This evening Steve played all sorts of old music, from Elvis to Willy Nelson when he was clean shaven to super young Rolling Stones to young Johnny Cash, just a huge variety. Kaylee was at church, the TV was off, and we just sat and listened to it pour rain again behind the sounds of music from before I was born. It was relaxing.
Kokomo is flooding again. I ran into a pretty deep pile of water on my way to pick up Kaylee at church. The airport is a lake again. Several roads are flooded and we're under a flood advisory. I'm glad our houses are up on the hill. It'll be interesting to see how bad it is at Glenndale and down in the park tomorrow.
I was added to a C-172 group on Facebook, which made me kind of smile, but someone on there asked a question about becoming a CFI, and mentioned he went to Vincennes around 1990-1992. I piped up that that's the same time frame I was there. Come to find out, the guy was in my class, and he remembered me. He was engaged and lived with his fiance, whom he's now been married to for 27 years, and didn't have much to do with anyone. He knew the instructors, examiner, etc. that I did. He said he knew there was only one girl in his class most of the time, then a second came along later. It was quite a little walk down memory lane. He even remembered what happened later, but thought it was the other girl. I didn't bother to correct it, although if he brings me up to the examiner whom he was looking to reconnect with, and they talk old times like we did, he'll learn it anyway. I'l ljust let him and leave it be...
Interesting walk down memory lane, though.
Sunday, April 30, 2017
Saturday, April 29, 2017
Mu-Haha
Today was a dreary, blearly, grey, drippy, windy, cold, nasty day.
Kaylee stayed home all day and had nothing exciting to do. Her friend M just got her driver's license. Tonight was "Prom" at school, and since neither girl were able to go (you have to be dating a Jr. or Sr. to be able to go), they were going to go out together. Steve and I agreed she could ride with M even though M had a brand new license, because M is a quiet, calm, responsible young lady who I'm sure would be careful even if she's new, especially because she's new. But M's mom ended up putting a kibosh on it when she realized M wasn't on the car insurance. So...next time.
I asked Kaylee if she felt left out not going to prom, and she said not really. She has several friends going to prom, including other Sophomores who are going with Juniors or Seniors, and she could feel left out or sad about it, but she doesn't, at least not enough to admit to it, so that makes me kind of proud of her.
I had a flight today anyway, an IFR flight in the ole 172. A former student needed an IPC (Instrument Proficiency Check) prior to an interview with the regional airlines, scheduled for next week. She hadn't flown actual IFR in over 2 years, and hadn't flown an airplane at all in over 4 months. Today arrived with low IFR, and our 172RG with the WAAS GPS is down for engine overhaul, so all we had was the 172 with steam gauges and no GPS. But it does have two VORs and DME which is more equipment than I had when learning IFR, so hey. ;)
We waited until the worst of the rain moved through and the ceilings came up a little bit, and then we decided to do this flight in real IFR for the experience/practice of it for her. We went to Muncie, then Marion, then back to Kokomo. At Muncie the weather went downhill after we took off, with fog, low ceilings and low visibility. So we were shooting the VOR approach into there, as the only approach we could do there with the equipment we had, and had to do a real missed approach without ever seeing the ground. We went right from there to Marion, where we did an ILS approach, and broke out right at minimums. From there we got vectors for the ILS at Kokomo. It got a little more interesting there, because the winds were 080 at 14 gusting to 21. We needed to break out at least 500' high in order to be able to circle to land on Runway 5, as we couldn't shoot the RNAV 5 approach. We did not break out then, and where we did break out, at about 300', it was misty and cruddy enough I felt it was safer to make a tailwind landing, even gusting to 21 knots, than to try to circle to land into the wind. (The VOR is out of service at OKK so we couldn't shoot the VOR approach in, either.) The 172 with 6000' of runway and airspeed control can get down fine even with a stiff tailwind. We were done less than halfway down the runway. It was quite a throw into the deep end of the pool for the person who hadn't flown IFR in years and hadn't done any on "steam" before. Great practice, great experience for her. If this yucky weather holds out tomorrow, minus the thunderstorms rolling through right now, she's going to come back out and do a little more of it.
