So Be It

Wednesday was a weird weather day, and I had a guy doing instrument approaches in the morning.  It worked out, but we were in this odd little bubble of goodness with showers and even small storms surrounding us on all sides.  It was a little distracting for him, even under the hood, because he could see the weather on the ADS-B and the NEXRAD, and I was saying "Hey, you fly the plane, I'll watch the weather".  Steve said he had the exact same conversation with the gent he went up with that same morning who also had onboard weather.  :)

I got a bunch of errands caught up that afternoon, before Mom and Ernie made it up for Kaylee's concert.  The concert went well.  They did songs from Indiana musicians, had a slide show of photos of Indiana trivia and factoids, had things from other famous Indiana  natives, and even  had made up a couple songs about local landmarks/roads.  It was cute and well done, as everything Mrs. E does, is.  Here's what I wrote on Facebook about part of the concert:

Last night was Kaylee's show choir concert, and as always, they, and their director, did a fantastic job. The theme was "Indiana", its history, famous people, etc. At one point in the evening, they did the Red Skelton (who was born in Indiana) "Pledge of Allegiance" skit with two people up on stage, then they played the video up on two large screens over the stage. At the point in the video where he says "Now won't you say the pledge of allegiance with me", the screens went to two large American flags, and Every Single Person in the auditorium rose to their feet. Not one took a knee, not one took a seat. People weren't asked to stand, it was just a skit, we were just watching. But like one big unit the whole school, teachers, administrators, parents, students, visitors, all stood, impromptu. Afterwards people broke out in cheers and applause. It warmed my heart. I respect people's rights to express themselves, including to disrespect their country, because this is the country in which the forefathers fought to give them that right. But you don't fix anything by further dividing your nation, by spitting on, burning, stomping on your country's flag, or by refusing to show respect for the country that gives you the right to do those things. I am grateful to be in a community that understands to still respect your country while wanting it to always grow and improve--hopefully by methods that actually can accomplish something in a positive way. And frankly, if you would have sat during that display, if you want to take a knee during your National Anthem, you have that right, which I will defend, and then I also hope you exercise your right to remove yourself from my friend's list here and in real life, as I exercise my right to think very poorly of your thought process and actions. Enough.

I  got about 60 photos, many of which are blurry, as usual, but some that turned out, and I'll work on getting those up shortly.  I enjoyed the concert, as always, and truly.  Mrs. E is a genius.  :)

This morning Mom and Ernie headed out, and Steve and Kaylee headed out, and I started staring at the weather.  I was supposed to leave around 1 pm in order to go to Iowa for the formation clinic.  At noon Steve and I went down to Tipton in order to watch three F-22s do a Missing Man Formation fly-over of Lt. McIntosh's gravesite, which was pretty cool.  And then I had to decide, am I going to Iowa or not!?  Nothing was clear cut.  It was low VFR to high IFR along the way there.  I could either have waited and been late to the ground school, scud-runned over, or gone IFR.  None of those options was great, but I would have taken IFR.  The plane has an AI and I could have flown it IFR, especially since it was clear in Iowa itself and I wouldn't have had to shoot an approach in it, which also would be fine if I knew for sure how to work the avionics set-up in there.  ;)  So I sort of planned on that.  The weather there during the weekend was calling for "overcast" but you didn't know how low that was supposed to be.  High enough and we're fine.  Too low and we're grounded all weekend and I just flew four hours round trip to accomplish nothing.  The earliest forecast I could get and the prog charts said 1000-3000' ceilings.  Again, 1000' not good, 3000' good enough.  So which is it?  Then Saturday's forecast for Indiana said it was going to be a wash-out, and if I want to go to the Red Bull Air race, for which we spent money and are doing as a fun family and friend event, I need to be back Saturday.  It felt like everything was stacking up to be difficult to maybe even not working at all.  So I called it off.  Canceled my hotel room, canceled my rental car, canceled the guy at the airport hosting the event.  He then told me that a group from Indy was driving over that afternoon because of the weather.  In other words, even if I had made it over, a whole chunk of airplanes that I'd have been flying with wouldn't have been there.   Now the next forecast came out, and it's calling for 800 broken to 1900 overcast most of Friday.  I don't think they'll be doing much flying with that, which makes me feel a little better about not going.  Bad for their event, but good for my peace of mind.

I hadn't really posted much about Iowa ahead of time, for this exact reason, because if it happened, great, and if not, like I said, so be it.  Well, so be it.

Tuesday

It was an early morning to what was to be an easy day.  I was supposed to be flying by 8:30, and done by 10:30, doing a photo imaging flight.  I didn't get off the ground until 9, but other than that everything went according to plan.  It was a severe clear day, I had no problem getting the fields, and I was home by 11.  I took apart everything out of the airplane again, got it all put away, and then got a text from M. to call them.  When I did, he said, "we just added another flight for today, if you can do it, because it's so beautiful out today."  It was a SIX HOUR FLIGHT.   So I went from a two hour flight to an 8 hour one.  I wouldn't do all of it.  I had plans tonight, plans today in fact, but I did go out and get 4 of the 5 new fields they wanted.  That last field was over by Toledo, Ohio, and I skipped it so that I could be back and done after less than 4 hours instead of 6.  So annoying.  I wasn't very happy and he knew it.  It's a good thing they pay well, but dumping an entire work day on someone who had planned for 2 hours is just not cool.  It ended up taking me from 8:30 am until 4:30 pm to get everything done anyway, with less than an hour in there for fuel and lunch.  I billed them for all of it, including my lunch.

