then squeeze the 340 in under the crooked door, then dare to try to lower it as far as we can, before one of the guys says he has a ratchet strap and can relieve some of the pressure on the one side. We get the ladder out and he does that, finish up, and it is right now 4:30 pm and my student is ready to go. I fly with her in the 172, finish that, land, and my next student is walking up to preflight. I fly with him, land, we are pushing the airplane away, and the Aerostar flies overhead, and the boys are back. I have enough time to get to the hangar and open the door and be waiting when they land. Boom, boom, boom, the timing just worked everywhere.
Random things.
The airplanes are all stuck in the hangar until further notice, the PT, t he T-6, and the 340, so this Saturday's rides, the best rides event we'll likely have for the season, is shot unless a miracle occurs tomorrow, which I won't hold my breath on. Hopefully we don't need any business trips for a few days either. But obviously it's just a bad deal that the door broke at all--that kind of stinks for Nathan/Kevin, and I'm guessing it won't be super easy or cheap to fix. I'm just glad that if it was going to break, it did it AFTER we got the 340 out this morning for the trip, and that nothing and nobody was hurt when it "blew".
It was good that I had a big breakfast in Wisconsin, something I rarely do, because with the timing the way it worked out, I didn't get a chance to have a single other thing to eat all day until 9 pm. I'd have been sick if I hadn't had bacon, eggs, toast and oatmeal early in the morning, and I never eat that much in the morning normally...glad it worked out.
One of my students follows me on FlightAware and made a comment about how I'd chosen water today instead of land going up to Wisconsin. I said yeah, two of us on board, two engines, the only way I'd lose both, other than some freak one in a billion thing, would be if I ran them out of gas, which I shan't do, and if I lose one or the other, as lightly loaded as we were, I could fly just fine to the next airport. So water doesn't bother me there. I like my backups, including engine. They make me happy. ;)
At the second airport I went to, I walked in and a guy in there looked around and said "Did you fly that in all by yourself?" I was tired, and I just said "Yeeeees." He said I looked too young to have been doing this for very long. I decided to take that as a compliment and go with it. ;)
It's late and I'm really tired. So here are a few photos from today...
Sunrise on the way to the airport this morning...
Sun coming up over the 340
Which Lake Michigan picture do I like better?
Don't know, too tired to figure it out. Here's both. Hello, Lake Michigan.
The edge of the fog and low hanging clouds
How could I forget? The one airport sent me to a skating rink to eat breakfast. And you know what, the food in there was really good. Go Skateland with a restaurant!
Yeah, well...
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Fogged
I wasn't too sad when the fog hadn't lifted and my 8 a.m. had to cancel. I was less happy when the fog still hadn't lifted and my 10 a.m. had to cancel. I was still less happy yet when I went out to fly after lunch and the airplane we were supposed to fly was apart and I had no idea what was going on or why. I took the time instead to run to Kokomo and top off the 340 for a flight I have in the morning to Wisconsin. Then finally at 5:30 we got a great flight in, where he is finally seeing and nailing the flare, and then went for a sunset flight in the Cub with the guy who was supposed to go earlier, after they got the airplane back together. It was a beautiful evening for a Cub flight, smooth, great sunset, warm air made cooler by the open door, and I think he mastered what he needed to get today too. We'll find out on Friday when we fly again, and I'll see if he can do it again on another day in other conditions. :)
Takeoff...
Big sun, August evening, Grass strip Cubbing.
I've still got gas...that's good...
Going...
Going...Gone. Time to land.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Nature
Both of my afternoon flights were canceled for storms that moved through, but one of them wanted to try it and went out there anyway, hoping to beat the weather. It was close, and I tried to warn him, but he wanted to go for it, so I decided to see what he'd do. As we were taxiing out it was very dark off to the west, the wind went from calm to 22 knots, and there was a pretty active lightning storm over there. He asked if there was another airport we could go to, and I said no way were we going to another airport and getting cut off from home base, and he said "This isn't really going to work, is it." No, no it's not, but we got practice in starting up, taxiing, and making sound judgment calls on when to call it off even when you really want to go and made all the effort to get out there, preflight, pull out, start up, and taxi around. ;)
Since I had so much time on the ground today, I made it productive. Extra productive, in fact. I decluttered some areas that hadn't seen decluttering in awhile, nothing that people can see by walking in our house, but that I knew needed it. I also decluttered my closet, took out jeans and some shirts that I'd had since the 90s and hung on to on my last declutter round because...because. I even had a couple of maternity shirts that I wore with Devon that I never got rid of. Two bags full of clothes are in the back of my Jeep waiting to go to Goodwill in case there's somebody that needs flannel and 1980 style jeans for a school project or something. Another two bags of trash went out. I even cleaned out my sock drawer. That reminds me--I need to get some more socks. Kaylee keeps making me throw away any she spies that have holes in them, and she has even started doing a sock check in the evening when she thinks of it. It bothers her mightily if I own a sock with a hole in it. So now I'm down to just a few pairs of socks. Bugger. ;)
While I was being productive, I got through my pile of paperwork and got quite a few things done there as well, and even got in some time to exercise. That reminds me, a few months ago Kaylee had out my jump rope and was trying to jump, and she just looked funny, she wasn't doing it right, so I went to help her. I used to be really good at jumping, doing tricks, going fast, all of it. For fun as a kid I jumped 1000 times before stopping--jump rope 100 times in a row and see how that goes, and imagine doing it for 1000. So anyway, I tried to jump rope to show her, and when I came down on my feet, it hurt, a lot, and so did my ankles, which tried to give out on me, and I couldn't do it. Today I grabbed the jump rope again and did a smooth, fast 50 jumps, no mistakes, paused for a minute and did another 50. I'm not 'back' all the way, I can still feel it in my feet, am still a little stiff on it, but...much better. I even got a "criss-cross" or two in there and impressed her. ;)
Tonight Kaylee is at a concert with her friend Abby and Abby's parents. They went to see "The Plain White T's", who actually do have several songs I like too. It's 10 pm and she's on her way home now...kind of late for a school night, but a special thing, and she doesn't have much homework and still has her grades up...
I've had the whole house to myself for the whole day--it's been kind of nice, actually, but I'll be glad to have them back too. :) My schedule for the next several days is really booked up, so it was kind of good to have today that was quieter. Tomorrow's going to be long, as I leave the house at 7:15 a.m., and I will get back to the house, done for the day around 8 p.m. I marked myself off for lunch, which is a good thing because some folks keep trying to schedule me over that. (Do these people not eat lunch themselves at a semi-normal time, or note that I have flights before and after the lunch hour and might like to eat as well?) Thursday is going to be the same, only it's a MBros trip I have at 7 a.m. and when I get back at 4-5, I have two lessons ending at 8 p.m. Then Friday starts at 9 a.m. and I go all day, and a guy wanted to do a Discovery Flight starting at 8:30 p.m. so he could watch the sunset from the air. So I'll get home around 9:30-10 p.m. on Friday, and then have to be back up and out at Kokomo to get the T-6 to Marion supposedly somewhere around 7 a.m. for a day full of rides. All that sound as tiring to you as it does to me? ;) We'll see what the weather does though, there may be some that can't go thanks to these summer storms we've had rolling in and out...hopefully not Saturday though. I hope it's nice for Ray's Fly-In...
Since I had so much time on the ground today, I made it productive. Extra productive, in fact. I decluttered some areas that hadn't seen decluttering in awhile, nothing that people can see by walking in our house, but that I knew needed it. I also decluttered my closet, took out jeans and some shirts that I'd had since the 90s and hung on to on my last declutter round because...because. I even had a couple of maternity shirts that I wore with Devon that I never got rid of. Two bags full of clothes are in the back of my Jeep waiting to go to Goodwill in case there's somebody that needs flannel and 1980 style jeans for a school project or something. Another two bags of trash went out. I even cleaned out my sock drawer. That reminds me--I need to get some more socks. Kaylee keeps making me throw away any she spies that have holes in them, and she has even started doing a sock check in the evening when she thinks of it. It bothers her mightily if I own a sock with a hole in it. So now I'm down to just a few pairs of socks. Bugger. ;)
While I was being productive, I got through my pile of paperwork and got quite a few things done there as well, and even got in some time to exercise. That reminds me, a few months ago Kaylee had out my jump rope and was trying to jump, and she just looked funny, she wasn't doing it right, so I went to help her. I used to be really good at jumping, doing tricks, going fast, all of it. For fun as a kid I jumped 1000 times before stopping--jump rope 100 times in a row and see how that goes, and imagine doing it for 1000. So anyway, I tried to jump rope to show her, and when I came down on my feet, it hurt, a lot, and so did my ankles, which tried to give out on me, and I couldn't do it. Today I grabbed the jump rope again and did a smooth, fast 50 jumps, no mistakes, paused for a minute and did another 50. I'm not 'back' all the way, I can still feel it in my feet, am still a little stiff on it, but...much better. I even got a "criss-cross" or two in there and impressed her. ;)
Tonight Kaylee is at a concert with her friend Abby and Abby's parents. They went to see "The Plain White T's", who actually do have several songs I like too. It's 10 pm and she's on her way home now...kind of late for a school night, but a special thing, and she doesn't have much homework and still has her grades up...
I've had the whole house to myself for the whole day--it's been kind of nice, actually, but I'll be glad to have them back too. :) My schedule for the next several days is really booked up, so it was kind of good to have today that was quieter. Tomorrow's going to be long, as I leave the house at 7:15 a.m., and I will get back to the house, done for the day around 8 p.m. I marked myself off for lunch, which is a good thing because some folks keep trying to schedule me over that. (Do these people not eat lunch themselves at a semi-normal time, or note that I have flights before and after the lunch hour and might like to eat as well?) Thursday is going to be the same, only it's a MBros trip I have at 7 a.m. and when I get back at 4-5, I have two lessons ending at 8 p.m. Then Friday starts at 9 a.m. and I go all day, and a guy wanted to do a Discovery Flight starting at 8:30 p.m. so he could watch the sunset from the air. So I'll get home around 9:30-10 p.m. on Friday, and then have to be back up and out at Kokomo to get the T-6 to Marion supposedly somewhere around 7 a.m. for a day full of rides. All that sound as tiring to you as it does to me? ;) We'll see what the weather does though, there may be some that can't go thanks to these summer storms we've had rolling in and out...hopefully not Saturday though. I hope it's nice for Ray's Fly-In...
Monday, August 25, 2014
The Return of Monday
I was up at 5 something a.m., and out of the house around 6:15, and I got Kaylee up, after which she got herself completely ready for school, got all her stuff together, then walked next door so Grandma & Grandpa could drive her to the bus stop. She's a good kid, if I haven't mentioned that recently.
My trip to Hannibal and back was indeed uneventful. It was already extra muggy and hot even early in the morning--the news guy said 87% humidity for awhile there, and fog was rolling in too, but it didn't get there before I left and it was gone before I got back, so, good enough. I was glad for the relaxing non-stressful flight because I was kind of sleepy, especially when it's hot and droning in there. ;) I had put the minimum amount of fuel I needed to get there with a minimum safe reserve because he'd told me we were bringing back four guys plus me. I had to put some weight in the nose baggage compartment to keep us within the CG envelope, and then made the big guy sit up front with me (where he has no room to move), again because of the otherwise too-far-aft-CG if I didn't. The one time I need to not be the skinniest person in the plane is when we have a full load--then you need the big people up front. They originally told me this guy was 235 lbs, but if he's 235 lbs, so am I. (Um, I am not just in case you're not sure.) I had put the right amount of fuel in in case he was 300 lbs and I'm guessing that was much closer to the truth. He's a seriously big boy. My next two flights this week to DC were canceled because they had more guys to bring back and forth than they had seats in the 340. They asked if the Cheyenne was available yet, and I had to say no, so they are all airlining it back and forth instead. Bummer for Laura's 100LL Fund. Or more realistically Our Electric Bill Fund. ;)
Somebody posted that according to the Almanac it's supposed to be another long, bitter cold winter. Just the thought of that makes me want to hit my head on something hard. I'm going to have to come up with a plan ahead of time here, something to look forward to or do during the winter, because if it IS like last year's winter, I will end up in trouble. I am still recovering from last winter...not kidding.