Steve and I went to dinner after we were both done at Kokomo. We went to Grindstone's, because he felt like one of their steaks. We get there, and it is Packed Out. They told us 35-45 minute wait. It was an hour and 15 minute wait. It is Prom Night at Kay's school, and quite a few prom folks were there eating in all their finery. We got there around 6:45, didn't get seated until after 8, and didn't leave until after 9:15. Long time to eat dinner, but it was good.
Nathan needed some stuff to work on BOB (Twin Beech), so I went to Hobby Lobby looking for it. The cashier looked at me like I had two heads, had never heard of it. Suggested I try JoAnn Fabric. I went there and found a few options, and hopefully one of them works/worked for him. It sounds so very domestic saying I went to two craft stores today, but in reality I was looking for a protective sheet with which Nathan could iron fabric on an old WWII Twin Beech without melting it. So of course it was airplanes again, and not domestic at all. ;)
Storms are rolling through right now, hard. I love the sound...
Kaylee stayed home all day and had nothing exciting to do. Her friend M just got her driver's license. Tonight was "Prom" at school, and since neither girl were able to go (you have to be dating a Jr. or Sr. to be able to go), they were going to go out together. Steve and I agreed she could ride with M even though M had a brand new license, because M is a quiet, calm, responsible young lady who I'm sure would be careful even if she's new, especially because she's new. But M's mom ended up putting a kibosh on it when she realized M wasn't on the car insurance. So...next time.
I asked Kaylee if she felt left out not going to prom, and she said not really. She has several friends going to prom, including other Sophomores who are going with Juniors or Seniors, and she could feel left out or sad about it, but she doesn't, at least not enough to admit to it, so that makes me kind of proud of her.
I had a flight today anyway, an IFR flight in the ole 172. A former student needed an IPC (Instrument Proficiency Check) prior to an interview with the regional airlines, scheduled for next week. She hadn't flown actual IFR in over 2 years, and hadn't flown an airplane at all in over 4 months. Today arrived with low IFR, and our 172RG with the WAAS GPS is down for engine overhaul, so all we had was the 172 with steam gauges and no GPS. But it does have two VORs and DME which is more equipment than I had when learning IFR, so hey. ;)
We waited until the worst of the rain moved through and the ceilings came up a little bit, and then we decided to do this flight in real IFR for the experience/practice of it for her. We went to Muncie, then Marion, then back to Kokomo. At Muncie the weather went downhill after we took off, with fog, low ceilings and low visibility. So we were shooting the VOR approach into there, as the only approach we could do there with the equipment we had, and had to do a real missed approach without ever seeing the ground. We went right from there to Marion, where we did an ILS approach, and broke out right at minimums. From there we got vectors for the ILS at Kokomo. It got a little more interesting there, because the winds were 080 at 14 gusting to 21. We needed to break out at least 500' high in order to be able to circle to land on Runway 5, as we couldn't shoot the RNAV 5 approach. We did not break out then, and where we did break out, at about 300', it was misty and cruddy enough I felt it was safer to make a tailwind landing, even gusting to 21 knots, than to try to circle to land into the wind. (The VOR is out of service at OKK so we couldn't shoot the VOR approach in, either.) The 172 with 6000' of runway and airspeed control can get down fine even with a stiff tailwind. We were done less than halfway down the runway. It was quite a throw into the deep end of the pool for the person who hadn't flown IFR in years and hadn't done any on "steam" before. Great practice, great experience for her. If this yucky weather holds out tomorrow, minus the thunderstorms rolling through right now, she's going to come back out and do a little more of it.