Had a kid on a checkride today.  He got the oral done, and then the examiner said it seemed a little too windy, so the kid agreed and they postponed.  But the kid was ready to take the checkride in  those winds.  He's good, and he practiced in the same winds yesterday and did great.   But what are you going to do if the examiner says "it seems too windy"?  So he's halfway done, with only the flight left to go.

After I got back from my last photo flight, we met up with an old friend of Steve's and her new spouse, and we flew to Rick's Boatyard Cafe in Indianapolis for dinner.  We ate too much and enjoyed the evening, making it back in time for me to pick up Kaylee from band practice at 9:15.  Home at 9:30 or so, and it has been a long, tiring day and we're all ready to pass out now...and I didn't get stuff done around here that I needed to.  Hopefully tomorrow morning...

Tonight on the way home from Eagle Creek.

Adjusted

It was a beautiful Sunday--Steve and Nathan made it back from Paducah right when I got done with a pre-checkride flight.  That's giving me a little heartburn.  Checkrides always do, actually, but this one has been pushed back twice, and now the winds are calling for 25 knots that afternoon, and he's probably not capable of passing in that unless he can fine tune it in tomorrow.  We'll see.  

My lack of sleep the last couple days caught up to me with a vengeance, and this afternoon I went down for what had to be a three hour nap.  Steve crashed for a couple hours too.  I mean, I was OUT.  And it's only 9:30 pm and I'm already yawning again, too.  Guess I needed that one.

I got a lot accomplished today though.  Aircraft insurance information that came due, and thank heavens for electronic logbooks when they ask questions such as "how many hours in make and model in the last 12 months".  One click of the button and I knew how many hours total time, complex, in that airplane, total in the last 12 months, total in that airplane in the last 12 months, etc.  That used to be such a hassle when I only had the paper logbook.  I got my dues sent in for the WASP Squadron.  Got emails caught up.  Got my scheduling all arranged for the next week.  Got bills paid.  Got a 3 hour nap.  ;)  Oh, and got about everything arranged for Thursday.

Sometime (was supposed to be today I thought but I never heard from him) John S. is bringing Walt's T-6 to me at Kokomo here.  Walt's mechanic will be putting new tires on it.  Weather permitting, Thursday I am flying it to Keokuk, Iowa, wherever that is.  ;)  There's a formation clinic for a different signatory, for L-birds, Navions, Yaks/CJs, etc.  They told me I was welcome but I'd be the only T-6 there.  I don't care.  They also said I had to get five flights in to be able to do a checkride.  They said they'd have the people and planes there in order to be able to do that, and weather permitting, if I was able to get all five flights in and meet the criteria, they'd have a check pilot there who could do the check flight and issue the FAST card.  So.  Right before our slow season I'm flying a T-6 to Iowa and back and going on at least five 45-60 minute flights, in the hopes of knocking out a FAST card.  There's a lot of maybes in here, with weather being the big one.  Right now the weather out  there looks fine Thurs-Sat.  The weather here, not so great.  Walt's T-6 isn't a great IFR platform, there's no GPS and the VOR set up is weird and I'm not sure how it works.  I'm going to have to dive into it a little bit.  Also I'll have no onboard weather.  So...definitely old school.  Hopefully I can get out of here Thursday and at least get there and get it done.  Then if I have trouble getting back into Kokomo, I'll miss the Red Bull Air Race on Sunday, which I hope won't happen.  I really wanna see that with my friends!  But that's the plan right now.  Go out Thursday, come home Saturday evening and have accomplished something.  If so, great.  If it doesn't get done, so be it.

Snap

I've caught up on a few TV shows.  Season premiers, mostly, and I went to see "Magnificent Seven", too, while Kaylee was at a band competition and when I was done for the day.  Good movie.  Different from the original, but good in its own right. Humorous, and a story of people fighting the underdog fight against evil, at great personal cost to do the right thing.  When I got back from that , "The Patriot" was on TV.  I think everyone should watch that movie again.  Everybody.  What would those men and women think of Americans today, of the country that they sacrificed everything for?  That movie always hits me.  So apparently this evening was to be about that very topic.

This morning I took Kaylee to band at 10 am.  I was supposed to fly at 11, so after I left Greentown I came back to Kokomo and got some oatmeal, then went out to Kokomo, and got there around 10:30.  I waited around until 11, and then Jesse came out and we did some logbook work and some prep towards the checkride.  He left around noon, as we were unable to fly because it was IFR.  I stayed around the airport until 2 hoping it would clear off for the next two flights, and it sort of did, at the last minute.  I took a little girl up with her grandparents, and then Justin and I went up for awhile, and then it was time for me to hit some food and the movie.  I'll tell you now, tomorrow will include a run to church, maybe two runs to church, and another trip out to Kokomo for the flight I couldn't get done today for weather.

Airplanes

As I type this, I just got the notification that Gumby just landed in Paducah.  Steve and Nathan have headed down there for a quick weekend, and hopefully will have a fun, relaxing, enjoyable time.  :)

I woke up early again this morning, as I was supposed to be down at Sheridan around 8 a.m.  I ended up getting a text after I was already awake that this was being pushed back to 9:00-9:30,  Well, I was already up.  So I went ahead and got ready and went down there.  I was supposed to be flying a T-6 for its first time in 5 years, after a fresh annual.  NOT my favorite thing, as airplane don't like to sit and I don't like to be in them after they sat, especially ones with a glide ratio of a safe.  But...that was the mission for the day.  After I flew it myself, I was supposed to fly it with the owner, as he wanted to get current in it too.  I was going to make him use the grass if he didn't want to already, because you can't see squat of Sheridan's 50' runway from the back seat of a T-6, and I don't have a lot of time back there anyway.  So I had a few things to think about and prepare for this morning.  I got down there at 8:30, did a pre-flight, and realized it wasn't quite the same thing.  It wasn't a T-6, it was an SNJ-4, which could be the same but could have some differences especially with regards to the tailwheel.  So I went inside and Googled it, found the differences that I could, looked around and got familiar with the panel and stuff, and then waited.  Around 9:30 Jeff got there, and shortly after I was standing around with him is when I realized Bob wasn't coming.  His daughter was having a baby right then, so I was on my own for the morning.  I was fine with that, actually.