I had a few more flights today, one canceled on me because his air conditioning broke (and it IS miserable out here) and he wanted to get it fixed, and the other I had to cancel because the storms rolled in right then. I just almost forgot I went to Missouri and back this morning and that it wasn't a different day. I need a nap.
Steve, Nathan and Jon are working hard out in Wyoming. Steve's posting pics now and then on Facebook to keep us in the loop, and I'm enjoying those. I guess it's only 70 degrees out there, and sunny. Much nicer than here!
I had a dream last night that I was flying the Twin Beech home over the mountains and both the engines started running terrible and I didn't know what was wrong, they weren't quitting all the way yet, but they'd lost a lot of power, and there was nothing under me but rugged, desolate mountains, and ATC couldn't hear me. I woke up as I was saying "Come on baby, come on baby" as the oil temps were going up, and aiming for the closest airport, which was like 45 miles away, and looking for any place at all to put it down safely in the meantime. Gee, I wonder where that dream came from?? Heh
Kaylee had school, then tennis practice right afterwards (and it was HOT and MUGGY and she was bright red from exertion), and then I picked her up from that and drove her right to Taekwondo. She came home and did her homework and a load of laundry and some picking up. She is auditioning for the school play, which is an interesting twist on the Diary of Anne Frank story. I actually want to see this play myself, and I hope she gets a part. Like I said, busy girl...
My trip to Hannibal and back was indeed uneventful. It was already extra muggy and hot even early in the morning--the news guy said 87% humidity for awhile there, and fog was rolling in too, but it didn't get there before I left and it was gone before I got back, so, good enough. I was glad for the relaxing non-stressful flight because I was kind of sleepy, especially when it's hot and droning in there. ;) I had put the minimum amount of fuel I needed to get there with a minimum safe reserve because he'd told me we were bringing back four guys plus me. I had to put some weight in the nose baggage compartment to keep us within the CG envelope, and then made the big guy sit up front with me (where he has no room to move), again because of the otherwise too-far-aft-CG if I didn't. The one time I need to not be the skinniest person in the plane is when we have a full load--then you need the big people up front. They originally told me this guy was 235 lbs, but if he's 235 lbs, so am I. (Um, I am not just in case you're not sure.) I had put the right amount of fuel in in case he was 300 lbs and I'm guessing that was much closer to the truth. He's a seriously big boy. My next two flights this week to DC were canceled because they had more guys to bring back and forth than they had seats in the 340. They asked if the Cheyenne was available yet, and I had to say no, so they are all airlining it back and forth instead. Bummer for Laura's 100LL Fund. Or more realistically Our Electric Bill Fund. ;)
Somebody posted that according to the Almanac it's supposed to be another long, bitter cold winter. Just the thought of that makes me want to hit my head on something hard. I'm going to have to come up with a plan ahead of time here, something to look forward to or do during the winter, because if it IS like last year's winter, I will end up in trouble. I am still recovering from last winter...not kidding.
I had a few more flights today, one canceled on me because his air conditioning broke (and it IS miserable out here) and he wanted to get it fixed, and the other I had to cancel because the storms rolled in right then. I just almost forgot I went to Missouri and back this morning and that it wasn't a different day. I need a nap.
Steve, Nathan and Jon are working hard out in Wyoming. Steve's posting pics now and then on Facebook to keep us in the loop, and I'm enjoying those. I guess it's only 70 degrees out there, and sunny. Much nicer than here!
I had a dream last night that I was flying the Twin Beech home over the mountains and both the engines started running terrible and I didn't know what was wrong, they weren't quitting all the way yet, but they'd lost a lot of power, and there was nothing under me but rugged, desolate mountains, and ATC couldn't hear me. I woke up as I was saying "Come on baby, come on baby" as the oil temps were going up, and aiming for the closest airport, which was like 45 miles away, and looking for any place at all to put it down safely in the meantime. Gee, I wonder where that dream came from?? Heh
Kaylee had school, then tennis practice right afterwards (and it was HOT and MUGGY and she was bright red from exertion), and then I picked her up from that and drove her right to Taekwondo. She came home and did her homework and a load of laundry and some picking up. She is auditioning for the school play, which is an interesting twist on the Diary of Anne Frank story. I actually want to see this play myself, and I hope she gets a part. Like I said, busy girl...
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Empty Nest
I heard Steve leave this morning, but barely. I'd been up and awake until 2 a.m. and he left somewhere close to 4 a.m., so I couldn't wake up very well. He called around 8:30 pm or so, having finally made it to Sheridan, Wyoming to start the next leg on the Twin Beech and Aerostar adventure.
Kaylee tried out a new church youth group tonight. It always kind of surprises me how brave she is. I'm a 42 year old woman and I don't enjoy walking into groups, especially new ones. She didn't need me to come in with her and help her find her way, she just wanted me to wait outside in case there was an unexpected issue like it was canceled for the night or something, but right away she sent me a text and said "I'm good, see you later". She jumped in, she said the counselors there were really nice, and that the kids there were really friendly, and she wants to go back. They do an opening game time, chat time, hang out time (I'd be out right there!), then they have a service. After that they break into small groups and get deeper into the topic on a more individual level. It's about two hours in total, and it's Sunday evening, which is easier than Sunday morning for us. She even found one girl there she knew from school already, and that helped a little too. All in all it seems like a really good thing for her, and I'm glad she was willing to give it a try. She'll be going back and starting to attend it on a regular basis, and she's getting into it prior to High School, so she'll hopefully already have a good group of kids to grow into High School church activities with.
This afternoon I went to Chuck and Judy's house with the Glenndale Ladies and we had a Wildtree foods afternoon with Gina. Healthy meals, recipes, sauces, organic, low sodium, low sugar but still very flavorful. I'm always looking for better ways to feed the family, but they need to be easy and doable, so we will see if some of this will take away even a few more McDonalds runs during the week. :)
Speaking of healthy, I'm jumping the gun by 1/2 of a pound, which I'm sure I'll hit in the next few days, but as soon as I do, I'll be down 20 pounds myself. I feel like I have a better balance on things, like I'm not on a diet that I'm going to go off of, but just have a better way of eating all around. I have steel cut oatmeal in the mornings to get started, and just basically...pay attention. To what I'm eating, how much, when, how much water I'm drinking, how much I'm walking or not, and what the scale says, because if I don't pay attention, it all slides to the background. It seems like making the decision to care enough is most of the battle, for me anyway. Once I care enough to pay attention, it's all easier, and it doesn't matter if I take a meal or even a day and do something big now and then. It seems to be working pretty well thus far. There's still a ways to go, and things will probably start slowing down some here, but I can tell my stamina, strength, and energy are all already better.
Today I took a bag and was putting all the pants in it that don't fit me any more. Kaylee asked what I was doing, and I said I was giving away clothes that don't fit me any more, and she said something about how she was afraid I was going to say I'd gained weight. I said no, I've lost weight. She has no idea. I think it's kind of sweet that she only sees me as the mom she loves, and she doesn't really see the size of my waist. :)
This evening I went to take Kaylee to the church group, and as we walked out to the Jeep, a very large spider had built a very large web in the corner of the overhang, and it ran up the web which went all the way practically to the center of the overhang. It was nasty. I run under him to get in the Jeep because there was no big strong man around to save me, and then after I dropped her off I parked outside the thing and found a can of Raid Spider killer. Getting close enough to spray the web because I couldn't see the spider, without being so close it could drop on me was difficult. Finally something got on him and he spazzed out and I could see where he was hiding, and then he was toast. I think a most horrible thing to watch is a spider dying from the neurotoxin. It spazzes, jumps, twitches, runs, it's disgusting and horrid and gives me a serious case of the willies. They need to go live in the abandoned yard next door and stay out of my overhang, and they won't scare me and I won't destroy them. Win/Win. Ugh.
I told Steve this story tonight, and the only question he had was whether or not I got overspray of the Raid on either of the vehicles, because if I did, enough of it can eat through paint. Did not know that. Don't think I got much overspray on the cars, but just in case I hosed them down anyway. That wasn't the point of my story, you understand. The point was...THERE I WAS, Alone, Scared, Facing down a Giant Crazed Spider with only Half a can of Raid left...it was an EMERGENCY, people!! ;)
Well, gotta go to bed early, (oops, too late), to rise early for a 7 a.m. wheels-up departure. I'm not going to get enough sleep tonight, I'm not tired at all and it's midnight and I need to be up at 5:30. *sigh* At least the weather is supposed to be fine...
Kaylee tried out a new church youth group tonight. It always kind of surprises me how brave she is. I'm a 42 year old woman and I don't enjoy walking into groups, especially new ones. She didn't need me to come in with her and help her find her way, she just wanted me to wait outside in case there was an unexpected issue like it was canceled for the night or something, but right away she sent me a text and said "I'm good, see you later". She jumped in, she said the counselors there were really nice, and that the kids there were really friendly, and she wants to go back. They do an opening game time, chat time, hang out time (I'd be out right there!), then they have a service. After that they break into small groups and get deeper into the topic on a more individual level. It's about two hours in total, and it's Sunday evening, which is easier than Sunday morning for us. She even found one girl there she knew from school already, and that helped a little too. All in all it seems like a really good thing for her, and I'm glad she was willing to give it a try. She'll be going back and starting to attend it on a regular basis, and she's getting into it prior to High School, so she'll hopefully already have a good group of kids to grow into High School church activities with.
This afternoon I went to Chuck and Judy's house with the Glenndale Ladies and we had a Wildtree foods afternoon with Gina. Healthy meals, recipes, sauces, organic, low sodium, low sugar but still very flavorful. I'm always looking for better ways to feed the family, but they need to be easy and doable, so we will see if some of this will take away even a few more McDonalds runs during the week. :)
Speaking of healthy, I'm jumping the gun by 1/2 of a pound, which I'm sure I'll hit in the next few days, but as soon as I do, I'll be down 20 pounds myself. I feel like I have a better balance on things, like I'm not on a diet that I'm going to go off of, but just have a better way of eating all around. I have steel cut oatmeal in the mornings to get started, and just basically...pay attention. To what I'm eating, how much, when, how much water I'm drinking, how much I'm walking or not, and what the scale says, because if I don't pay attention, it all slides to the background. It seems like making the decision to care enough is most of the battle, for me anyway. Once I care enough to pay attention, it's all easier, and it doesn't matter if I take a meal or even a day and do something big now and then. It seems to be working pretty well thus far. There's still a ways to go, and things will probably start slowing down some here, but I can tell my stamina, strength, and energy are all already better.
Today I took a bag and was putting all the pants in it that don't fit me any more. Kaylee asked what I was doing, and I said I was giving away clothes that don't fit me any more, and she said something about how she was afraid I was going to say I'd gained weight. I said no, I've lost weight. She has no idea. I think it's kind of sweet that she only sees me as the mom she loves, and she doesn't really see the size of my waist. :)
This evening I went to take Kaylee to the church group, and as we walked out to the Jeep, a very large spider had built a very large web in the corner of the overhang, and it ran up the web which went all the way practically to the center of the overhang. It was nasty. I run under him to get in the Jeep because there was no big strong man around to save me, and then after I dropped her off I parked outside the thing and found a can of Raid Spider killer. Getting close enough to spray the web because I couldn't see the spider, without being so close it could drop on me was difficult. Finally something got on him and he spazzed out and I could see where he was hiding, and then he was toast. I think a most horrible thing to watch is a spider dying from the neurotoxin. It spazzes, jumps, twitches, runs, it's disgusting and horrid and gives me a serious case of the willies. They need to go live in the abandoned yard next door and stay out of my overhang, and they won't scare me and I won't destroy them. Win/Win. Ugh.