Steve and I went to dinner after we were both done at Kokomo. We went to Grindstone's, because he felt like one of their steaks. We get there, and it is Packed Out. They told us 35-45 minute wait. It was an hour and 15 minute wait. It is Prom Night at Kay's school, and quite a few prom folks were there eating in all their finery. We got there around 6:45, didn't get seated until after 8, and didn't leave until after 9:15. Long time to eat dinner, but it was good.
Nathan needed some stuff to work on BOB (Twin Beech), so I went to Hobby Lobby looking for it. The cashier looked at me like I had two heads, had never heard of it. Suggested I try JoAnn Fabric. I went there and found a few options, and hopefully one of them works/worked for him. It sounds so very domestic saying I went to two craft stores today, but in reality I was looking for a protective sheet with which Nathan could iron fabric on an old WWII Twin Beech without melting it. So of course it was airplanes again, and not domestic at all. ;)
Storms are rolling through right now, hard. I love the sound...
Fuh-Riday
I don't know what's happened where I suddenly forget to post here for days at a time. It just occurs to me that I haven't said anything in awhile. I'll work on getting better at that even if nothing interesting happens, just so you know we're still alive and well over here. :)
The last couple of days I've gotten quite a few things done that I needed to, actually making little lists for the day. I'll be honest, I hate To Do lists. It stems from having a Saturday (or incoming guest or other) chore list that almost never ended well, and I used to hate waking up and finding the list for the day. lol But I kept trying to remember what I wanted to do for the day and kept forgetting, so finally I wrote it down like the middle-aged woman I am apparently becoming. :p
Apparently a mother bunny made a nest and had babies in the middle of the taxiway area at Glenndale. Let's say that one baby bunny was brought into the lunch room, a tiny little fuzzy fellow, as small as my palm. I sent a picture of him to Kaylee, who promptly texted me in all capitals things like "I WANT TO HOLD HIM." and "BRING HIM HOME SO I CAN HOLD HIM". It really was an adorable little dude. I hope he (she, he, I didn't look that close nor know how rabbits...present). ;)
Justin G. took this picture of me with the bunny. Isn't it cuuuuute??
I've been asked to write an article for the WASP newsletter on either flying a T-6, or Kaylee and I flying in it. An article was already done on the two of us, so I don't know. It's due in two weeks so I need to focus and start coming up with something.
The recital where Kaylee sings and I play isn't until the 3rd week in May, so I have a couple more weeks on that. Her voice/piano teacher wants me to come with Kaylee for a lesson ahead of time so she can hear how it's going and offer any help. I don't blame her, I wouldn't put on a public recital without hearing how it was going to sound either. ;)
(Serious paragraph you may want to skip) There's a Netflix series called "13 Reasons". It's the story of a teenage girl who takes her own life. Before she does, she makes up 13 tapes that explains who the 13 people are that combined basically made her decide to end it all. There's a big hububub about it right now. I brought it up to Kaylee, who declared it "dumb" and not worth your time. Other parents are swearing it's a good way to open the door to talk about suicide with their teens. I just talk to Kaylee about it as it comes up normally, and I wouldn't really care to watch this with her unless she wanted to, which she didn't. But I watched, just to stay up on what's going around. I have to say, I am not the target audience for that series. The majority of the 13 reasons she gave, the same things or much worse happened to about every teenage kid I know, myself included. Somebody passed around an untruth about you? A guy pretended to like you only to get mad and say something mean if you weren't interested? You had a friend who you lost because of a misunderstanding? You were a new kid in school and didn't know too many people? Did anybody really ever get through Jr. High and High School without most of this stuff? She turned away from a friend, yelled and swore and screamed at him, and then blamed him when