When it Rains it Pours

It's funny how I was just as cold today when it was 45 degrees as I was a month ago when it was 15 degrees.  Once it had been 70, 45 felt cold again, even though it shouldn't have.  But it was sunny and bright and blue and calm, and that makes for a pretty day and a good flying one.

I ended up flying in the morning until lunch doing VOR approaches, four of them (that makes me officially instrument current even though I didn't shoot them myself, which is a rule that I can't decide if it's silly or helpful).  That went well, broke for lunch, then came back out to work on takeoffs and landings for almost two hours.  The winds were so light and variable I thought it would be a good day for it, but this one was more of a struggle.  Good ole 172s, they sure are fairly docile little birds that will recover from all sorts of wonky things even low and slow.  Good thing!  :)

Kaylee didn't have anything after school again today, so she's going to get downright spoiled here.  Steve was crawling around on our roof fixing some damage, and has determined that both our house and his mom and dad's house are going to need new roofs soon, and definitely before next winter.  Ouch.  On top of that, we've had a rash of not-so-great luck on airplanes.  Almost every airplane we have is either down for maintenance or has an issue that needs looked into, and none of it is cheap or easy.  A prop on one, an entire exhaust system on another, the gear system on one, oil pressure problem on one, Attitude Indicator and Turn Coordinator both in another, a spinner, fuel gauges.  Just to give you an idea, the AI alone is around $800.  You don't want to know how many thousands of dollars the gear is probably going to end up being.  We have one flying 172 at Kokomo and one 180 at Sheridan that could fly but isn't.  We even just had to take the Westfield Champ down for maintenance tonight.  It's crazy, and pretty harsh, particularly all hitting right out of winter, and now it's warming up and Spring and folks are wanting to fly and we have one airplane going up here.  Yowza.

On a good note, I just now got a text on two trips for MBros coming up, one of them likely overnight in Alabama, so hey, that helps--if I can keep the 340 running, and IT has a couple issues too.  Dang airplanes!  :)