I had done a very thorough preflight, and was ready to go.  It started...and then died right when I flipped the strobe on.  Huh.  I started again, it ran, and then boom, died.  Huh.  I gave it more fuel, started again, stared at the fuel pressure, texted Jeff "I'm getting zero fuel pressure" and it died again.  He said "Run it up higher RPM".  So I started it again, ran it up to 1200 RPM, and the fuel pressure came alive.  I hoped it stayed alive when you closed the throttle.  Decided at that moment not to close the throttle in the air.  ;)

The seat I was on, the cushion is such that I have to extend my arm and legs to their full length in order to have full travel of the controls. Not my favorite--if you need action in a hurry you don't want to be scooting forward and on your tip toes.  So I have something to fix that for next time.  When I was taxiing out, I did a 360 degree turn and looked all around, because the taxiway I had no choice but to go down is only as wide as the gear, and there would be no s-turns.  I can't tell you how extremely uncomfortable I was taxiing down that whole taxiway without being able to turn and see what was or was not in front of me.  Seriously.  Not cool.  One direction had hangar doors and the other put you off into the grass and uneven surfaces.  So I taxiied straight ahead and stuck my head out as far as I could and thought "THIS is gonna get him some day."

When it came time for the run-up, one of the mags dropped off badly.  Chunking, dropping, etc.  I leaned it out and ran it a little hard for awhile, and in the end it smoothed out, just had a bit more of a drop than I normally like.  Upon texting conference, we decided it sounded good and I'd go for it.

Take off I had my arm fully extended just to lift the tail.  Definitely getting a cushion to push me forward.  :)  I lifted off the ground, and the RPMs surged a little.  Up and down, about 50-100 RPM, it was surging.  I didn't touch the prop, didn't touch the throttle, just climbed up to an altitude at which I could make the runway, then turned back towards the runway.  Powered back a bit, it kept surging a little, but gauges were okay, so I kept flying and circling right over the runway and climbing.  About ten minutes into it, it smoothed out.  I stayed over the runway at 3500', and never so far away I couldn't land on either 9 or 27, the grass, in the fairly quiet winds.  After about 30 minutes I switched fuel tanks, and it started surging again.  Another 5 minutes later it smoothed back out.  The ole girl needed run!  I landed after about an hour.  The airspeed gauge was in knots, and the others are all in MPH, but mostly I just flew what felt right then looked at the gauge to see what it said.  I was a touch fast.  I came in at 80 knots, which is a little over 90 mph, and normally I've been landing at 80 mph, but the 90 felt better and gave me a little room.  So I went with it.  When I got out I was all sweaty.  I wouldn't call that a pleasure flight--but it was a good one anyway.  It also is the first SNJ-4 I've flown, making it the 3rd different type model and the 5th T-6 I've flown, which is kind of cool.

And right now I'm eating Japanese take-out, much to Kaylee's dismay, while having a glass of red wine, and getting ready to watch the series premier of "MacGuyver", the remake.  And I'm NOT sure how I feel about this.  I loved that show as a teenager, and remaking it, man, I don't know about this...

I like the paint job.

The inner workings.

Sheridan's Runway 27 off the wing.

Back

The trip to Baltimore went fine.  D did in fact show up with a Snickers bar for me at 6 a.m., which I saved.  The morning started at 4:30, which is still the night before as far as I'm concerned, but okay, it means another pretty sunrise from on high, so I'm good with that. It was IFR in Baltimore, so actually had to shoot an LDA approach and do some work, but hey, that's par for the course. But D didn't arrange the rental car, forgot, so when we landed he grabbed an Uber to get to his meeting and I called Enterprise. I have an account, no problem! My call gets transferred three times over five minutes (oh you need this office, oh, we need 24 hr notice, oh you need delivery) then I get to Brittany who has me on hold for ten minutes. When she gets back to me, she says she needs to talk to the other guy there because she doesn't know how to do a reservation and he's with a customer. I'm on hold another ten minutes listening to Enterprise's customer service spiel. He gets on the line and says "we don't have anything available but a $100 truck". What, Brittany couldn't know that 20 minutes ago?  I didn't need a $100 Ram 1500 pickup truck.

So I call Hertz, member there too. They have a $35/day car. Cool. Sold. They'll be here in 30 minutes and charge me $50 to deliver because they are so far away. Ouch. They made it in an hour. He says "the low tire pressure light just came on so you might stop for air." I just look at him and he says "or it might be fine!" He drives away. Nothing visibly wrong with the car, though I can tell the back left tire is down. I get out on the road, and it's obviously gonna need air. The whole car is pulling, and not just in one direction-it obviously has a problem and there's no way he didn't feel that on his way there. I find a gas station, pull out the manual and see what tire pressures are supposed to be, use the free gauge and find that one tire is close to the right pressure, two are 15-17 psi low and that left rear isn't even registering anything on the gauge. I pay $1 and air up all four tires, muttering. Isn't this Hertz's job?  What if I was an older or infirm person, or wasn't aware of where to find tire pressure numbers or how to air up tires?  Would they have come to get me by the side of the road later?