he didn't chase after her and make her feel better anyway? That may be a teen girl thing to do, but no. Last but not least she went to the school counselor to tell him about something that happened to her. He tried to help her but she wouldn't get specific or talk to him. Then she said she couldn't for sure say what happened, and wouldn't confront the person, and couldn't press charges against him, so the counselor said if she wouldn't or couldn't do any of those things, she'd have to find a way to move on and he'd be happy to help her. She went home and ended it there, blaming him as her last chance at life, and after she yelled at him and said she was going to move on, she waited outside his door for HIM to chase after her. He "failed" her when he didn't know that, somehow. People aren't mind readers. All she had to do was say to someone, anyone "I am having suicidal thoughts, can you help me", and her loving parents, the caring counselor, and several of her friends would have been right there. But she didn't do any of that, just hid it all and then blamed everyone else. She chose what she chose, and it is sad, but it is not 13 people's fault. She made those tapes to get back at everyone who hurt her feelings, having them passed around after she was gone. And so far I've already heard of one teenager a friend of mine knows who took her own life and left notes for everyone, referencing this movie. Great. It was overblown, cheesy, and unfair, and Kaylee's initial assessment was right on. So it's a sad topic, and probably a good one to bring up these days, but this series wouldn't be how I'd choose to portray it. Everyone's talking about how she felt she had no choice/options, how it's good to see how these things happen. And I, as usual, didn't appreciate the current majority sheep opinion of something. She was beautiful, physically attractive, confident and sarcastic, had more friends than lots of people do, outgoing in many regards, talented and smart, had parents who were there, engaged, and loved her, and they picked this character to be a high suicide threat. You know, instead of the geeky, unattractive, painfully shy, picked on, awkward kid who usually bears the brunt of high school bullies and shenanigans and really does feel like there might not be any hope of anything better to come. I don't know. Hopefully the series does no harm, that's all.
The weather is going to kill off tomorrow's flying, I'm sure, which is okay with me. I feel like sleeping in, if I can.
Kaylee has tomorrow off, and as far as I know has no big plans other than homework, which she will probably procrastinate on until Sunday. She crawled up in my chair with me again this afternoon, and fell asleep. Lately she's been doing that almost every day. I think I'm her safe and comfy space to take a nap. Yes, I'm okay with that, even if it makes my arm go numb and I can't get up to go to the bathroom and I can't sleep myself or do much of anything else while she's asleep. She's too cute to disturb, and I'll gladly take it.
The last couple of days I've gotten quite a few things done that I needed to, actually making little lists for the day. I'll be honest, I hate To Do lists. It stems from having a Saturday (or incoming guest or other) chore list that almost never ended well, and I used to hate waking up and finding the list for the day. lol But I kept trying to remember what I wanted to do for the day and kept forgetting, so finally I wrote it down like the middle-aged woman I am apparently becoming. :p
Apparently a mother bunny made a nest and had babies in the middle of the taxiway area at Glenndale. Let's say that one baby bunny was brought into the lunch room, a tiny little fuzzy fellow, as small as my palm. I sent a picture of him to Kaylee, who promptly texted me in all capitals things like "I WANT TO HOLD HIM." and "BRING HIM HOME SO I CAN HOLD HIM". It really was an adorable little dude. I hope he (she, he, I didn't look that close nor know how rabbits...present). ;)
Justin G. took this picture of me with the bunny. Isn't it cuuuuute??
I've been asked to write an article for the WASP newsletter on either flying a T-6, or Kaylee and I flying in it. An article was already done on the two of us, so I don't know. It's due in two weeks so I need to focus and start coming up with something.
