Two Pilots & an LSW: Images

Sunday, June 28, 2015

Images

This wasn't really a day of rest...I was up and in the air around 9:30, doing as much Mavrx image flying as I could get in during their required hours of 10:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. I had two separate "missions", one north and one south. The clouds were supposed to roll in to the southern area by 12:30-1 p.m., while it was supposed to stay clear to the north all day, so I went south first. They had changed the flight so that instead of 4 fields, I now had 16 of them to do in one mission, and 6 to do in the other. I made it to ten fields before the clouds rolled in down south. It was time to stop for gas, so I used Garmin Pilot to find the nearest airport with a 24 hour self-serve pump, which was Seymore, IN.

When I pulled up to the self-serve pump, a guy was standing there next to his taildragger close to the pump, and he walked up and said, "Well hello there, Little Fly Girl, do you need any help?" I smiled and said "No thanks, I'm fine." After that he was really amused by me, and was rather...smug. He kept asking me, three or four times, "Are you sure I can't help you, fly girl?" I'm just topping off a 172, it's not like it's rocket science here. As I was up on the ladder finishing up on the right tank, he was trying to hand prop his taildragger, with no success. He'd chocked both wheels and was having trouble handpropping it by himself. I was dying to go up to him and ask if I could help him hand prop his airplane, Little Fly Guy, but I decided that would neither be taking the high road nor worth the time. We do all have egos though, to some degree. He asked me if I'd ever been here before, and I bit back the urge to say "Yes, in a T-6, and in formation with an Aerostar and a P-51 for a fly-in here." I just said "Yes", because otherwise you're THAT person, and that's just not cool either, even if the other person assumes things they probably shouldn't based on what they see right then. We all do it, I suppose, to some degree.

The first three fields I did were actually right by Indy International. Luckily it was a high altitude imaging process, so I was up at 7500', which was well above their airspace, and right on top of them like that, I wasn't in the way of their airliners arriving and departing, either. It still felt a little wrong maneuvering around right by the Class C airport like that.

I was in the 172 we affectionately call "The Slug". It's a little slower than the other 172s, but it got the job done. I left the ground around 9:45 a.m. so that I could be down south by 10:30 a.m., the earliest time they wanted me to start taking images. I nailed it, too, hit it at like 10:28 a.m. I flew down there until 12:30, when the clouds rolled in, then stopped for gas. It then took me well over an hour to get to the northern route, which was up by Warsaw, well north of Kokomo, and the area that was supposed to be clear, wasn't. There were scattered clouds below me, and there were large areas of clear, but you couldn't know how your field was going to be till you got there. I had several fields that had at least one cloud in the way, but I was already up there, and it was mostly clear, so I went for it and imaged it anyway, and hoped they could use most of it. Then the software started freezing so that I didn't know where I was supposed to be on the next pass, and then it crashed, and when I reopened it, it told me I hadn't done anything and that I should start over. Gah. Obviously I didn't, I finished the last of the fields up north, and then called it a day, right close to the end of the sunlight time frame that they wanted. It ended up being almost 6 hours of flying with only one small break, and by the end, I was getting sloppy and tired. I had ear buds in, and even read a book for a little while on the cross-country part of it.

When I got back to Kokomo I wanted to get gas, but the fuel truck is broken and there were already two airplanes at the self pump station waiting for gas. So I just parked it, locked it up and left. I shouldn't be this sleepy after sitting for 6 hours, but it actually is a little work.

Steve and Kaylee had a plan that involved having a fire in the back yard. The mosquitos were out in full swarm thanks to all the standing water, but some good bug spray took care of that. The wood was all extra wet thanks to the Noah-like flood rains we've been having, but Steve and a flame thrower held to the wood for a long period of time got it going, and we had a nice little evening outside with the cats and a fire...except for the spiders. But Steve killed them, so I guess all's well that ends well...