I told Steve this story tonight, and the only question he had was whether or not I got overspray of the Raid on either of the vehicles, because if I did, enough of it can eat through paint. Did not know that. Don't think I got much overspray on the cars, but just in case I hosed them down anyway. That wasn't the point of my story, you understand. The point was...THERE I WAS, Alone, Scared, Facing down a Giant Crazed Spider with only Half a can of Raid left...it was an EMERGENCY, people!! ;)
Well, gotta go to bed early, (oops, too late), to rise early for a 7 a.m. wheels-up departure. I'm not going to get enough sleep tonight, I'm not tired at all and it's midnight and I need to be up at 5:30. *sigh* At least the weather is supposed to be fine...
Saturday, August 23, 2014
More MO
Kaylee had a birthday party today for a friend, then a group of them went bowling, and then Steve picked them up and brought them out to the airport, from where I brought them home, took them to see "If I Stay", and they just got home from that. "If I Stay" is a sad movie, and Kaylee rarely gets sad at sad movies, but this one got her. So she's making up for it by watching a scary movie at 10 p.m. with her friend who is sleeping over. I didn't have her watching scary movies prior to this by the way, but her friend's mom recommended the two girls watch this one, which surprised me. I'm a little leery about starting her down the scary movie path, but she is coming up on 14. We'll see how it goes...
Meanwhile, I flew to Missouri to pick up three guys (the 4th one, the biggest guy, drove home, which was great). There was a little weather on the way home, easily circumnavigated, off to the north of us. As I was coming into the pattern, the lady on Unicom was asking me and the jump plane to look for a parachute in a field off to the west of the airport. Apparently one of the jumpers had to cut loose his main chute and come down on his reserve instead. He was fine, it worked, they were just looking for his main chute now. That's why you have a reserve. And as I picked up the guys I was flying home, they heard about that and I said "And that's why I have a reserve engine, too." ;)
Steve is packing--he'll be leaving the house sometime around 4 a.m. (yuck) to get to Indy on time for a 7 something a.m. flight out west. I wish the boys good luck on the flight out, the flight home in FrankenGumby with new wings, and all the work on the Twin Beech.
Meanwhile, I flew to Missouri to pick up three guys (the 4th one, the biggest guy, drove home, which was great). There was a little weather on the way home, easily circumnavigated, off to the north of us. As I was coming into the pattern, the lady on Unicom was asking me and the jump plane to look for a parachute in a field off to the west of the airport. Apparently one of the jumpers had to cut loose his main chute and come down on his reserve instead. He was fine, it worked, they were just looking for his main chute now. That's why you have a reserve. And as I picked up the guys I was flying home, they heard about that and I said "And that's why I have a reserve engine, too." ;)
Steve is packing--he'll be leaving the house sometime around 4 a.m. (yuck) to get to Indy on time for a 7 something a.m. flight out west. I wish the boys good luck on the flight out, the flight home in FrankenGumby with new wings, and all the work on the Twin Beech.
Taking off out of Kokomo, getting on top to the smooth and cool(er) air.
On the way home...this doesn't look too bad, does it?
You wouldn't have wanted to wander much closer in that direction...
Friday, August 22, 2014
Music
Sam H from Glenndale fixed my helmet today--the mic wire had broken, so I could hear but I couldn't speak or transmit at all. Normally you'd have to ship it back to the manufacturer who would get to it whenever they got to it, repair it and charge you a pretty penny to do it, plus shipping. Instead I dropped it off at Glenndale right after lunch and he had it fixed in a couple hours or less, and it's ready to go. Wonderful, and I am most grateful, he saved me from a lot of cost and hassle and time!
Kaylee had her first singing lesson today. They did a breathing exercise, a jaw-loosening exercise, and picked a song to work on for next week. She got a binder with information and her teacher recorded a few things on her iPhone for her to practice. Sitting in this teacher's house I got hit with some strange nostalgia and I'm not even exactly sure why. She is a bright, happy, musical (obviously) lady, effervescent really, has two pianos in the small room, for piano and voice lessons, with music-themed throws and blankets around the couch, teaching out of her home, and I almost felt like a kid going to my piano teacher's house for lessons. I can't remember some of my piano teachers. I remember one super strict one, but I can't remember if I had a bright, bubbly one or not, but something triggered some faded memory back there. Maybe it was just the house looking like something from my time. Then they played "I Can Only Imagine", and "El Shaddai", and that didn't help. :) She's a super nice lady who takes her music lessons very seriously, and I hope she'll help Kaylee gain confidence and a stronger voice.
Kaylee and I stopped at a store to pick up a birthday card and gift for a party she is going to tomorrow, and got home sometime after 8 p.m. Steve had been up north working on a computer problem all afternoon, and thankfully got it taken care of in time to come home and relax a little tonight. There are plenty of things to do tomorrow, and then at like 3:45 a.m. Sunday morning Steve is heading out the door to go out to Washington/then Idaho/then Wyoming. Busy few days...
Kaylee had her first singing lesson today. They did a breathing exercise, a jaw-loosening exercise, and picked a song to work on for next week. She got a binder with information and her teacher recorded a few things on her iPhone for her to practice. Sitting in this teacher's house I got hit with some strange nostalgia and I'm not even exactly sure why. She is a bright, happy, musical (obviously) lady, effervescent really, has two pianos in the small room, for piano and voice lessons, with music-themed throws and blankets around the couch, teaching out of her home, and I almost felt like a kid going to my piano teacher's house for lessons. I can't remember some of my piano teachers. I remember one super strict one, but I can't remember if I had a bright, bubbly one or not, but something triggered some faded memory back there. Maybe it was just the house looking like something from my time. Then they played "I Can Only Imagine", and "El Shaddai", and that didn't help. :) She's a super nice lady who takes her music lessons very seriously, and I hope she'll help Kaylee gain confidence and a stronger voice.
Kaylee and I stopped at a store to pick up a birthday card and gift for a party she is going to tomorrow, and got home sometime after 8 p.m. Steve had been up north working on a computer problem all afternoon, and thankfully got it taken care of in time to come home and relax a little tonight. There are plenty of things to do tomorrow, and then at like 3:45 a.m. Sunday morning Steve is heading out the door to go out to Washington/then Idaho/then Wyoming. Busy few days...
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Pick-Up
My business flights have been down for the last month, and I had just mentioned that, when I received two emails with four trips. Naturally one of them is Saturday when we have fly-ins and rides and things, and the other is Monday at 7 a.m. when Steve is out of town and I'm supposed to drive Kaylee to Greentown by 7:45 a.m. for a meeting of the drama club at her school before school starts. I can work around this Saturday, I'll just miss out on some fun, but Monday morning is harder, and they said they can't push back to 8. Not sure what I'll do there yet. He also wants to put four of them in there with me. It's always a struggle on the weight issue, it's always being pushed. I will be glad if/when the Cheyenne becomes an option.
Today I went up with a young lady on her first flight lesson. Those are always both a lot of work and a lot of fun. This morning early I was supposed to fly the T-6 over to Muncie for a VFR pitot-static check (or whatever it's officially called), and it rained like cats and dogs all day until after lunch, so I had to reschedule. I am supposed to get it done before the end of the month, but that may be a little tricky too. I'll work on it. :)
Kaylee came home from school excited that if we bought 8 fundraising things from her, between today and tomorrow, she could win a set of ear buds. Buying 8 fundraising things from her would have cost over $120. I told her I'd buy her a set of ear buds. Even Apple's expensive ones are only like $30. The fundraiser is mostly for her band and the Marching Band of which she is not a participant. She is, unfortunately, sort of out of luck. She still wants to sell 8 items total so that her class can have a pizza party. I told her not to hold her breath and that I'd buy her a pizza for dinner one night too, but it's not the same. ;) If anyone wants to buy anything towards her, here's how:
Go to www.centuryresources.com. Hit the "Shop Now" button. Her Group ID is 5642, enter that and a link will come up underneath it that says "Eastern Jr/Sr Bands". Click on that, the info will come up, and under the info it will have a place to put Kaylee's name, and she's in 8th grade. Select "Save Student information and shop", and then you can see if there's something in there that looks good...if not, don't feel obligated, I already told her that the odds of everyone in her class getting 8 items to have a pizza party are probably pretty slim, and she's only got 4 so far herself!
Tonight after school Kaylee had a first meeting for Student Council. I never did get good info out of her on how it works, just that there's a once a month commitment for meetings, and that they do stuff towards the school dances and such. I'm not sure if there are elections or what, but student council doesn't seem like a terrible plan to get into.
After her meeting she had a couple of hours and then she had tennis practice until 7 p.m. Busy kid, busy life. It'll be hard when Steve is gone now that Kaylee has all these activities and I still need to be able to do flights. Steve's mom and dad are going to help out, thankfully. :)
Today I went up with a young lady on her first flight lesson. Those are always both a lot of work and a lot of fun. This morning early I was supposed to fly the T-6 over to Muncie for a VFR pitot-static check (or whatever it's officially called), and it rained like cats and dogs all day until after lunch, so I had to reschedule. I am supposed to get it done before the end of the month, but that may be a little tricky too. I'll work on it. :)
Kaylee came home from school excited that if we bought 8 fundraising things from her, between today and tomorrow, she could win a set of ear buds. Buying 8 fundraising things from her would have cost over $120. I told her I'd buy her a set of ear buds. Even Apple's expensive ones are only like $30. The fundraiser is mostly for her band and the Marching Band of which she is not a participant. She is, unfortunately, sort of out of luck. She still wants to sell 8 items total so that her class can have a pizza party. I told her not to hold her breath and that I'd buy her a pizza for dinner one night too, but it's not the same. ;) If anyone wants to buy anything towards her, here's how:
Go to www.centuryresources.com. Hit the "Shop Now" button. Her Group ID is 5642, enter that and a link will come up underneath it that says "Eastern Jr/Sr Bands". Click on that, the info will come up, and under the info it will have a place to put Kaylee's name, and she's in 8th grade. Select "Save Student information and shop", and then you can see if there's something in there that looks good...if not, don't feel obligated, I already told her that the odds of everyone in her class getting 8 items to have a pizza party are probably pretty slim, and she's only got 4 so far herself!
Tonight after school Kaylee had a first meeting for Student Council. I never did get good info out of her on how it works, just that there's a once a month commitment for meetings, and that they do stuff towards the school dances and such. I'm not sure if there are elections or what, but student council doesn't seem like a terrible plan to get into.
After her meeting she had a couple of hours and then she had tennis practice until 7 p.m. Busy kid, busy life. It'll be hard when Steve is gone now that Kaylee has all these activities and I still need to be able to do flights. Steve's mom and dad are going to help out, thankfully. :)
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Mug Factor
Here comes a little bit of that payback I knew was coming--the humidity and heat are on the rise. Since we never really had a Summer and it's already Fall, I guess it's time to have some of that mug factor now. The instrument approaches I did this morning weren't too bad because it was still morning. The late afternoon Cub flight wasn't so bad because we left the door hanging open and the breeze was nice, even staying in the pattern and doing 80 degree crosswinds from 9-18 knots, taking his opinion on landing the plane from "this is easy" to "okay, this is not so easy". ;)
Kaylee had tennis practice tonight and we had a parent meeting. I had to sign up for bringing food and drinks for 20 kids on one of the days, which is actually okay with me because I thought all last year that they needed to be provided with something on game days. Once I brought food and drink just for Kaylee. Those games can last until 9 pm or so sometimes, and the kids haven't eaten since lunch, you know? That's not right. So it's fair that the parents are taking turns to bring them all food this year; I'm good with that.