Plug in my car charger to recharge my phone--the charging port doesn't work. Phone is down to 33% already and I'm using it for directions around Baltimore. Go to the hotel, can't check in yet, they need two more hours. So I drove to a nice restaurant and to have a lovely brunch with my whine. ;)  After that things settled in.  I ate.  I got checked into the hotel.  I tried to take a nap but the coffee I'd just had apparently kept me up.

So I looked up the nearest movie theater, and drove over to it, and it was an old-fashioned theater, regal looking, the kind where you used to dress up to attend.  I went to see "Sully".  I thought they did a good job with it, explaining how he felt, what they did and why, the process, etc.  Even if they dramatized the NTSB a little, and frankly I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly how it did go, but the rest of it was factual, and he never once acted like he thought he was some hero.  He said that it worked out because of everyone from controller to rescue workers to flight attendants, and after he listened to the 'tapes' for the first time, he and Jeff agreed that they were pleased, because they did their jobs.  So all the controversy in pilot land about it is kind of annoying.  Pilots do that about any movie that has aviation.  They feel the need to pick or disparage.  In this case they pick on a couple sim things that were off, and get on a high horse about how any pilot should be able to do that and it's no big deal and he's no hero he just did his job (which he said himself anyway).  Yeah, well, it had never been done before and maybe you could do it too, Joe Stud Pilot, but he's the one who actually did, with 208 seconds to get it right, life or death.  Love keyboard warriors.  Just enjoy a movie that portrays aviation and pilots in a positive light for once, would that be so wrong?  So I thought it was well done.  When they told him all 155 people had survived, I could imagine what a relief that was.

That night for dinner I walked to a nearby restaurant and had crab stuffed fresh caught fish. Yeah, that was good stuff.  Kaylee called me while I was sitting and hanging out, and we talked for like 45 minutes.  I passed out pretty early, the day had started waaay too soon.

Nothing else of import.  The next day was fine, we got home in nice weather, I was tired, drove Kaylee to band practice and back and ran errands and went to bed early!

This morning I went out to the airport and got the Cub out, and Steve and I went flying in it today.  He did the flying and I rode along, we went over to Glenndale and he shot some landings there, then back to Kokomo.   Just for an hour, but it was good to get up on a really nice, calm, pretty morning.

After lunch I had a lesson, and we were only up for .7, but it was fine.  I ran to the store real quick after that, and then out to the school to pick up Kaylee and take her to  her voice lesson, then run her home.  After that I went back out to Kokomo and took up the T-6 for a little while, and I did more stalls.  I still have more work to do but I need some ballast in the back for extra weight, because that has to be affecting the handling.  I just didn't want to put a lot of oil in the back for weight because I don't want it slamming around back there if it gets a little crazy.

When I finished in the T-6, Steve was finishing with a student, so we met up at Wendy's for dinner, before he came home to work and I went back out to Kokomo for one last flight, a night flight in John's Bonanza.  It was a beautiful night with a great sunset, calm winds, clear skies.  Great weather and great flying days lately.  It would be nice if that held out awhile longer, even if Fall is officially here.  :)

The pictures are from the last few days, and really show again what I like best about what I do--the variety.  Mavrx in a 172, FL190 and an instrument approach in the twin, low and slow and door open with Steve in a Cub, working on upset recovery in the T-6, and night flying in a TCBonanza.

One of the last Mavrx flights of the year.

Sunrise at 19,000'

Barometric pressure was set right--it's the first time I've landed 30 feet below the ground.  ;)

The inside of the big theater.

This came up on the movie screen before the movie started.

More of the interior.

And the exterior.

Steve and I in the Cub.

I cropped me out of this one (mostly).

Probably the last flight in this T-6 for awhile.

Well, it was supposed to show the canopy and the blue sky and such, but I was actually pretty serious on this flight, it wasn't for the fun of it, and I can see my eyes behind the visor, and they look pretty serious to me...

Beautiful  night flight.

Well...

Let's see.  I took myself off work today to recuperate, but really it was a pretty busy day anyway.  I had a Mavrx flight first thing this morning, and it took a little while to get it going.  But once I did, it was smooth and seamless, not a cloud in the sky.  It's probably one of the if not the last Mavrx mission we'll have this season, and if so it's a good one to end on.

When I landed out of that, I'd missed lunch, so I ran past McDonald's, and stopped at home to do some quick work I needed to do, communications, etc.  I also got a text that if I was available, I  was needed for an overnight business trip to Baltimore--leaving at 6 a.m. tomorrow.  Which means leaving the house at 5:30.  Which means getting up at 4:30 a.m.  Gah.  His text was, and I quote, "6 a.m., and I will bring chocolate!  :)"  He'd better mean that!  It's going to be IFR out there too, which means actually having to, you know, WORK a little bit at that time of the day.  Harrumph.  ;)