The recital where Kaylee sings and I play isn't until the 3rd week in May, so I have a couple more weeks on that. Her voice/piano teacher wants me to come with Kaylee for a lesson ahead of time so she can hear how it's going and offer any help. I don't blame her, I wouldn't put on a public recital without hearing how it was going to sound either. ;)
(Serious paragraph you may want to skip) There's a Netflix series called "13 Reasons". It's the story of a teenage girl who takes her own life. Before she does, she makes up 13 tapes that explains who the 13 people are that combined basically made her decide to end it all. There's a big hububub about it right now. I brought it up to Kaylee, who declared it "dumb" and not worth your time. Other parents are swearing it's a good way to open the door to talk about suicide with their teens. I just talk to Kaylee about it as it comes up normally, and I wouldn't really care to watch this with her unless she wanted to, which she didn't. But I watched, just to stay up on what's going around. I have to say, I am not the target audience for that series. The majority of the 13 reasons she gave, the same things or much worse happened to about every teenage kid I know, myself included. Somebody passed around an untruth about you? A guy pretended to like you only to get mad and say something mean if you weren't interested? You had a friend who you lost because of a misunderstanding? You were a new kid in school and didn't know too many people? Did anybody really ever get through Jr. High and High School without most of this stuff? She turned away from a friend, yelled and swore and screamed at him, and then blamed him when he didn't chase after her and make her feel better anyway? That may be a teen girl thing to do, but no. Last but not least she went to the school counselor to tell him about something that happened to her. He tried to help her but she wouldn't get specific or talk to him. Then she said she couldn't for sure say what happened, and wouldn't confront the person, and couldn't press charges against him, so the counselor said if she wouldn't or couldn't do any of those things, she'd have to find a way to move on and he'd be happy to help her. She went home and ended it there, blaming him as her last chance at life, and after she yelled at him and said she was going to move on, she waited outside his door for HIM to chase after her. He "failed" her when he didn't know that, somehow. People aren't mind readers. All she had to do was say to someone, anyone "I am having suicidal thoughts, can you help me", and her loving parents, the caring counselor, and several of her friends would have been right there. But she didn't do any of that, just hid it all and then blamed everyone else. She chose what she chose, and it is sad, but it is not 13 people's fault. She made those tapes to get back at everyone who hurt her feelings, having them passed around after she was gone. And so far I've already heard of one teenager a friend of mine knows who took her own life and left notes for everyone, referencing this movie. Great. It was overblown, cheesy, and unfair, and Kaylee's initial assessment was right on. So it's a sad topic, and probably a good one to bring up these days, but this series wouldn't be how I'd choose to portray it. Everyone's talking about how she felt she had no choice/options, how it's good to see how these things happen. And I, as usual, didn't appreciate the current majority sheep opinion of something. She was beautiful, physically attractive, confident and sarcastic, had more friends than lots of people do, outgoing in many regards, talented and smart, had parents who were there, engaged, and loved her, and they picked this character to be a high suicide threat. You know, instead of the geeky, unattractive, painfully shy, picked on, awkward kid who usually bears the brunt of high school bullies and shenanigans and really does feel like there might not be any hope of anything better to come. I don't know. Hopefully the series does no harm, that's all.
The weather is going to kill off tomorrow's flying, I'm sure, which is okay with me. I feel like sleeping in, if I can.
Kaylee has tomorrow off, and as far as I know has no big plans other than homework, which she will probably procrastinate on until Sunday. She crawled up in my chair with me again this afternoon, and fell asleep. Lately she's been doing that almost every day. I think I'm her safe and comfy space to take a nap. Yes, I'm okay with that, even if it makes my arm go numb and I can't get up to go to the bathroom and I can't sleep myself or do much of anything else while she's asleep. She's too cute to disturb, and I'll gladly take it.
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Quickly
I had flights from 1:30 pm until my last flight ended at 10 pm. There were a couple breaks in there, one of which I used to top off my car with gas and go eat a quick dinner, but I didn't get home until 10:30 or so when I left at 11:40 a.m. for lunch. Kind of a long day, but productive, got the flying in and done on a beautiful weather day for it. The Champ at Glenndale for some tailwheel fun, the 172 at Kokomo for some pattern practice, and the 172 at night for some night takeoffs and landings. Good enough.
Monday, April 24, 2017
It Is Well
I was driving in the car Sunday morning, and all the Kokomo radio stations go to Christian music or a live sermon during the morning. As I was on my way to pick up Kaylee, I heard a beautiful rendition of "It Is Well" on the radio, that gave me chills. It also made me think of Richard. Today I was flying to Ohio with the Christian music station on, and I heard "It Is Well". Again, it made me think of Richard. I land, and look at the dates and a few things, and realize that today is Richard's birthday.
