The night air show was great, as always. Well, most of it. The sky was clear and the weather was gorgeous, except it was chilly. I wore a jacket and I was still cold. The poor stranger next to me was in shorty shorts and a tank top and she had goosebumps before the sun went down. She was a trooper to stick it out to the end. They did a helicopter demo where it was too dark to see anything, but the rest of the acts were good. I got a small satisfaction out of their singing and fly-over having the timing off on the National Anthem, because even the pros miss it sometimes. But the Super Hornet sneaked up on us from behind. I tried to warn Steve but the thing hit right as he was looking and he jumped a foot along with most of the crowd. It was great. The wall of fire tonight was supposedly twice as big as the one Wednesday night, covered most of the runway. That and the fireworks are my favorite parts not just of the night show, but of the whole week. :) I love watching the sun go down, dusk fall, the planes going up with streamers of sparks, the crowd. It's neat.
We burned the rest of our firewood down before going to bed around midnight. Kaylee hung out with her friend Alyssa until about 11:30, and then the morning was here and it was time to get going. The packing up was the usual slightly depressing work. The trailer got loaded, and Nathan's car, and AE's car, and Kaylee had a small bag to bring with her and the rest went with Nathan or in the trailer for another day. I ran Kayleigh B. out to the Tiger Moth, and security was lax so I just drove all the way through to warbirds illegally on our golf cart, dropped her off, ran into Vlado who kept looking at me and couldn't quite place me, but he was busy talking to Kayleigh. Later he was on my Facebook page, and I think he remembered/figured me out. lol After I dropped her off I went on out to the T-6 and got it ready. I had to untie it, pull up the stakes and clean them off (that involved using a hammer, Steve. And I didn't pull so hard on the stakes that I swung the hammer into the plane or anything.) ;) Pull the prop through, check the fuel and oil, preflight, take the canopy cover off and let it dry out a bit, remove the oil draining system, secure it, all that stuff. From there I went back to camp and waited until it was time to get going.
Michigan Charlie drove Kaylee and I back out to the T-6, I called Warbird Ground for a marshaling crew to start up, and we taxied out to Runway 27. I was sitting and waiting when Kaylee said "Mom, there are two T-6s right behind us, and they are pointed the exact same way we are. Why?" I turned around, and sure enough, two yellow T-6s were cocked at the same angle to the runway as I was. I told her I did that so I could run up without blowing on anybody, and so that I could see in front of me and know what was going on, and that's what they were doing too. I told her it's kind of a formation thing too. She said "They teach you that in formation?" Yeah, they do. Anyway, it was our turn to take off, and I had chosen to go the long way home for two reasons. One, cold lake water with my daughter on board. Two, it was IFR at Kokomo and was hanging around too long and I needed it to burn off before we got there. On the first, I had given her the option too. She's mature enough to take part in the discussion, and her butt's in the airplane too, so I asked her. Did you want to get home at least 30 minutes faster but have to go over water, where if I had any engine issues, we could be going for a swim and that would be bad, or did you want to stay over land but it would be longer by a fair margin. She said whatever I did, she accepted the risk and my decision. She doesn't have my water creep factor, which I suppose is good. I still took the long way.
We got past Chicago's area, and Kaylee said "Do you mind if I fly for a little while?" Why no, no I don't. She'd earlier asked if we could put the stick in, as she might like to fly some, and she'd like to be able to say she'd flown two different T-6s. Then she asked how many I'd flown. There's Checkertail and Walt's, and then I flew Tim S.'s T-6 for the first crash and gos for a few hours, and Tom Wood's T-6 I flew once or twice, but that one only from the back and without a clue. But it still counts, I think, since I flew it. This week I'll be flying another T-6 from Sheridan over to Muncie for avionics work. So that'll make five. :) Anyway, she took the controls, and was just doing fine straight and level, so I suggested she make some turns. She wallowed the first two turns pretty hard, and I was explaining what she needed to do, and she said "I thought you needed to lead the turn with the rudder." That's what you have to do in the Champ, which is the taildragger she flew the most. Good memory. So I explained the different airplanes have different characteristics, and in the T-6 you put the aileron and rudder in at the same time, then you back off a little on the rudder after you initiate the turn, and away it'll go. She understood, and about 3-4 more turns, and she had it pretty well, at regular bank angles anyway. :) She also asked a good question about basically knowing whether you need more right rudder or less left, for example, and how to know. Good question. She did a nice job with the plane. I really got to get her going more frequently. Busy life there, that girl has.
When we got close to Kokomo, it was still a little scuzzy. I thought about trying out an ILS in there, but doing that for the first time in there, for real, with my kid in the back seat, didn't seem as wise as even going over the water, so I just ducked down and stayed VFR and underneath. We got home, put away the airplane, went to Greentown and picked up a shake, picked up a friend of hers, I dropped them off at the mall to shop for back to school supplies, I came home, and shed my clothes throughout the house on my way to the shower. Now THAT was nice. ;) I went back out and picked up the girls, made a Starbucks run for them, dropped them off at home, then went back to Kokomo where Steve and Nathan arrived several hours later. We unloaded our stuff, then met up at Applebees for dinner.
Home sweet home. We have tomorrow marked off to recuperate and do what we can, and then school starts Tuesday, and life jumps in with both feet.
Pictures tomorrow...
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