After getting some work done, I went back out to Kokomo and pulled out the T-6 again.  You'd think after almost 6 hours yesterday I'd have had enough, but I had a different mission today.  The airplane is going down for an annual soon, and will probably be down awhile.  I am getting ready to check out another guy in his own T-6, an airplane that hasn't flown at all in 4-5 years, which doesn't thrill me, as airplanes don't like to sit and I don't like to be in them the first 50 hours or so after they sat that long.  You can be sure I'm going to be hanging out right over top of the airport for awhile there at first.  But anyway, he is putting me on his insurance for his T-6, and would like me to fly with him and get him back up to speed in it. I'm all current on different types of landings and such, so today I emptied out the baggage compartment of the T-6, secured the back seat, put a piece of painters tape over the "glove compartment", tightened down the parachute (sorry Nathan), tied my hair back, went up to 7500', and hit it.  I started with some rolls, went into slow flight, minimum controllable airspeed, then moved into stalls.  Did 7 or 8 regular stalls, and then did another half dozen stalls where I yanked it or held it a little too long and let it get "worse".  You end up upside down anyway most of the time.  I'd also find that even on the stalls where I tried to recover asap and not let it get too far out, I'd still lose 1000' poste haste, and on the ones where I'd let it go more aggressively, I'd lose about 1500'.  Just boom, down.  I  bet I could get that down some with more practice.  But it reminds me of the aerobatic wannabe who went for his first ride in the T-6 who, when I asked what he was doing as he was flying and pulling power to idle and pulling up, said "I'm just going to do a quick stall here".  We were 800' above the ground at the time, and he thought I was a wuss for stopping him.  He didn't know a thing about the plane.  Not sure what kind of idiot decides to do something like stall a plane he doesn't know 800' above the ground without even asking or telling the actual pilot what he's doing.  I can say that folks like him have made me veeeeery vigilant when I'm giving rides at pattern altitude.  :)

When I finished up there, I was coming into Kokomo, and as I was turning final I heard a crop duster call a two mile final behind me.  I hit all the flaps, slowed down to 80 mph (short field speed), chopped the power before the numbers, totally greased on a three point landing, as in even I was impressed, and taxiied off at the first intersection.  I felt briefly like The Man.  ;)

Looking in the mirror afterwards, I have determined that I sort of look like a witch when I get out of the T-6.  My hair gets wiry and frizzy and sticks out all over, my face is haggard enough these days, with circles and bags, and put it all together with having been sweaty and wind blown, and I'm sort of scary looking.  I have a few more things I need to do in the T-6 to get myself up to speed...soon, hopefully.

Well, it's time for me to go to bed.  After I file a flight plan for "You have to be kidding me" o'clock.  And pack a bag.  Talk to you from Baltimore, most likely...

Bash

I'll try to fill it in later, but the Bash is done for 2016.  I've been sick since what, Thursday, Wednesday?  Bad timing.  Friday was set-up day, and everyone is like a well-oiled machine any more.  Not that it goes perfectly or without hiccup, but it really does go fast and well, both set up and tear down.  Friday I flew cross country with a young man, and then had to crash for awhile to recuperate.  That evening we had grilled cheese on texas toast that Tre put together, and chili that the Glenndale ladies put together, and boy that was good.  Good enough to make note of.  ;)

Saturday rained.  It rained all morning, and when it quit raining, the clouds hung out at 500' overcast until about 3 pm.  The event was supposed to be over at 4.  I felt terrible.  I mean...Terrible.  I could only be up and around for a little while.  I couldn't do people, I couldn't do noise, and I felt just slightly better than death.  I would be out and about for awhile, try to be social and present, and then I'd crawl back into Dale's office and go to sleep on his little mini couch back there.  The first time I went out for like an hour and a half.  I felt even worse missing most of my own event.  The second time I napped for like 45 minutes.  When the clouds cleared at 3, we actually had a few riders show up, and we gave 22 people rides by the time we shut down.  We didn't expect to do any, because with the weather that way, people didn't come out, just our own regulars and workers.  But a few did come at the end, and that was just great.  I'm trying to remember how the day ended, when I went home...I felt so bad I don't remember most of the day, actually.  I know that Kaylee worked in the food tent all day, with a couple of her friends, and we got her one friend and her dad a ride in the plane as thanks, and the tent was dead quiet because, well, the event was dead quiet.  I remember the skydivers made it in, and I was really happy to see them.  I DID start feeling better by the end of that evening, but I still don't remember a lot.  We didn't bother bringing the T-6 over, and that was for the best anyway, or Nathan would have had to do the rides.

Today.  Today the sun came up on a gorgeous day.  Thank heavens.  Maybe one of these years we can actually have TWO good days in a row again!  :)  But today was about perfect.  We finally had a light wind day, for the first time in recent memory of Bashes.  It was foggy down by Sheridan and Indy, so the PT-26 couldn't make it up, which at first was a bummer because we had people asking about it, but in the end worked out for the best as the other pilot was going to have to leave at a certain time anyway, which meant I'd have had to do those flights too, and the T-6 ended up booking up all day.   I wouldn't have been able to do it all.

While the day dawned perfectly, I didn't.  I really did turn the corner on the cold or virus or whatever I had, and I felt much better there.  Instead what I woke up with was a  headache.  A normal, not good one associated with full sinuses.  I woke up at 6 and took some Tylenol and a Claritan D and tried to sleep it off.  No luck.  Had to get up at 7:30, took some Advil.  Got to the church service at 9 and took a mixture of the two.  Anyway, long story short, I know myself and my limits, and I was okay, right up until about noon.  At that point I told Jon I was stopping, to eat lunch, to try something else on pain meds, etc.   Jon sent Justin P to the corner CVS to get some Excedrin M, and I took two of those, ate lunch, drank water and some caffeine, got gas in the airplane, and felt good enough to go again.  By the end of that first ride back, the Excedrin kicked in, and the headache was gone, finally and thank you Lord.   Compared to the last several days, I felt like a million dollars after that headache lifted!  I was really bothered at the thought of having to shut down operations on the T-6, when the PT didn't make it, and the New Standard didn't make it, and Nathan couldn't take over, and we lost yesterday to weather, and here we have The Perfect Day, and my stupid head would kill it off?  Ugh.  But obviously safety is first, and like I said, I know my limits, and I was at it at lunch there, so I'm grateful for the fast-acting Excedrin so that didn't happen.