I don't know, I just get the feeling that we are supposed to know that It Is Well...
Happy Birthday in heaven, Richard, surrounded by so many you love and who love you, and knowing that we're down here remembering too.
I know this was at his funeral and not a birthday, but love is love, and this is the song, and it apparently wanted to be heard, or someone wanted us to hear it!
I don't know, I just get the feeling that we are supposed to know that It Is Well...
Happy Birthday in heaven, Richard, surrounded by so many you love and who love you, and knowing that we're down here remembering too.
I know this was at his funeral and not a birthday, but love is love, and this is the song, and it apparently wanted to be heard, or someone wanted us to hear it!
Sunday, April 23, 2017
Rest Day
Kaylee had a church activity this morning, singing with the Starlets and Encore groups at a local church at the direction of their choir director. We still don't really know how she gets away with having the girls do that, because they're pretty much required to, but 99% of the girls don't mind at all. One girl who claims to think she might be gay had to listen to a sermon against homosexuality last time and was a little unthrilled about that. The rest seem to enjoy doing it. They sounded amazing, the two groups together, in that venue, they had great acoustics and sounded most excellent. Kaylee hugged Mrs. E., as it's the first time she's seen her since she was picked to be in Encore. Kaylee said another choir officer told her she was in the top 10 of auditions, and also that they knew as of Friday afternoon that she was "in" Encore. She was a given before the rest of the list was complete. So that made her feel good. She's so excited for next year.
Kaylee hung out with me most of the afternoon, taking a nap on me even, and then we left to go pick up her friend M, and I took them both to youth group. After I dropped them off, I grabbed the Cub and a friend, and went up flying for a little over an hour. It was such a beautiful day for it. I mean, 70 degrees, clear blue skies, light winds, it was a dream day for it.
I'm in the pretty white one, 4SD.
Kaylee hung out with me most of the afternoon, taking a nap on me even, and then we left to go pick up her friend M, and I took them both to youth group. After I dropped them off, I grabbed the Cub and a friend, and went up flying for a little over an hour. It was such a beautiful day for it. I mean, 70 degrees, clear blue skies, light winds, it was a dream day for it.
I'm in the pretty white one, 4SD.
Kaylee's Tiara. ;)
John and I in the Cub.
Saturday, April 22, 2017
First Things First
So, Kaylee.
Thursday night was auditions. I took her there at 8:45 pm, and waited in the parking lot for an hour for her to get done. I spent most of that time praying. I felt in part silly praying so hard for her to be calm, for her to do her best, for her to be focused, to perform as well as she's practiced. I didn't pray for her to "get in", I prayed for her to do her best, and wherever the chips fall from there would be fair and right. I found out later that's pretty much what everyone else was praying for too. We figure God's up there going "All these things I have going on up here, I HEAR you people, now HUSH!" ;)
She came out of the audition, and said "I nailed it, Mom." Whew. Step one out of the way. If she didn't get in, it wouldn't be because she botched up the audition. She worked, she prepared, she practiced, and she performed under pressure, and that is all anyone can do.