While Kaylee had tennis practice, Steve and I went to the local bar and grill in town there for dinner. (There is not one place to drive through and get food in Greentown. Not one. You have to go in everywhere, including the one "fast food" place, Subway, in the middle of downtown, and their Ice Cream Palace place serves no actual food, just ice cream. You could go into the gas station and buy some chips or something, but that's it. Greentown needs a McDonald's.) I wanted to go to the bar and grill because it said "Great food!" on the outside and the only other option was pizza. The other two actual restaurants in town are closed down. But we go in this bar, and it's not, um, it's got a bit of a rough vibe. There were only a couple of options for food, and we were not expecting much--in fact, we expected the tenderloin sandwich to be a thin fried patty on a little bun. Well, we were wrong. That was a big, thick, juicy tenderloin, done really well, better than Grindstone Charlie's, and it was downright tasty. The place itself is not really my cup-o-tea, but that was a good sandwich!
Still haven't had time to put up Warsaw photos, but I've really enjoyed them from everybody! Great shots...I'll try to work on that later this week, but here are two sunset photos, first by Justin Gould, second by Trevor Griffis. :)
Kaylee had tennis practice tonight and we had a parent meeting. I had to sign up for bringing food and drinks for 20 kids on one of the days, which is actually okay with me because I thought all last year that they needed to be provided with something on game days. Once I brought food and drink just for Kaylee. Those games can last until 9 pm or so sometimes, and the kids haven't eaten since lunch, you know? That's not right. So it's fair that the parents are taking turns to bring them all food this year; I'm good with that.
While Kaylee had tennis practice, Steve and I went to the local bar and grill in town there for dinner. (There is not one place to drive through and get food in Greentown. Not one. You have to go in everywhere, including the one "fast food" place, Subway, in the middle of downtown, and their Ice Cream Palace place serves no actual food, just ice cream. You could go into the gas station and buy some chips or something, but that's it. Greentown needs a McDonald's.) I wanted to go to the bar and grill because it said "Great food!" on the outside and the only other option was pizza. The other two actual restaurants in town are closed down. But we go in this bar, and it's not, um, it's got a bit of a rough vibe. There were only a couple of options for food, and we were not expecting much--in fact, we expected the tenderloin sandwich to be a thin fried patty on a little bun. Well, we were wrong. That was a big, thick, juicy tenderloin, done really well, better than Grindstone Charlie's, and it was downright tasty. The place itself is not really my cup-o-tea, but that was a good sandwich!
Still haven't had time to put up Warsaw photos, but I've really enjoyed them from everybody! Great shots...I'll try to work on that later this week, but here are two sunset photos, first by Justin Gould, second by Trevor Griffis. :)
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Indy
This morning when I left the house to do an instrument training flight, I could tell it was going to be a hot, hazy summer day. The sky was white and flat, the air around us was just thick and dull. It was just one of those days that's not very pretty, but at least I got one out of three flights in today. This afternoon as the weather started moving in, I instead got some SMA Support stuff done and sent off, and made it to the store, as our cupboards were bare. I got stuff put away and then went down to Indy Metro for a CAF meeting. The rain started shortly after I got there, and we held the meeting inside the open hangar, so the rain pounding on the hangar's tin roof made quite a racket, and it kept up for pretty much the whole time of the meeting. :) We needed the rain though.
On the way home, it was dark, and there was still a big line of storms out there. The lightning was amazing. Some people get in trouble texting and driving, I had trouble staying on my own side of the road because I couldn't stop staring at the storm. There were some lightning strikes so big all the way to the ground that I was staring at the ground waiting to find signs of fire. Huge lightning bolts. In the meantime there was a full display of cloud to cloud lightning too. It was just really pretty. I drove into the center of one of the storms, and the rain was coming down so hard you couldn't really see, and the lightning would flash so brightly that your windshield wipers, which were as fast as they'd go, would get the strobe effect going. Cool, man...
The last three nights in a row I've had weird bordering on bad dreams, a little worse each night. I have a terrible urge to tell you what they all were, but most of you don't need to read that. Last night's was actually really unpleasant though. Hopefully tonight will be a little nicer. I can't think of a single thing that would be causing that either, so it's time to go away now. So on that note, Sweet Dreams! :)
On the way home, it was dark, and there was still a big line of storms out there. The lightning was amazing. Some people get in trouble texting and driving, I had trouble staying on my own side of the road because I couldn't stop staring at the storm. There were some lightning strikes so big all the way to the ground that I was staring at the ground waiting to find signs of fire. Huge lightning bolts. In the meantime there was a full display of cloud to cloud lightning too. It was just really pretty. I drove into the center of one of the storms, and the rain was coming down so hard you couldn't really see, and the lightning would flash so brightly that your windshield wipers, which were as fast as they'd go, would get the strobe effect going. Cool, man...
The last three nights in a row I've had weird bordering on bad dreams, a little worse each night. I have a terrible urge to tell you what they all were, but most of you don't need to read that. Last night's was actually really unpleasant though. Hopefully tonight will be a little nicer. I can't think of a single thing that would be causing that either, so it's time to go away now. So on that note, Sweet Dreams! :)
Monday, August 18, 2014
Monday
Kaylee's doing great in school, still keeping her As, got an A+ on her test of states, capitals, rivers, mountains, and oceans, and is just doing really well. She was complaining lightly tonight about how when she was looking up her grades, her Spanish class grade has everything online written in Spanish, and she says "And I have to THINK about what it's saying." I looked at her and said "You're in an Advanced Spanish class, kid, you're Supposed to be actually able to read and translate Spanish!" Her Advanced Math class is so far not too hard, and in fact this year she has had much less homework and more time to work on it in class than she did last year. So far. She isn't having any trouble at school with other kids, boys or girls either one. She has a good group of school friends who are smart, and funny, and non-back-stabby (that's important and not that easy to find in Junior High), not into rebellion or making trouble, respectful to adults, happy and silly and supportive. I can't put into words how glad I am for the school, heck, the childhood experience she's had so far. :)
I think it's really funny that my FitBit thinks that I walked 11,500 steps today. I sat in an airplane from 1:30-7:30 p.m. pretty much solid, with two stops for fuel. Almost four hours in the J-3 Cub, and then another almost two hours in the 172. The pedometer thinks that flying out of a grass strip is a whole lot of bouncing around, aka walking. It tried to tell me I had an extra 450 calories of food to eat because of all that sitting in an airplane, but I was not fooled. ;) Now when it tells me I walked a lot after flying the T-6 all day, THAT I believe. I moved the rudders so much my knee hurt by the end of it. On windy gusty days, more than my knee ends up hurting after a full day of rides, but fortunately it was a pretty wind weekend.
That almost four hours I spent in the Cub today was with two different guys, and we stayed in the pattern the whole time and tried to master the 3-point landing. Sitting in the back seat of the Cub with no forward visibility, the pitch up to do a good 3-point is way more nose up than most pilots are comfortable doing, and it seems to take awhile to get it nailed down. Normally I keep my hands off of the stick/yoke of airplanes unless I need to save something, but lately I've found it goes faster in teaching this particular thing if I go ahead and get on and pull to where it's supposed to be with them, if they're not following the "back back back keep pulling pull pull!" instructions. Then they can at least see it a few times in a row and then try to duplicate it better...
There are so many good photos from Warsaw. I was too busy tonight flying to do much but I'll try to post some soon. For now, bedtime!
I think it's really funny that my FitBit thinks that I walked 11,500 steps today. I sat in an airplane from 1:30-7:30 p.m. pretty much solid, with two stops for fuel. Almost four hours in the J-3 Cub, and then another almost two hours in the 172. The pedometer thinks that flying out of a grass strip is a whole lot of bouncing around, aka walking. It tried to tell me I had an extra 450 calories of food to eat because of all that sitting in an airplane, but I was not fooled. ;) Now when it tells me I walked a lot after flying the T-6 all day, THAT I believe. I moved the rudders so much my knee hurt by the end of it. On windy gusty days, more than my knee ends up hurting after a full day of rides, but fortunately it was a pretty wind weekend.
That almost four hours I spent in the Cub today was with two different guys, and we stayed in the pattern the whole time and tried to master the 3-point landing. Sitting in the back seat of the Cub with no forward visibility, the pitch up to do a good 3-point is way more nose up than most pilots are comfortable doing, and it seems to take awhile to get it nailed down. Normally I keep my hands off of the stick/yoke of airplanes unless I need to save something, but lately I've found it goes faster in teaching this particular thing if I go ahead and get on and pull to where it's supposed to be with them, if they're not following the "back back back keep pulling pull pull!" instructions. Then they can at least see it a few times in a row and then try to duplicate it better...
There are so many good photos from Warsaw. I was too busy tonight flying to do much but I'll try to post some soon. For now, bedtime!
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Warsaw Airshow
Kaylee spent the weekend with a classmate friend of hers, and according to Facebook they seemed to be having a fun time of it. It was good timing on her friend's part, having a birthday weekend like that, because otherwise Kaylee would have been at an airport for two days, and she'd have been okay, but she wouldn't have had as much fun. ;)
Friday morning I flew for almost two hours in the Cub with a fellow working on his tailwheel endorsement. We went over to Indian Hills, and Glenndale, and Kokomo, worked on 3-point, wheel, crosswind, grass and concrete takeoffs and landings. He's close, and he's good with bounce recovery which is important. . When we finally landed, after almost two hours my legs don't want to work well after being bent up like that. But it's better than it was two months ago. :D
Sometime after 1 p.m., Trey flew in with Walt's T-6, and we took off to do some formation flying on the way to Warsaw. He wanted me to Lead as he hadn't flown formation in a long time, so I did that and wandered us on up to Warsaw, gave them a pass, than an overhead break to landing, and the day began!
We ran rides from 3 p.m. until past 9 p.m. It was close to 9:30 by the time we shut down, because we then hopped in a car and got to a restaurant around 9:40 p.m. for dinner. We sold 9 rides Friday, and gave 7 of them (ran out of time on the other two). The last ride of the day, Warsaw had launched three hot air balloons, the air was still, the sun was just going down, and it was really beautiful out there. The runway lights were up, and I turned all the nav lights and strobe light on in the T-6, lit her up and brought it in for the final landing of the day.
Saturday if we'd have gotten out there about an hour earlier, we could have gotten in several more rides, because we were booked solid all day long. However, I don't know that I needed to do any more rides--I was worn out by the end as it was, getting up when we did. We flew rides before the pilot briefing, then I flew a couple more rides after the briefing before the airshow started, and then after the show ended, we flew rides until everybody else had gone home and we needed to leave to beat in some weather headed for Kokomo. We did something like 17-18 rides, supposedly, which is a lot of rides. I had some great riders this time, lots of good stories, fun folks to fly with, and some truly excited and eager and happy passengers. That makes it more fun. I had one guy who had never been in any airplane before in his life, not even a commercial airliner, so this was his first experience in the air--he picked a heck of a first airplane to go up in, and he said "That was the point". I had one lady who said she loved it but could never be a pilot because she was too much of a pot head. Okay then! Another long-time CFI from Oklahoma who said he liked the way I flew and wanted my autograph on one of our posters we keep at the tent. One lady who was really scared to go but did it anyway and loved it, using the word "awesome" around 25 times. One woman who landed and told her pilot husband that they needed to sell the boat and buy one of "these". I had more people woo-hooing and laughing and happy-screaming in these two days than normal. One guy burst out laughing when I put it into an about 75-80 degree bank and said "Now THAT'S what I'm TALKING about!" lol It's funny, it's something about location. We'll go to some places and not get a lot of rides, or just have normal rides, and then Warsaw both years we've been booked solid and folks are super excited to be able to go. It's neat.