Kaylee served in the food tent with friends again today.  Her friends all got plane rides for helping except one.  That friend's mom had a dream that her older daughter died in a plane crash.  So she told her younger daughter that she was not allowed to get in an airplane today because of the dream, said it was a "foretelling" or a "foreshadow".  Or maybe Mom's subconscious or even conscious was worrying about it ahead of time.  ;)  But obviously we'd never take someone up in an airplane who was that worried about it, nor would we ever take someone without parental approval.  It was a bummer for her, though, as the only one of the friends who didn't get to go.

I gave twelve T-6 rides today.  That's a fair amount for 5-6 hours including getting fuel, loading and unloading, etc.  We kept them moving.  We used Runway 18, which actually works out kind of nice for the T-6, because when you land you can just roll to the end and not have to worry about hitting the brakes and getting stopped and turned around for the people behind you.  And when you don't have a 28 knot direct crosswind, it's not so hard over the wires and trees.  It was kind of an easy day, actually. Thankfully.

Today we sold out of food for the most part, we sold most of the t-shirts, we sold a ton of cookbooks, and we were backed up on rides for hours.  We ran rides almost two hours past the time we advertised we'd be shut down, but we kept going until we ran out of riders.  Several people were turned away because they didn't want to wait two hours to get a ride.  We could have likely run two T-6s the whole time, and we definitely needed another regular airplane/pilot too.   We ended up giving 166 people rides yesterday and today, and I don't know how that compares to last year, when we also only had one day, but it was pretty busy.  Most of the pilots went home wiped out, not getting much of a break all day.  It's character building.  ;)

Now I'm really tired and it got late, so I'm going to go to bed and figure out the rest tomorrow...

And All That Jazz

I had a flight at 8 a.m., and after that I was feeling pretty ucky, so I didn't fly any more today.  One understood, one kinda didn't, but, well, too bad.  I'd have also missed Kaylee's program tonight, and some kid getting one flight in before next Monday doesn't rank on the grand scheme of things, although I do try to accommodate as much as I can.

At some point I lost all of 2015's photos.  I don't know how, exactly, but I know sort of when.  I'd reorganized my photos, and at some point in that I must have hit delete on 2015.  I can't imagine it, but it had to be me, I'm the only one in there.  I'd been trying not to think about all the photos and memories I'd lost.  Steve tried to look up our backups, but it had probably been since the beginning of 2016 since I did it, and I hadn't looked up a 2015 photo until last week.  So the backups had all overwritten and there was no 2015.  So tonight I'm sitting in Kaylee's concert thingy, and out of the blue it just pops into my head "WHY DON'T YOU LOOK IN THE RECYCLE BIN".  If I'd hit delete, and hadn't emptied that out yet, they should still be there, right?  So guess what I found in the recycle bin. Not just one folder labeled 2015 that I can move with everything in it, but all the individual folders of photos.  So I am dragging them back where they belong one at a time.  I'm up to March.  I'm just really happy to see them.  Her ISSMA, her birthday in Florida, her concerts, us at Oshkosh, her band and choir,  WHEEEEW.  So happy about this.  :)

Tonight Kaylee had a saxophone trio she was performing for a community event "At the Fountain".  We thought it was at the fountain.  It normally is, downtown, but they moved it to the school for some reason.  We didn't know what it was or would be, but expected it to be a quick music thing.  Instead, the orchestra played, Kaylee and the trio played a gospel tune and did a great job by the way, a trio of boys sang, and then the Starlets and Encore had several songs each they performed.  It was a whole shin-dig.  Then the folks in the community had a "cake walk", where they have squares of carpet numbered, and music.  You dance around this path until the music stops, then whatever number of square you are standing on is yours.  They draw a number, and whomever is standing on that number gets their pick of the prizes, most of which were home made baked goodies.  It was the older folks in town, and they had a good time with it.  A small community coming out to enjoy the band and the singers and some together time on a nice evening.  It was sweet.

I had Steve take a video of the sax trio, and I took some photos of the night.  I don't know if I'll get to them tonight as I'm still busy moving all my 2015 photos back where they belong, out of the trash, but I'll try to get some up as quickly as I can, because the BBQ Bash will take over otherwise.  :)

Here's the video Steve took of the trio. :)

Night

Kaylee's feeling better, and I'm not sure what I am.  I woke up okay, went and did a huge ton of errands, and crashed in the afternoon, and now I don't feel so well.  I have three lessons tomorrow I'm trying to get in because we're marked off for the next four days and Steve has been marked off for BBQ stuff.  Somebody needs to be available, so I'm trying, and hopefully I'll wake up tomorrow feeling better than I feel as I'm going to bed here.  You'd be impressed with the list of things we got done today though.  ;)