Friday was a very long day. She had to wait until after school to find out the results. During the morning, she found out that the choir director was still stewing over three slots and the list wasn't even finalized yet. We texted back and forth a few times, with some nerves. I wasn't able to focus very well on other stuff, even. Finally when school was about over, I drove over (early because I couldn't sit at home any more), and stopped at the ice cream place and picked up some mint chocolate chip. We'd talked about how I'd have ice cream when I picked her up, and it would either be celebratory or consoling. She sent me a message that someone was going to have a photo of the list early, and should she look early or wait like she was supposed to. She decided to wait. The bell rang, and some of her friends had not waited. She didn't get three steps down the hall before one of her friends ran after her yelling "KAYLEE, YOU MADE IT!!" Another friend came running up and hugged her with a congratulations, a third came up and said "You're a Soprano!" She never made it down to the list before people were telling her left and right. She took a photo of the list for her own personal enjoyment, and then sent out texts to me, Steve, her voice teacher, her grandparents, everyone she could think of. She got in the car and was eating her ice cream, and "ding", she was notified that "Encore 2017-2018 is now following you on Twitter" and she was tagged in an Encore post. Those people work FAST on social media. She barely got to the car before she was added as one of the group. She's so excited. She's so thrilled. There are a few positives she's looking forward to. Now that she's in the group, she never has to audition for the group again for real. She won't be kicked out unless she does something awful. She has a big likelihood of getting a good role in upcoming musicals. She'll always be automatically "in" on dancing scenes like the ballroom scene. The group is very close, and they're already quite of few of them her friends, so she's going to have a fun, social time with it. And she gets to call the choir director by "Aunt Carol", something only this group does. She still randomly comes up to me and says "Hey Mom. I got into Encore." It was one of her best days. She is a bit of an inspiration to me and doesn't really know it. She puts herself out there, pushes, tries, gets rejected, tries harder, and achieves most of what she aims at. A girl who wouldn't sing in the car in front of her mom stands in front of a dozen of her peers and is being judged and graded for her worth to be in their group. Teachers, parents, and students. I don't think I could have done that. I wouldn't want to do it today. I don't much want to do this recital where I have to play in front of people. Unless I still have enough time to get it right. But man, if she can put herself out there, I can't be the one to chicken out. Especially since she thinks I'm not scared of much of anything. She's right in a way, I'm not scared of a lot...but public performance and potential humiliation is not real high up on my list of things that excite me. ;)
This morning Steve was up super early and out to the airport by 7. I was out there by 8. Steve T grilled up an Oshkosh style breakfast, bacon and eggs and pancakes and omelets and hash browns and OJ and milk and coffee and...deeeelicious. We hosted the B2OSH (Bonanzas to Oshkosh) formation clinic. They had about 9 people who were scheduled to come, but all but 3 ended up unable to make it. John let me borrow his Bonanza, so I was a 4th. The first flight we did two two-ships. New guy and Glenn, and me and Dave. New guy had flown formation for one day a year ago. I hadn't flown formation in 8 months, had never flown formation in the Bonanza, and hadn't flown this Bonanza except one time a year ago when I brought it back from California. Dave had just bought a Baron and had never flown formation with it. So everybody but Glenn was a newbie of sorts. The day progressed great. New guy got so good he didn't need a safety pilot any more. I figured out the vernier throttle and turbocharged engine having a little lag time by the end, was a little rusty at first on station keeping and figuring out stuff, but nailed both my rejoins, and the element takeoff and landing. What that means is the two of us took off side by side together, and landed together, me on the left side of the runway, him on the right side of the runway, and never the two shall cross their lines. :) What was really funny though, was the plane was so unfamiliar to me, I couldn't find the fuel pump. I couldn't find the trim wheel. I couldn't find the fuel selector. These things were all hidden and in awkward positions. The fuel selector and the fuel pump I found while I was on the ground prior to starting up, so I'd be ready. The gear, which is hidden behind a post, I found by feel repeatedly until I knew I could pull it without looking down at it. I forgot about the trim wheel. On take off, it pitched up pretty hard, and I couldn't hardly push it down enough, and I couldn't find the manual wheel. Finally I got it all down. The second flight of the day I was comfortable with the plane and everything went pretty well. It was fun.
Kaylee texted me "Did you just fly over our house? I saw you." I said yes, and she said "Are you texting and flying??" I said no, I'd just landed. I do text and fly, but not in the middle of a 4-ship formation. lol Later she said she heard us and went running outside and saw us changing positions in the formation.
When I walked in the door, Kaylee said "I can always tell when you've been flying. Like today. When you walked in, your hair was kind of messy and you were happy."