We did a warbird fly-by thing early on in the show, Yak with John as Lead, then me, two or three more T-6s and a Corsair doing laps. Later on the Yak and three other Sixes went up for a formation flight too, and I stayed at the tent and talked to folks interested in warbird rides. I'll tell you what, if we could have flown during the show, and maybe Sunday too, we could have filled up slots for the whole time. I've never seen so many interested people at an event before.
I did run into problems with hearing devices though. On Friday, I went to race Cold Ethyl in a Dodge Charger, and I could hear in my helmet, but couldn't talk, at all. I had to shut down, and I borrowed our back seaters' headset in order to do that race, and the next race with some other car. I beat Ethyl, but the next car I gave too much of a head start to, and he didn't go to the end of the runway before turning around and I didn't know that so I did, and he smoked me--I didn't catch him until the end. However, that was a lot of fun, both of them. Down low, fast, loud, and cranking around (conscientiously) to get back around as judiciously as possible. The rest of the pilots were in Pitts, with aerobatic "cards", so I knew I had a disadvantage there, but it worked out pretty well for a guess on the timing and everything. It was fun, I enjoyed it. Ethyl wants a rematch. :D Anyway, headset problems. So my helmet quits transmitting and I use the back seat headset. The ear piece fell off of that headset fortunately after my last flight of the day. Jon fixed that, but I still need another headset for backseaters now. I borrow Greg Morehead's, and have it for ten seconds and the volume knob and a washer falls off/out of it. I didn't drop it, juggle it, toss it, or do anything to it! We got that mostly put back together, but I still need something, so I give his headset back and pull out Nathan's helmet, which I had brought in case he could come up and give rides too. It's huge, and kept sliding down over my face, and I had to press with one hand against the ear so I could hear the radio/air boss/my passengers, but it worked sort of. Hollywood gave me his HALO headset to use, ear pieces you put in your ears and a thin wire thing that goes over your head in a couple of positions, and I put my helmet over the top of that. I tried putting the HALO around my neck but my neck was too small and it wouldn't hold it up, so the mic kept drooping and I had to hold it up. The second flight of the day it only came in one ear. That drove me nuts so I took it all off and tried it again, and the next time it worked. Then I put it behind my ears, and that worked for about an hour, until the helmet pushed that wire into my head and gave me a headache. So I put it on top of my head for awhile, which worked for less time before digging in and hurting. I'm lucky that we had so many options, because otherwise it would have been a real problem not being able to communicate with the back seaters or all the other traffic or air boss. My head is still sore today from that though.
Steve did a great job as Air Boss, and got lots of compliments, folks going right to the event organizer and telling him they enjoyed working with Steve. That's neat--maybe we ought to call up the Discovery Channel and have them do a segment of "Air Boss" featuring Steve. ;)
The weather, we really got lucky on the weather. It moved in and out of Kokomo, and part of it was aimed at Warsaw, and it never hit us. Up on the rides I could see it out there, and flew towards it a few times to make sure it didn't get in between me and my home base, but it never did hit us, and then when I needed to come home there was a little wad heading for Kokomo. which I beat in, and then it just...vanished. So all day long we had decent weather, slightly lower ceilings for some of the jet guys, but it was good enough, and sometimes that's, well, good.
We ended up sharing a tent with the CAF, which worked well because they helped sell rides too. :) Justin manned the tent, took orders, kept riders coming, AE was Steve's right hand guy, set up and organization and Air Boss II guy, Jon was standing out on the tarmac making sure we got fuel and got folks loaded up and briefed and taken care of safely, and we ran hard for two days straight. The first night we ate at the "Boathouse" at 9:40 p.m., one of the last folks in the restaurant, and last night we came home and ate at Outback, also late and the last ones to leave the restaurant. Both nights we were grungy, sunburnt, sweaty, hot, messy and tired, and both nights I enjoyed the food a great deal anyway. :)
Oh, I guess I get to thank Steve for a small landing jinx. The last landing of the day, Steve, Jon, AE and Justin were out there watching, and Steve made a comment like "Has she botched any landings yet today?" Right then I touched down and skipped it a little. I think it was Justin who said "Well, not until now anyway!" :P
Everybody did a great job. There was a fair amount of disorganization on some things, Steve had his work cut out for him on a few things, but all in all we had a busy but good time and did enough rides to make it worthwhile to go, so that's great. Now we need a little recuperation time before two weeks from now when I think we're supposed to be giving rides at the Marion Fly-In...at least Steve won't have to work Air Boss at that one. :)
Friday morning I flew for almost two hours in the Cub with a fellow working on his tailwheel endorsement. We went over to Indian Hills, and Glenndale, and Kokomo, worked on 3-point, wheel, crosswind, grass and concrete takeoffs and landings. He's close, and he's good with bounce recovery which is important. . When we finally landed, after almost two hours my legs don't want to work well after being bent up like that. But it's better than it was two months ago. :D
Sometime after 1 p.m., Trey flew in with Walt's T-6, and we took off to do some formation flying on the way to Warsaw. He wanted me to Lead as he hadn't flown formation in a long time, so I did that and wandered us on up to Warsaw, gave them a pass, than an overhead break to landing, and the day began!
We ran rides from 3 p.m. until past 9 p.m. It was close to 9:30 by the time we shut down, because we then hopped in a car and got to a restaurant around 9:40 p.m. for dinner. We sold 9 rides Friday, and gave 7 of them (ran out of time on the other two). The last ride of the day, Warsaw had launched three hot air balloons, the air was still, the sun was just going down, and it was really beautiful out there. The runway lights were up, and I turned all the nav lights and strobe light on in the T-6, lit her up and brought it in for the final landing of the day.
Saturday if we'd have gotten out there about an hour earlier, we could have gotten in several more rides, because we were booked solid all day long. However, I don't know that I needed to do any more rides--I was worn out by the end as it was, getting up when we did. We flew rides before the pilot briefing, then I flew a couple more rides after the briefing before the airshow started, and then after the show ended, we flew rides until everybody else had gone home and we needed to leave to beat in some weather headed for Kokomo. We did something like 17-18 rides, supposedly, which is a lot of rides. I had some great riders this time, lots of good stories, fun folks to fly with, and some truly excited and eager and happy passengers. That makes it more fun. I had one guy who had never been in any airplane before in his life, not even a commercial airliner, so this was his first experience in the air--he picked a heck of a first airplane to go up in, and he said "That was the point". I had one lady who said she loved it but could never be a pilot because she was too much of a pot head. Okay then! Another long-time CFI from Oklahoma who said he liked the way I flew and wanted my autograph on one of our posters we keep at the tent. One lady who was really scared to go but did it anyway and loved it, using the word "awesome" around 25 times. One woman who landed and told her pilot husband that they needed to sell the boat and buy one of "these". I had more people woo-hooing and laughing and happy-screaming in these two days than normal. One guy burst out laughing when I put it into an about 75-80 degree bank and said "Now THAT'S what I'm TALKING about!" lol It's funny, it's something about location. We'll go to some places and not get a lot of rides, or just have normal rides, and then Warsaw both years we've been booked solid and folks are super excited to be able to go. It's neat.
We did a warbird fly-by thing early on in the show, Yak with John as Lead, then me, two or three more T-6s and a Corsair doing laps. Later on the Yak and three other Sixes went up for a formation flight too, and I stayed at the tent and talked to folks interested in warbird rides. I'll tell you what, if we could have flown during the show, and maybe Sunday too, we could have filled up slots for the whole time. I've never seen so many interested people at an event before.
I did run into problems with hearing devices though. On Friday, I went to race Cold Ethyl in a Dodge Charger, and I could hear in my helmet, but couldn't talk, at all. I had to shut down, and I borrowed our back seaters' headset in order to do that race, and the next race with some other car. I beat Ethyl, but the next car I gave too much of a head start to, and he didn't go to the end of the runway before turning around and I didn't know that so I did, and he smoked me--I didn't catch him until the end. However, that was a lot of fun, both of them. Down low, fast, loud, and cranking around (conscientiously) to get back around as judiciously as possible. The rest of the pilots were in Pitts, with aerobatic "cards", so I knew I had a disadvantage there, but it worked out pretty well for a guess on the timing and everything. It was fun, I enjoyed it. Ethyl wants a rematch. :D Anyway, headset problems. So my helmet quits transmitting and I use the back seat headset. The ear piece fell off of that headset fortunately after my last flight of the day. Jon fixed that, but I still need another headset for backseaters now. I borrow Greg Morehead's, and have it for ten seconds and the volume knob and a washer falls off/out of it. I didn't drop it, juggle it, toss it, or do anything to it! We got that mostly put back together, but I still need something, so I give his headset back and pull out Nathan's helmet, which I had brought in case he could come up and give rides too. It's huge, and kept sliding down over my face, and I had to press with one hand against the ear so I could hear the radio/air boss/my passengers, but it worked sort of. Hollywood gave me his HALO headset to use, ear pieces you put in your ears and a thin wire thing that goes over your head in a couple of positions, and I put my helmet over the top of that. I tried putting the HALO around my neck but my neck was too small and it wouldn't hold it up, so the mic kept drooping and I had to hold it up. The second flight of the day it only came in one ear. That drove me nuts so I took it all off and tried it again, and the next time it worked. Then I put it behind my ears, and that worked for about an hour, until the helmet pushed that wire into my head and gave me a headache. So I put it on top of my head for awhile, which worked for less time before digging in and hurting. I'm lucky that we had so many options, because otherwise it would have been a real problem not being able to communicate with the back seaters or all the other traffic or air boss. My head is still sore today from that though.
Steve did a great job as Air Boss, and got lots of compliments, folks going right to the event organizer and telling him they enjoyed working with Steve. That's neat--maybe we ought to call up the Discovery Channel and have them do a segment of "Air Boss" featuring Steve. ;)
The weather, we really got lucky on the weather. It moved in and out of Kokomo, and part of it was aimed at Warsaw, and it never hit us. Up on the rides I could see it out there, and flew towards it a few times to make sure it didn't get in between me and my home base, but it never did hit us, and then when I needed to come home there was a little wad heading for Kokomo. which I beat in, and then it just...vanished. So all day long we had decent weather, slightly lower ceilings for some of the jet guys, but it was good enough, and sometimes that's, well, good.
We ended up sharing a tent with the CAF, which worked well because they helped sell rides too. :) Justin manned the tent, took orders, kept riders coming, AE was Steve's right hand guy, set up and organization and Air Boss II guy, Jon was standing out on the tarmac making sure we got fuel and got folks loaded up and briefed and taken care of safely, and we ran hard for two days straight. The first night we ate at the "Boathouse" at 9:40 p.m., one of the last folks in the restaurant, and last night we came home and ate at Outback, also late and the last ones to leave the restaurant. Both nights we were grungy, sunburnt, sweaty, hot, messy and tired, and both nights I enjoyed the food a great deal anyway. :)
Oh, I guess I get to thank Steve for a small landing jinx. The last landing of the day, Steve, Jon, AE and Justin were out there watching, and Steve made a comment like "Has she botched any landings yet today?" Right then I touched down and skipped it a little. I think it was Justin who said "Well, not until now anyway!" :P
Everybody did a great job. There was a fair amount of disorganization on some things, Steve had his work cut out for him on a few things, but all in all we had a busy but good time and did enough rides to make it worthwhile to go, so that's great. Now we need a little recuperation time before two weeks from now when I think we're supposed to be giving rides at the Marion Fly-In...at least Steve won't have to work Air Boss at that one. :)
Student and I in the Cub the other morning.