Sitting

I woke up with a scratchy throat and a headache, but I had an 8 a.m. flight in a Warrior today, and dragged out there.  We had a good flight, he picked it up pretty quickly.  I had a little time in the afternoon, and I wasn't feeling well, so I tried to lie down, but I couldn't sleep (too much caffeinated tea at lunch I suppose).  I was then supposed to fly 4-6, 6-9, 9-11 pm.  A long evening and I just wasn't feeling the best, but I had tomorrow off.   The 4-6 went great.  That guy is going to solo and fast.  Today was really the first day I had him in the pattern doing the level off and flare, and he GOT it.  So I started throwing engine outs and ballooning at him, and he managed that too.  We land, taxi in, and I have about 30 minutes before the next guy.  He gets there and he's not prepared, we were going to do a cross country but he hadn't planned it out all the way yet.  Now we're running late.  He'd only scheduled us until 8 pm, which isn't enough time for a cross-country, so I extended us through my dinner hour and into 9 pm.  The FBO was now closed, so if we had to get fuel, we'd have to do the self serve pump, add another half hour to our time, and probably run out of time.  He'd prepared a cross country to a tower controlled field, a busy one, for his first ever cross country, plus it was 75 miles away.  Way too complicated for a first (I hadn't met or flown with him before, I didn't tell him to do that).  So I calculate that we need no less than 25 gallons of gas to go.  The guy preflights, and sends his dad back to tell me we have 24.5 gallons of gas.  Okay, close enough, but I'd like more. Of course I can always stop and get more if need be. Then I walk up there and he says "I think the front tire is low".  I bend down, and it's not low, it's flat.  Like...totally flat.  Kapooot flat.   So another guy has the other 172, and he offers it to us.  It has 23 gallons of gas.   It's pushing me.  I'm coming home at night, I don't wanna be at my 1 hour reserve.  But it'll still work.  He does the preflight--again--we pull it out, and...it won't even crank.  The battery isn't dead, you can hear the gyros winding up.  But it will not even turn over.  Just "click".  I shut everything down, pull the prop through a few times on a hail mary where I don't know what I'm doing but it's worth a try, and it doesn't help.  So by now we're an hour late, he's flustered, I'm annoyed, and not feeling that well, and we push the second broken 172 away and call it a day.  I said if there was a third airplane option available, I probably wouldn't take it anyway.  I mean...how many things have to go wrong before you back away with your hands up and say "okay, okay!"  So I canceled that guy, and the next guy, and Steve and I went to dinner with a friend instead.  And I'm still not feeling that well, but I took a vitamin and did NOT work until 11 pm tonight, and I plan on getting some sleep and working on some stuff tomorrow at home.

Kaylee is playing at "Festival at the Fountain" (That is not the right name) in Tipton on Thursday, with the jazz band.  She is just learning the song tonight.  Steve helped her with the rhythm, and once she started focusing she picked it up really fast.  She's feeling a little better, herself, thankfully.

I need to update my logbook before I forget what I did today...it's getting harder when I now have two guys in their own planes and not ours, so no time sheets to go off of, just memory or notes.

Oh, for the BBQ Bash--Kaylee has enlisted the help of some of her friends, gotten the event passed around at a church newsletter, and has really been a big help to Steve.  She doesn't know it yet, but she'll be in charge of a fair amount of stuff at the food tent this year.  We think she can handle it.  She's a good kid.

Run-Around

Kaylee is well enough to go to school but not really feeling all that great.  Seems to be a cold type of bug.  Sore throat from drainage, cotton-headed, sometimes a headache, stuffy sinuses, runny nose.  No fever, still eating well, no lethargy, so she's not really sick sick at least.  I always know when that girl is sick because she won't eat.  Any other time, she can out-eat me both of us.  :)

It was a gorgeous day and I only had one flight.  Originally I had three.  One was canceled for a board meeting I had tonight, the second canceled because his checkride was rescheduled and he had a Calculus test to study for, and the third, technically the first, went off as planned.  It ended up being a good thing the afternoon cleared off, because I ended up spending over two hours in the car instead, running Kaylee back and forth.  Here's how that went.

I leave the house at 2:45 pm to pick up Kaylee from school.  We get all the way back to Kokomo, in the drive-thru at Starbucks (the one that didn't get blown over in the tornado), and she checks her phone to find 13 phone calls from her band director.  One every 45 seconds or so.  She checks her voice mail to find that he wants her back there for a jazz band practice that started at 3:30.  (She also took a screen shot of her phone log of 13 calls in a row and sent it to him and said "Was that really necessary?" LOL)  So I turn around and run her back to school.  She doesn't know when it will be over, yet.  She has choir practice at 6 and needs pants and socks from home.  I drop her off at school at 3:45, and run back home, pick up her pants and socks, and she says "We're supposed to be done at 4:30 mom".  It's now already 4:10.  So I turn immediately around and drive back out to the school, getting there at 4:30.  Now what are we supposed to do between now and her choir practice at 6, and I have a board meeting at 6?  I went to the one fast food place in town, Subway, and we sat for an hour there.  I drove her back to school, then drove right to the school board meeting, where they were serving Subway for dinner . Was glad I ate with her so I could get what I wanted.  Usually they serve great home made Quaker food, but tonight short-cutted it, so, like I said, was glad I already ate.  ;)  Board meeting ran pretty late, and I got home about 8:30, 8:40 pm.  So from 2:45 until almost 5 pm I was actually driving one direction or the other from the school to the house.  It was a good thing my afternoon students canceled.

I leave this here with a quiet "Oh, the irony."

Day to Day

Well, Kaylee is sick.  She had band practice today, and she hates Saturday practices because they are early and long, and she's already missed one for not feeling well.  So she came into my room this morning at 7 and said she didn't feel well, and she was snuffling and stuffed up.  But she also had drama play practice and a birthday party today, so I reminded her she misses band she goes to nothing else, either.  She took some Tylenol for her headache and went to band, which went from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.  She had drama practice until almost 4, and then I came and got her, and she was definitely not feeling well.  She took a shower, laid down for a 15 minute nap, barely woke up in time to go to the party, but she didn't want to miss it because it's for a 16 year old boy in her class who was just diagnosed with bone cancer.  That's not good, by the way.  He hasn't started chemo yet but should be right away.  He had surgery to remove a tumor in his foot/leg.  So everyone came out to his party tonight, and had a good time.

When I picked her up, she couldn't hardly breathe through her nose at all, and she has now crawled into bed to try to sleep.  I thought it was allergies combined with not wanting to go to band, but no, she's actually sick.  Which stinks.  She has tomorrow to rest up, anyway, hopefully it helps.

