Today

A group of Greentown Library folks came out to the airport today, and Steve and I talked about aviation, flying, airports, general aviation, business aviation, all sorts of stuff.  We were going to try to give them all rides, but instead it dumped rain and stormed all morning.  It cleared off less than an hour after they all left, of course.  I showed them the Cheyenne, Steve showed them the T-6, and we all had lunch together, and a pretty nice day even if we couldn't open the hangar door or take them on a plane ride thanks to Mother Nature.

After I picked up Kaylee from gym, drove her through the ice cream place to get a sample of "Toasted marshmallow" custard, and got her home, I went back out to the airport.  The city was supposed to come tear up the taxiway where we had most of our planes, so we moved them to a different row.  Today we looked out and they were tearing up the taxiway on our current row, too.  So we scrambled and got the planes out of the hangars before they got to them, and moved them in front of our main hangars so people could still fly.  Danny worked on Mavrx stuff, as did Jon, I flew with a checkride prep guy doing short and soft field takeoffs and landings, and when he got them down, I moved him to the crosswind runway, direct crosswind at 17 knots, his weakness, and we hit those for awhile too.  Looked like a bit of a breakthrough on them, which is great.   I like that.  The rest of the day was spent trying to organize this, that and the other for Warbird Expo flying, for students with upcoming checkrides, for days' worth of email that I'm behind, etc.  And tonight I must go to bed early, as tomorrow I'll be up at 3:45 a.m. to be at Kokomo by 5 a.m. to pull out two planes then put one back so I can be wheels-up at 5:30 a.m.  for Maryland.  Part of why I took the Aerostar up last night was to try to get more familiar with the GPS.  This could be a little wonky going into busy airspace.  At least the weather was supposed to be good going in there.  Now it's not so great on potential storms around Kokomo, and in this plane I'll probably have to try to go below buildups as I won't get over the top of them.  We'll see.  Hopefully I don't make a fool out of myself working on flight plans and editing waypoints out there on the fly so to speak.  They always route you around a lot out there.  I'm making sure my iPad is charged.  Worst case scenario I can at least follow a magenta line and be close enough, I'm thinking.  :)

Here are some catch-up photos.

Nathan took this at some point in the Cheyenne

Toledo, OH from 37,000'.

This was on the way home, and we were headed to "Psyko" Intersection, which I thought was funny.

Kaylee gives me the hairy eyeball again when I tell her to quit flying with two hands on the yoke.

Concentrating!  In the Aerostar on the way to her camp training day.

My view from the Lodge as I waited to go pick her back up.

On the way home, I went to take a photo of something and saw myself in the mini-Pad.

The 340 on the way to Aurora for maintenance.  Chicago is off in the distance.  You'll have to blow up the photo to see it, or trust me, but it's there.  ;)

The tapestry of Ohio from above.

Sun on the Aerostar prop.

 More sun, and speaking of reflections, I see myself. Sort of.

Sunset at Kokomo as I practice approaches.

Airport lights at sunset are my favorite.  I put Gumby here away and went on a 2 hour night flight next, of which I took no photos somehow.  :)