T-6 Friday night at Warsaw on the last ride of the day...
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Days
My morning flight canceled because he had to work too late last night, which was a smart move on his part. After lunch I went up in the Cub for almost two hours straight doing takeoffs and landings, and when I went to get out of the front seat my legs weren't working properly any more. Haha. We went over to Indian Hills, and Glenndale, did some crosswind takeoffs and landings, started working on keeping it on one wheel, etc. It was pretty fun, really. Even if my legs went numb by the end. :) This evening I had a cross-country flight in the Cherokee 180, planned it out and took it to Portland, did a few takeoffs and landings, and made it home somewhere around 9 p.m.
Steve has tonight to get everything ready for Warsaw's Airshow, which starts Tomorrow. He has more to do than he has time to do it. I tried to help with one slide that he needs, but I ended up having to free hand draw on it, and we all know I can't draw, and it looks worse than what Kaylee would probably do, but it was the best I could do, so folks will just have to deal with it! It'll just be one quick slide out of many, so hopefully it won't draw too much laughter. ;)
Kaylee will be spending the weekend with a school friend. She's supposed to pack a swimsuit and a sweatshirt, so I'm not sure what all they're going to do, but that helps us out too since we're spending the night up at Warsaw, and we'd have otherwise had to go back and forth a few times while we're supposed to be doing other things too. I wish she could come to part of the show though--they are doing a candy drop with a DC-3, Hershey bars with parachutes, and she'd love that. The rest of it she's seen and done a few hundred times, so that's probably better that she gets to visit with a friend instead once in awhile.
I guess tomorrow evening a lady race car driver thought it would be fun to do a race against the T-6, so we're going to give that another try. We'll enjoy ourselves, anyway. ;)
Guess I'd better go pack a bag for tomorrow. Should be a fun weekend, and hopefully the weather holds out...
Steve has tonight to get everything ready for Warsaw's Airshow, which starts Tomorrow. He has more to do than he has time to do it. I tried to help with one slide that he needs, but I ended up having to free hand draw on it, and we all know I can't draw, and it looks worse than what Kaylee would probably do, but it was the best I could do, so folks will just have to deal with it! It'll just be one quick slide out of many, so hopefully it won't draw too much laughter. ;)
Kaylee will be spending the weekend with a school friend. She's supposed to pack a swimsuit and a sweatshirt, so I'm not sure what all they're going to do, but that helps us out too since we're spending the night up at Warsaw, and we'd have otherwise had to go back and forth a few times while we're supposed to be doing other things too. I wish she could come to part of the show though--they are doing a candy drop with a DC-3, Hershey bars with parachutes, and she'd love that. The rest of it she's seen and done a few hundred times, so that's probably better that she gets to visit with a friend instead once in awhile.
I guess tomorrow evening a lady race car driver thought it would be fun to do a race against the T-6, so we're going to give that another try. We'll enjoy ourselves, anyway. ;)
Guess I'd better go pack a bag for tomorrow. Should be a fun weekend, and hopefully the weather holds out...
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Today
This morning started with checkride prep flying, with someone who is ready to go as soon as I can convince them that they are ready to go. :) The day ended at 10 p.m., after having a nice long flight doing every conceivable stall entry and recovery possible in a 172, sixty degree bank uncoordinated power off dirty stalls, turning uncoordinated power on stalls, aggressive entries, falling leaf, everything you can get a 172 to do. It was fun. By then it was getting dark, so we went over to Glenndale and did some takeoffs and landings, over the wires on landing and taking off over the wires too, doing a few of those until it was night. We went back to Kokomo where I "failed" the flaps, the landing light and all the panel lights, doing a nice "electrical failure" landing or two out there. I usually do that with someone on their 3 hours of night flight before their license, but the fellow tonight had a different night instructor and hadn't done that before. I'd much rather someone not have to do their first no-light landing on their own, and it's not all that unlikely that it'll happen sometime. :) From the time we took off there were scattered showers all over, which was pretty from the air. We got wet a few times, but stayed out of the heavy stuff of course. The neat one was when it was pure dark, and the rain coming in visibly on the landing light looks like something from Star Wars. He'd never seen that before, so I enjoyed showing it to him. :) We had fun, hit a lot, it was a good experience for him and an enjoyable time for me...
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Scuzzy
Scuzzy weather, no flying, no motivation! Kaylee just had a normal day, nothing good or bad in particular (I'm actually glad her school days are uneventful.) Steve is a little buried trying to get a bunch of stuff done like Air Boss stuff for this upcoming weekend's airshow in Warsaw, and taxes, among a few dozen other things. I did go out to Kokomo and help get out the PT and do a run-up on it and got a nice perfect mag check out of it, which made Jon and I smile and thumbs-up. We're hoping it'll be ready for the CAF to take it up to Warsaw and give rides this weekend.
I need to work on Oshkosh pictures. I should do that tonight. If I can find the motivation. I should go for a walk too, considering I have been a slug today. On second thought, I think that will have to be tomorrow's battle. For today, I shall just have to be a slug. ;)
I need to work on Oshkosh pictures. I should do that tonight. If I can find the motivation. I should go for a walk too, considering I have been a slug today. On second thought, I think that will have to be tomorrow's battle. For today, I shall just have to be a slug. ;)
Monday, August 11, 2014
Monday's Morale
As I said at lunch, the first half of this day felt like rolling a boulder uphill. As soon as I'd get one thing going, it would go off the rails. I was late to my first lesson, and the weather was so questionable I wasn't sure we'd be able to make it anyway. It was IFR, then it was barely legal at 1000' overcast, but we were just in the Cub in the pattern, so I figured that was as good as you need for the Cub. radar was okay by us, with rain showers around elsewhere. I get out there late, like I said, and right as I was pulling in, I noticed that the winds had really picked up, a 60 degree crosswind gusting up to 18 knots, which is a little breezy for someone's 3rd lesson, and the clouds were darker, and the sky started spitting a little. But we were both already there, so I told him we'd go and see what we got, and if it was worthwhile we'd keep going, and if not we'd just land and be done for the day. It ended up being worthwhile. It was a little sporty at first, but he settled in and we got some good flying in. After about 35 minutes or so the ceilings lifted a little too. The day went uphill from there. :)
Kaylee is signed up for singing lessons now, and her teacher takes them very seriously. She is not supposed to miss any lessons--too many and you're booted out, even if you pay for them. If you stop during summer, you're no longer her student. (Kaylee's being gone 3 weeks at camp and 2 weeks at Oshkosh will apparently be a problem next year then.) She has to do two performances per year too. We have a contract we basically have to sign, and we must attend her first few lessons with her and 'participate' in some way. Like I said, this lady takes these singing lessons very seriously! Hopefully Kaylee will learn what she feels she needs to learn before she gets booted out for having too many tennis games or other events during her scheduled lessons!
Kaylee made it back to Tae Kwon Do for the first time in over a month, and she came home spunky, apparently. I was up flying for the last one of the day when she sent me a text with a red mark on her arm and said "Look what Daddy did!" So of course I texted back "And what did you do to HIM?" She came back with "Hahaha, I may have attacked him..." I said "That's what I thought!"
I was helping Kaylee learn her states and capitals today, and we actually had fun with it, which is when Steve said "You can tell it's the beginning of the school year." Heh. True. One was Wyoming. What's the capital of Wyoming? I said "Airplane" and she said "Cheyenne!" Right. Next time...what is the capital of Wyoming? She can't remember. So I say "Wy Oh Wy can't you remember Cheyenne?" It took a few times, but that's how I used to memorize stuff, a simple little memory device...
Here's a little Cub flying in the pattern...a Cub and Class G airspace. :)
Kaylee is signed up for singing lessons now, and her teacher takes them very seriously. She is not supposed to miss any lessons--too many and you're booted out, even if you pay for them. If you stop during summer, you're no longer her student. (Kaylee's being gone 3 weeks at camp and 2 weeks at Oshkosh will apparently be a problem next year then.) She has to do two performances per year too. We have a contract we basically have to sign, and we must attend her first few lessons with her and 'participate' in some way. Like I said, this lady takes these singing lessons very seriously! Hopefully Kaylee will learn what she feels she needs to learn before she gets booted out for having too many tennis games or other events during her scheduled lessons!
Kaylee made it back to Tae Kwon Do for the first time in over a month, and she came home spunky, apparently. I was up flying for the last one of the day when she sent me a text with a red mark on her arm and said "Look what Daddy did!" So of course I texted back "And what did you do to HIM?" She came back with "Hahaha, I may have attacked him..." I said "That's what I thought!"
I was helping Kaylee learn her states and capitals today, and we actually had fun with it, which is when Steve said "You can tell it's the beginning of the school year." Heh. True. One was Wyoming. What's the capital of Wyoming? I said "Airplane" and she said "Cheyenne!" Right. Next time...what is the capital of Wyoming? She can't remember. So I say "Wy Oh Wy can't you remember Cheyenne?" It took a few times, but that's how I used to memorize stuff, a simple little memory device...
Here's a little Cub flying in the pattern...a Cub and Class G airspace. :)
Sunday, August 10, 2014
The Day After
I woke up with sore and stiff muscles, wounds on my pinkie, index finger and thumb from the throttle quadrant of the T-6, and hair that I considered just chopping off and starting over. That was one nice-feeling shower this morning, and I may need to buy stock in conditioner. ;)
Kaylee wants to start tennis up again this Wednesday at school. So she and her dad, who used to play tennis, were going to go practice together. She wanted me to go along, so even though I've never played tennis in my life, I went too. They started off working on various things from serve to grip to volleys to score keeping, and I was the ball girl. Then I tried my hand at it too. I wasn't as bad as I thought I'd be. I don't know how long we played, but it was long enough--I had a flight that afternoon and didn't want to have to take two showers in one morning. ;)
That afternoon I flew to Aurora to pick up a family. I started out a little early in case the aerobatic folks were keeping the fuel truck busy, but they weren't, so I was almost an hour early. Then my family texted and asked to be picked up an hour later than originally planned. The weather had some storms popping up between here and there, so I decided rather than sit at Kokomo for two hours, or drive home for an hour, turn around and drive back, I'd just launch VFR to Aurora and eat dinner there while I waited for the family. That worked out just fine. I had a delicious grilled red snapper meal, wandered around, did some walking, and then after they were delayed by a traffic jam too, we finally made it back home around 9 p.m. as the sun was going down.
Here are a few photos Justin G took at the event yesterday.
Kaylee wants to start tennis up again this Wednesday at school. So she and her dad, who used to play tennis, were going to go practice together. She wanted me to go along, so even though I've never played tennis in my life, I went too. They started off working on various things from serve to grip to volleys to score keeping, and I was the ball girl. Then I tried my hand at it too. I wasn't as bad as I thought I'd be. I don't know how long we played, but it was long enough--I had a flight that afternoon and didn't want to have to take two showers in one morning. ;)
That afternoon I flew to Aurora to pick up a family. I started out a little early in case the aerobatic folks were keeping the fuel truck busy, but they weren't, so I was almost an hour early. Then my family texted and asked to be picked up an hour later than originally planned. The weather had some storms popping up between here and there, so I decided rather than sit at Kokomo for two hours, or drive home for an hour, turn around and drive back, I'd just launch VFR to Aurora and eat dinner there while I waited for the family. That worked out just fine. I had a delicious grilled red snapper meal, wandered around, did some walking, and then after they were delayed by a traffic jam too, we finally made it back home around 9 p.m. as the sun was going down.
Here are a few photos Justin G took at the event yesterday.