Steve is buried in BBQ Bash details.  I'm just tired...

Blistering Baltimore

I was going to go with "Balmy" but that didn't quite cover it.  It was HOT and muggy out there.  I was up at 4 a.m., which is not appropriate, for the record.  :)

When I went to get the car out of the garage, there was a spider in the corner of the door staring at me.  I managed to get the key without touching him, opened the door, and as I swung the door open, the spider dropped.  Right onto the key.  I swung the door back and forth, and jiggled the door, but he sprawled onto the key and stuck there.  I ran past him, shut the door from the other side, and sent Steve an email that he was gonna have to get the key out of the garage door because right now a spider owned it and he could have it.

It was pitch black when we took off, and lightly raining.  We were just beating out a lot of heavier, less pleasant rain and storms, so the timing was perfect.  We didn't really say two words to each other for about an hour, and then we watched in silence as the sun cracked the darkness.  As I said on Facebook, As we were flying along in silence at a lowly 19,000', watching the pure, calm dark slowly break into morning, the gent with me finally said "I don't understand how anyone can come up here and see this once, and not want to do it for the rest of their lives." It's true.  I don't understand how anybody could not like flying sometimes.   Although it was a LITTLE EARLY for me.  ;)

We arrived at Baltimore before kids even started school this morning.  That is also wrong, for the record.  I was so tired, I hadn't slept much, and I wanted to take a nap, but the pilot's lounge was filled with pilots who wanted to watch politics on Fox News for the entire day at a loud volume.  Gah.   So I drank coffee and went for walks and tried to stay as normal as possible.

I was grateful for lunch time.  This time there was nobody who wanted to go elsewhere, so I went to the waterfront restaurant, and I usually try something new (at that place to me) when I go, so today I had the steamed mussels in garlic wine sauce with garlic toast points and a seafood/crab wrap.  Most. Excellent.  I ate outside even though it was 90 degrees, but I was under a deck with a light breeze and a view of the water, so it was going to happen.  The pilot's lounge there is so freezing cold all the time I bring a sweatshirt to wear indoors, which I did, and outdoors it was breathtakingly humid.  When we got in the plane to leave, I truly had trouble breathing it was so hot and muggy in there.  It felt like you were drowning almost.  Or at best in a serious sauna.  My eyelids were sweating.  My sweat was sweating.  I actually felt a little sick to my stomach from it.  Even up at 20,000' with the air conditioner on, the sun was beating in, and it was hot all the way home.  Even when we were picking up icing from some clouds it was hot in the airplane.  I felt drugged and drowsy all the way home.  About 5.2 hours of flight time today, over 6 hours yesterday.  We had some storms off to the side of us on the way home, but we avoided them, and Kokomo was fine when we landed.  Thankfully.

Now I'm trying to stay awake long enough to pick up Kaylee from a friend's house in Greentown where she is working on a Chemistry project.  Oh, and she also apparently joined "Jazz Band" today, and the band director was excited to have her.  Because Lord knows that girl doesn't have her finger in enough pies just yet!

Baltimore, early morning.

My view while I ate lunch.

Oh yeah...

The tasty little place on the water I enjoy visiting.  :)

Steamy Savannah

I thought 5:30 a.m. was early this morning, but tomorrow morning I have to be up at 4.  I'm not looking forward to that.

The flight to Savannah was uneventful, which I appreciate.  It was hot and muggy, and on our way home the airplane couldn't hardly cool off even at 18,000' where it was 32F, but...I did have a fresh grilled grouper sandwich at a restaurant on the water down there, and, well, that makes up for a lot.

I met a pilot board buddy down there.  He had an RV-10 that he built, and he and his daughter were out flying one day, and when he landed, his airplane literally exploded.  A spark lit off some fumes in the cockpit, and the whole thing was engulfed.  They both got out, both with some pretty bad burns.  His daughter won't get near an airplane again, and he still has some PTSD from it but does still fly with other people now and then.  Quite a story, really.  Anyway, he brought his girlfriend and came and picked me up at the airport and we all went to a nice restaurant where we sat outside but in the shade, watching the water go by.

Savannah is beautiful.  Old, wonderful architecture.  We drove on a cobblestone road, with old stone and brick walls around us.  My time there was shorter than expected so I didn't get to see as much as I hoped to, but at least I got to see a little.  And eat a fresh grilled grouper sandwich.  ;)

The FBO had topped me off, supposedly, but when we went to leave, I checked the fuel, and three out of the 5 tanks were low.  They'd put gas in it, but it had settled and they hadn't gotten it full.  So we had to delay while they came back out and got me full, because we needed every gallon for a reserve coming back with a headwind all the way from the edge of Georgia there.  So, new policy change.  From now on I'm going to note how many gallons was used to get somewhere, and then doublecheck the receipt to make sure they put in as much as they needed to.  That's twice in the last three trips an FBO at a MAJOR airport goofed up my fuel.  You expect it at Podunk.  You don't expect it in Baltimore or Savannah International.  Well, I didn't used to anyway.  From now on, I will.

It was after hours when we landed, but I'd called ahead and the line guy was waiting there to top us off, because I'll be wheels up for Baltimore 5-5:30 a.m.   I am SO getting extra good food out of this tomorrow.

Steve ran around like crazy today and did all the instructing on a nice hot day too.  Everyone is beat.

Old bridges, old stonework.

The restaurant we ate at was down this road, with the river behind us.

On final for Runway 28 at Savannah, where there are two tombstones in the middle of the runway.

Just because.