Zak helping my second rider of the day into the T-6. :)
I like that you can see the guy in the back seat smiling too. :)
Candy drop to a group of kids, from a C-140. Gotta like that...
Saturday, August 09, 2014
Indy Event
I'm writing this on Sunday--and boy did I wake up sore. My arms, legs, it ended up being quite a few hours of, well, wrestling in the T-6. :) At 7:15 a.m. it was time to get up, Justin and I got in the airplane around 8:30 and headed to Indy Exec, landed around 9 a.m., watched the parachutes drop; Steve and AE set up the tent and banners and sign for our area (and we looked darned professional out there!), Justin started selling rides and answering questions, and I started giving rides. I flew non-stop until 1 p.m., at which time I needed water, food and fuel, in about that order. :) As I was sitting under the tent eating my brat, a guy came up, put his money down and said "Lunch break is over, let's go!" :) Justin told him there was a guy in front of him and we'd give him a call when it was his turn. We sold ten rides, and probably could have sold more but cut it off as we were already two hours past the end of the event time as it was.
My second rider of the day was a young lady with Down Syndrome. Like so many of the people with Downs that I've met, she was a very sweet girl, polite and gentle. She'd never been in a plane before, so this was a heck of a first experience for her. She was only 4' 11" tall, so they stacked phone books and paper reams under her rear end to help her sit up higher to see out of the back of the plane. I had my mirror aimed at her so I could kind of see her facial expressions, and I talked her through what we were doing, etc., and she was just grinning and looking around the whole the time. We talked about how the cars and houses looked like toys and how the clouds had shapes and how peaceful it was up there. She had a good time, and afterwards we got our picture taken together by the plane, and then she gave me a big hug, and then her dad gave me a big hug too. I'm not normally much of a hugger, but when a true innocent and happy spirit person gives you a hug, you just enjoy it. :)
I enjoy giving rides because people are funny. It's actually a pretty tiring thing, because you put so much energy into each flight, and I don't mean the flying part (well, not ONLY the flying part). Maybe for an extrovert that's easy, but for an introvert it's not so easy to be the showman that you need to be to do it well. I'm always mentally tired at the end, but usually in a good way. :) Several folks taking rides wanted to do aerobatics, but were satisfied with a few things I did. One guy decided he was going to come to Kokomo and suit up with a parachute and go for the full ride. And one guy kept saying "You're not going to do anything, right? I really don't want you to do anything wonky. You don't want to have to clean up vomit and pee from the back seat here, so don't do anything weird, okay?" One guy was a tailwheel pilot, flew C-140s, and after I landed, he said "Aw, that's not fair." Huh? He said "You shouldn't be able to make that sweet of a wheel landing in this thing in these winds." I laughed and said "Oh, don't worry, they're not all like that! We all get lucky once in awhile!"
So I have to give my winds complaint--you can skip this paragraph, it's just here to make me feel better. ;) The runway was 18/36. The winds were supposed to be 090, so a direct crosswind, which is fine, except it wasn't a direct crosswind, it kept swapping around from 070 to 110, kind of like it keeps doing to us at Glenndale Days, but it's actually easier to deal with on the grass runway than it is on the concrete one. The traffic was mostly C-172s, so they'd just use 18; it didn't matter to them if they had a slight tailwind, but every time I had a quartering tailwind, I could feel it, and it didn't feel good. So I'd swap runways often in an attempt to keep the wind blowing in my face and not up my tail. I annoyed a couple people by switching to the opposing runway, but they weren't the ones sitting in there trying to keep the skinny end pointed in the back. I had one landing where the windsock showed a crosswind at first, and then I leveled off and felt the shove, got a nice tailwind gust, fine, went to put a wheel down and the wind went away, it dropped, I added some power and took it out, a gust hit me and blew me up, I transitioned to the 3-point attitude (2-point really), another gust blew me Really high, I had to add power, the wind went away, I look around and as I gently added full power again said to my rider "Hey, congratulations, you get a free extra trip around the pattern!" He got a nice smooth actual landing out of it next time around. ;) So I say all that just to say that doing almost non-stop rides in those conditions from 9 a.m. through to 4 p.m. was definitely physically tiring too. :) I was beat by the end of the day. I sure hope the winds are more pleasant at Warsaw next weekend--it makes the whole thing much more enjoyable if you're not in a wrestling match on every trip around, and having a couple thousand people with cameras, video cameras, etc. standing by watching your every move can't be in your mind either. (Good thing that didn't really occur to me until now. See? ;))
Steve and AE drove down to Indy Exec to set up our pop up, banners, table, etc. Afterwards, they left, and Steve went back to Kokomo to help Nathan work on the PT and the 340. Steve figured out my flaps problem on the 340 and got it fixed, and they got the PT all done and were excited about that, only to have it run like crap afterwards. That really stinks, because the PT has been "out" on giving rides this whole year because of maintenance. Now they're going to miss Warsaw too, a big ride-giving event time. I feel bad for them, it just stinks, but there's nothing anybody here did wrong, it just IS. I just wish the dumb thing would get up and running before we run into winter again and still can't get these guys checked out in it.
Saturday wasn't over yet though. When Steve left, he left with AE and left the Ford Explorer down at Indy. So when we flew home, we had to leave the vehicle behind, meaning we had to drive back down there later that night and go get it. Steve and I stopped in Sheridan and had a crab-stuffed fillet dinner (yum), and then went on down to Exec to pick up the car. We finally pulled into our driveway at 10 pm to end the day. We were both just beat, but I have to admit it was a much more productive day than I anticipated it would be...
Here is our set-up with a skydiver coming down just before we started giving rides.
My second rider of the day was a young lady with Down Syndrome. Like so many of the people with Downs that I've met, she was a very sweet girl, polite and gentle. She'd never been in a plane before, so this was a heck of a first experience for her. She was only 4' 11" tall, so they stacked phone books and paper reams under her rear end to help her sit up higher to see out of the back of the plane. I had my mirror aimed at her so I could kind of see her facial expressions, and I talked her through what we were doing, etc., and she was just grinning and looking around the whole the time. We talked about how the cars and houses looked like toys and how the clouds had shapes and how peaceful it was up there. She had a good time, and afterwards we got our picture taken together by the plane, and then she gave me a big hug, and then her dad gave me a big hug too. I'm not normally much of a hugger, but when a true innocent and happy spirit person gives you a hug, you just enjoy it. :)
I enjoy giving rides because people are funny. It's actually a pretty tiring thing, because you put so much energy into each flight, and I don't mean the flying part (well, not ONLY the flying part). Maybe for an extrovert that's easy, but for an introvert it's not so easy to be the showman that you need to be to do it well. I'm always mentally tired at the end, but usually in a good way. :) Several folks taking rides wanted to do aerobatics, but were satisfied with a few things I did. One guy decided he was going to come to Kokomo and suit up with a parachute and go for the full ride. And one guy kept saying "You're not going to do anything, right? I really don't want you to do anything wonky. You don't want to have to clean up vomit and pee from the back seat here, so don't do anything weird, okay?" One guy was a tailwheel pilot, flew C-140s, and after I landed, he said "Aw, that's not fair." Huh? He said "You shouldn't be able to make that sweet of a wheel landing in this thing in these winds." I laughed and said "Oh, don't worry, they're not all like that! We all get lucky once in awhile!"
So I have to give my winds complaint--you can skip this paragraph, it's just here to make me feel better. ;) The runway was 18/36. The winds were supposed to be 090, so a direct crosswind, which is fine, except it wasn't a direct crosswind, it kept swapping around from 070 to 110, kind of like it keeps doing to us at Glenndale Days, but it's actually easier to deal with on the grass runway than it is on the concrete one. The traffic was mostly C-172s, so they'd just use 18; it didn't matter to them if they had a slight tailwind, but every time I had a quartering tailwind, I could feel it, and it didn't feel good. So I'd swap runways often in an attempt to keep the wind blowing in my face and not up my tail. I annoyed a couple people by switching to the opposing runway, but they weren't the ones sitting in there trying to keep the skinny end pointed in the back. I had one landing where the windsock showed a crosswind at first, and then I leveled off and felt the shove, got a nice tailwind gust, fine, went to put a wheel down and the wind went away, it dropped, I added some power and took it out, a gust hit me and blew me up, I transitioned to the 3-point attitude (2-point really), another gust blew me Really high, I had to add power, the wind went away, I look around and as I gently added full power again said to my rider "Hey, congratulations, you get a free extra trip around the pattern!" He got a nice smooth actual landing out of it next time around. ;) So I say all that just to say that doing almost non-stop rides in those conditions from 9 a.m. through to 4 p.m. was definitely physically tiring too. :) I was beat by the end of the day. I sure hope the winds are more pleasant at Warsaw next weekend--it makes the whole thing much more enjoyable if you're not in a wrestling match on every trip around, and having a couple thousand people with cameras, video cameras, etc. standing by watching your every move can't be in your mind either. (Good thing that didn't really occur to me until now. See? ;))
Steve and AE drove down to Indy Exec to set up our pop up, banners, table, etc. Afterwards, they left, and Steve went back to Kokomo to help Nathan work on the PT and the 340. Steve figured out my flaps problem on the 340 and got it fixed, and they got the PT all done and were excited about that, only to have it run like crap afterwards. That really stinks, because the PT has been "out" on giving rides this whole year because of maintenance. Now they're going to miss Warsaw too, a big ride-giving event time. I feel bad for them, it just stinks, but there's nothing anybody here did wrong, it just IS. I just wish the dumb thing would get up and running before we run into winter again and still can't get these guys checked out in it.
Saturday wasn't over yet though. When Steve left, he left with AE and left the Ford Explorer down at Indy. So when we flew home, we had to leave the vehicle behind, meaning we had to drive back down there later that night and go get it. Steve and I stopped in Sheridan and had a crab-stuffed fillet dinner (yum), and then went on down to Exec to pick up the car. We finally pulled into our driveway at 10 pm to end the day. We were both just beat, but I have to admit it was a much more productive day than I anticipated it would be...
Here is our set-up with a skydiver coming down just before we started giving rides.
Friday, August 08, 2014
Aye
Here's a cheer to sleeping in this morning until 9 (off and on and after getting up at 6:15) and feeling better than I have the last two days. :) I only had a few things to do today, including a couple of errands and one quick trip to Aurora with the main boss's family. I had his 13 year old daughter up front with me, and she dared to fly the plane for a little while (I just went VFR), and it was a nice quick trip there and back. The only problem was after I landed back at Kokomo, went to retract my flaps, and the handle moved but the flaps didn't. They were stuck down. At least it happened after I landed here, not Aurora, or I'd have been stranded for awhile (again).
There's an aerobatic contest this weekend at the airport, and tomorrow nice and early I'm taking the T-6 down to Indy to give rides at Indy Exec for their day. Steve and AE were coming down too to set up the pop-up tent and our banner, Justin's coming down to help sell rides, Zak is coming up to help load and direct rides, and hopefully after all that effort we'll actually sell rides. ;) Otherwise today I could have taken the T-6 to Danville and flown in a 15-ship T-6 formation to Thunder over Michigan for tomorrow, even without the FAST card. Would've been nice and helpful to me too, to be able to get involved with a whole group of T-6 formation guys that I don't know and don't know me (that I know of). Not happy to be missing that opportunity, but Indy advertised us selling rides in the T6, and I said I would, so...there ya go.
Fast food restaurants don't always make it easy to be good. I went through Burger King and ordered a Whopper Jr. no cheese no mayo. That's a 260 calorie sandwich vs a 340 calorie sandwich. Doesn't sound like much, but that stuff adds up, and I can have some decent amount of chocolate for that difference. ;) I get the sandwich and I'm hungry and driving a car and it's not until the last few bites it occurs to me that this is awful tasty--I look, and sure enough, they put the mayo on it anyway. Tonight I get a Steak n Shake single no cheese no mayo, again, with a decent calorie difference, and I get it home and there's cheese on it, and the cheese is melded (not melted, melded) into the patty, and I can't get it off. 'Cmon guys...it's not even good cheese! If it were Colby Jack melted on there, then it would be worth it. ;)
There's an aerobatic contest this weekend at the airport, and tomorrow nice and early I'm taking the T-6 down to Indy to give rides at Indy Exec for their day. Steve and AE were coming down too to set up the pop-up tent and our banner, Justin's coming down to help sell rides, Zak is coming up to help load and direct rides, and hopefully after all that effort we'll actually sell rides. ;) Otherwise today I could have taken the T-6 to Danville and flown in a 15-ship T-6 formation to Thunder over Michigan for tomorrow, even without the FAST card. Would've been nice and helpful to me too, to be able to get involved with a whole group of T-6 formation guys that I don't know and don't know me (that I know of). Not happy to be missing that opportunity, but Indy advertised us selling rides in the T6, and I said I would, so...there ya go.
Fast food restaurants don't always make it easy to be good. I went through Burger King and ordered a Whopper Jr. no cheese no mayo. That's a 260 calorie sandwich vs a 340 calorie sandwich. Doesn't sound like much, but that stuff adds up, and I can have some decent amount of chocolate for that difference. ;) I get the sandwich and I'm hungry and driving a car and it's not until the last few bites it occurs to me that this is awful tasty--I look, and sure enough, they put the mayo on it anyway. Tonight I get a Steak n Shake single no cheese no mayo, again, with a decent calorie difference, and I get it home and there's cheese on it, and the cheese is melded (not melted, melded) into the patty, and I can't get it off. 'Cmon guys...it's not even good cheese! If it were Colby Jack melted on there, then it would be worth it. ;)
Thursday, August 07, 2014
Productive
This morning I started off with a long flight in the Cub. My legs were a little cramped up after almost 2 hours in the plane, but it was actually kind of fun. We left the door and window hanging wide open, even though it was a little cool, and did a bunch of three point and wheel takeoffs and landings, with a couple of good solid bounce recoveries. ;) The Cub did bite me--right on the elbow, cut it open and made me bleed on stuff. It's right where you rest your elbow on anything, which is annoying!
I only had one other flight for the day, and it was late in the evening, and I was able to send the guy off on his first solo. Always great fun. He was pretty excited, all smiles, and he did great. He was doing well enough that I hadn't seen him recover from a bounce, and I needed to see him recover properly from a bounce. So I told him on one of his landings I was going to make him bounce it, which I did (that's harder to do properly than you might think), which still shocked him, but he recovered perfectly. Another couple great full-stall landings, and I was out of there. I'm happy for him. He had a whole audience of aerobatic pilots and the FBO guy all out there watching him, but he didn't know that, fortunately. It's always rewarding to send somebody off on their own and see their sense of self-pride and accomplishment when they come back down having defied gravity on their own and survived. :)
This morning was trash day. Across the street and a few houses down from us, somebody put a bag of open trash spilling out all over the place. The trash guy grabbed the bag, but a ton of trash was still left all over the street. Every time I passed it today, I thought "Somebody should pick that up." Finally when I got home tonight around 8:30 pm from my last flight, I figured that somebody was going to have to be me since nobody else was doing it. So I grabbed a trash bag and went over there and started picking up their trash out of the road, their driveway, sidewalk, etc. Pretty soon I heard a guy's voice say "I was going to get that tomorrow." Sure. A very large man was sitting on the porch watching me pick up his trash. So I walked up his steps and picked up a bunch more trash that was left on the steps up to his house, too. I was polite of course, but I don't understand people sometimes. Why would you be okay with that mess in your yard and all over your property? He had a million cigarette butts all over too, but I just picked up the ones in the street and sidewalk with the rest of the trash and left the ton of them on his own steps alone. I'm no neat freak, but c'mon. People are gross.
The other day I blocked a woman who was trying to get around a line of us cars who had stopped for an oncoming funeral procession, mad because the light was going to turn red on her. She kept working her way out of line trying to get over and get going, so I pulled back and over in her path so she couldn't get around me. She didn't appear happy in there. (You can imagine how much I was bothered by the fact she was unhappy.) Just sit there, ma'am, and show a little respect. It's two minutes of your life. Somebody just lost someone they love, and people in funeral processions do note when people break in the middle of them or otherwise ignore them, and appreciate people who turn on lights or stop in respect. Common courtesy things are going away. Common respect things are going away. Picking up trash, pausing for a funeral procession, getting over if an ambulance is coming, taking a flag down in a storm, holding a door open for someone with stuff in their hands. Helping out without having to be forced into it. Participating and volunteering. Nearly thirty year old "men" and "women" acting like self-centered, ego-centered, selfish little teenagers, years after they should have outgrown it. Yep, I'm officially getting old and crotchety, because I find some people pretty disappointing. That's one reason I was grateful to the 13 year old girl who had the guts to come up to me and apologize in person for breaking my iPad. Somebody out there is still teaching kids personal responsibility and to do the right thing. :)
Kaylee is signed up for singing lessons with a lady she wanted to have for singing lessons. She's gotten her paperwork in to participate in tennis, including me having to sign a paper allowing them to do random drug testing on her from now until her senior year of high school (mmmm. not thrilled.) She's picking out a song to use to try out for a singing thing. I think she's actually kind of glad to be back in the groove in school--she likes having all this stuff to do, she really does...
I only had one other flight for the day, and it was late in the evening, and I was able to send the guy off on his first solo. Always great fun. He was pretty excited, all smiles, and he did great. He was doing well enough that I hadn't seen him recover from a bounce, and I needed to see him recover properly from a bounce. So I told him on one of his landings I was going to make him bounce it, which I did (that's harder to do properly than you might think), which still shocked him, but he recovered perfectly. Another couple great full-stall landings, and I was out of there. I'm happy for him. He had a whole audience of aerobatic pilots and the FBO guy all out there watching him, but he didn't know that, fortunately. It's always rewarding to send somebody off on their own and see their sense of self-pride and accomplishment when they come back down having defied gravity on their own and survived. :)
This morning was trash day. Across the street and a few houses down from us, somebody put a bag of open trash spilling out all over the place. The trash guy grabbed the bag, but a ton of trash was still left all over the street. Every time I passed it today, I thought "Somebody should pick that up." Finally when I got home tonight around 8:30 pm from my last flight, I figured that somebody was going to have to be me since nobody else was doing it. So I grabbed a trash bag and went over there and started picking up their trash out of the road, their driveway, sidewalk, etc. Pretty soon I heard a guy's voice say "I was going to get that tomorrow." Sure. A very large man was sitting on the porch watching me pick up his trash. So I walked up his steps and picked up a bunch more trash that was left on the steps up to his house, too. I was polite of course, but I don't understand people sometimes. Why would you be okay with that mess in your yard and all over your property? He had a million cigarette butts all over too, but I just picked up the ones in the street and sidewalk with the rest of the trash and left the ton of them on his own steps alone. I'm no neat freak, but c'mon. People are gross.
The other day I blocked a woman who was trying to get around a line of us cars who had stopped for an oncoming funeral procession, mad because the light was going to turn red on her. She kept working her way out of line trying to get over and get going, so I pulled back and over in her path so she couldn't get around me. She didn't appear happy in there. (You can imagine how much I was bothered by the fact she was unhappy.) Just sit there, ma'am, and show a little respect. It's two minutes of your life. Somebody just lost someone they love, and people in funeral processions do note when people break in the middle of them or otherwise ignore them, and appreciate people who turn on lights or stop in respect. Common courtesy things are going away. Common respect things are going away. Picking up trash, pausing for a funeral procession, getting over if an ambulance is coming, taking a flag down in a storm, holding a door open for someone with stuff in their hands. Helping out without having to be forced into it. Participating and volunteering. Nearly thirty year old "men" and "women" acting like self-centered, ego-centered, selfish little teenagers, years after they should have outgrown it. Yep, I'm officially getting old and crotchety, because I find some people pretty disappointing. That's one reason I was grateful to the 13 year old girl who had the guts to come up to me and apologize in person for breaking my iPad. Somebody out there is still teaching kids personal responsibility and to do the right thing. :)
Kaylee is signed up for singing lessons with a lady she wanted to have for singing lessons. She's gotten her paperwork in to participate in tennis, including me having to sign a paper allowing them to do random drug testing on her from now until her senior year of high school (mmmm. not thrilled.) She's picking out a song to use to try out for a singing thing. I think she's actually kind of glad to be back in the groove in school--she likes having all this stuff to do, she really does...
Wednesday, August 06, 2014
Fogged
We all woke up to a whole lot of fog this morning. I got up to get Kaylee ready, as I had an 8 a.m. flight, only to find a message from Eastern saying "Two Hour Delay". Yay! Next I had to wake up at 7 to make sure my 8 a.m. student canceled. He did. Then Steve woke me up to see why I wasn't taking Kaylee to school. Fog. Eventually I got up anyway, took her to school, and then waited around all morning for the fog to lift so we could go fly. It didn't. We went to lunch, which I left early in order to go run up the T-6 and do a "leak test" (it was great), and then a 1 p.m. lesson with a young man who brought his grandma along for a ride. That was sweet. She was a neat lady, and I enjoyed having her there. It was her second time ever in an airplane, and she loved looking around, and he just flew her around the city, around her house, around where her family worked, etc.. He's a student pilot, hasn't soloed yet, but he wanted to take this lesson and just fly his grandmother around, and we all had a nice time with it. After we landed, I was talking to her for a few minutes, and as she walked away, she turned back and said "I don't know much about this, I know, but I thought he did a wonderful job!" Just like a perfect Grandma! :) I said "Yes, he did great!"
I ended up at Kokomo and flew the 172 back to Glenndale after its annual, and waited there until my 7:30 p.m. lesson in the Cub. We flew until someone turned the runway lights on at Glenndale, about 9 pm or so. The young man I'm flying with in the Cub is really picking it up FAST. His second lesson he's done most of the pre-solo maneuvers and has the takeoffs (no wind) down smooth. Most people who are already pilots don't even have the takeoffs down after two flights. And he's got a nice stabilized approach coming down for landing, too. It must be great to be 14 and a quick learner. :) I ought to throw Kaylee in the Cub and see how she does. Hmm.
Kaylee and Steve went to a store and picked up a tennis racket and cover, and a padlock, getting ready for the upcoming week. The padlock is for her locker so she can keep her sax in there instead of hauling it home and back every day. The tennis stuff should be self-explanatory. ;) But she's happy to be getting into the swing of all the stuff. Next Monday she'll start back in Taekwondo too. And away we go!
I ended up at Kokomo and flew the 172 back to Glenndale after its annual, and waited there until my 7:30 p.m. lesson in the Cub. We flew until someone turned the runway lights on at Glenndale, about 9 pm or so. The young man I'm flying with in the Cub is really picking it up FAST. His second lesson he's done most of the pre-solo maneuvers and has the takeoffs (no wind) down smooth. Most people who are already pilots don't even have the takeoffs down after two flights. And he's got a nice stabilized approach coming down for landing, too. It must be great to be 14 and a quick learner. :) I ought to throw Kaylee in the Cub and see how she does. Hmm.
Kaylee and Steve went to a store and picked up a tennis racket and cover, and a padlock, getting ready for the upcoming week. The padlock is for her locker so she can keep her sax in there instead of hauling it home and back every day. The tennis stuff should be self-explanatory. ;) But she's happy to be getting into the swing of all the stuff. Next Monday she'll start back in Taekwondo too. And away we go!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)