Thursday night was auditions. I took her there at 8:45 pm, and waited in the parking lot for an hour for her to get done. I spent most of that time praying. I felt in part silly praying so hard for her to be calm, for her to do her best, for her to be focused, to perform as well as she's practiced. I didn't pray for her to "get in", I prayed for her to do her best, and wherever the chips fall from there would be fair and right. I found out later that's pretty much what everyone else was praying for too. We figure God's up there going "All these things I have going on up here, I HEAR you people, now HUSH!" ;)
She came out of the audition, and said "I nailed it, Mom." Whew. Step one out of the way. If she didn't get in, it wouldn't be because she botched up the audition. She worked, she prepared, she practiced, and she performed under pressure, and that is all anyone can do.
Friday was a very long day. She had to wait until after school to find out the results. During the morning, she found out that the choir director was still stewing over three slots and the list wasn't even finalized yet. We texted back and forth a few times, with some nerves. I wasn't able to focus very well on other stuff, even. Finally when school was about over, I drove over (early because I couldn't sit at home any more), and stopped at the ice cream place and picked up some mint chocolate chip. We'd talked about how I'd have ice cream when I picked her up, and it would either be celebratory or consoling. She sent me a message that someone was going to have a photo of the list early, and should she look early or wait like she was supposed to. She decided to wait. The bell rang, and some of her friends had not waited. She didn't get three steps down the hall before one of her friends ran after her yelling "KAYLEE, YOU MADE IT!!" Another friend came running up and hugged her with a congratulations, a third came up and said "You're a Soprano!" She never made it down to the list before people were telling her left and right. She took a photo of the list for her own personal enjoyment, and then sent out texts to me, Steve, her voice teacher, her grandparents, everyone she could think of. She got in the car and was eating her ice cream, and "ding", she was notified that "Encore 2017-2018 is now following you on Twitter" and she was tagged in an Encore post. Those people work FAST on social media. She barely got to the car before she was added as one of the group. She's so excited. She's so thrilled. There are a few positives she's looking forward to. Now that she's in the group, she never has to audition for the group again for real. She won't be kicked out unless she does something awful. She has a big likelihood of getting a good role in upcoming musicals. She'll always be automatically "in" on dancing scenes like the ballroom scene. The group is very close, and they're already quite of few of them her friends, so she's going to have a fun, social time with it. And she gets to call the choir director by "Aunt Carol", something only this group does. She still randomly comes up to me and says "Hey Mom. I got into Encore." It was one of her best days. She is a bit of an inspiration to me and doesn't really know it. She puts herself out there, pushes, tries, gets rejected, tries harder, and achieves most of what she aims at. A girl who wouldn't sing in the car in front of her mom stands in front of a dozen of her peers and is being judged and graded for her worth to be in their group. Teachers, parents, and students. I don't think I could have done that. I wouldn't want to do it today. I don't much want to do this recital where I have to play in front of people. Unless I still have enough time to get it right. But man, if she can put herself out there, I can't be the one to chicken out. Especially since she thinks I'm not scared of much of anything. She's right in a way, I'm not scared of a lot...but public performance and potential humiliation is not real high up on my list of things that excite me. ;)
This morning Steve was up super early and out to the airport by 7. I was out there by 8. Steve T grilled up an Oshkosh style breakfast, bacon and eggs and pancakes and omelets and hash browns and OJ and milk and coffee and...deeeelicious. We hosted the B2OSH (Bonanzas to Oshkosh) formation clinic. They had about 9 people who were scheduled to come, but all but 3 ended up unable to make it. John let me borrow his Bonanza, so I was a 4th. The first flight we did two two-ships. New guy and Glenn, and me and Dave. New guy had flown formation for one day a year ago. I hadn't flown formation in 8 months, had never flown formation in the Bonanza, and hadn't flown this Bonanza except one time a year ago when I brought it back from California. Dave had just bought a Baron and had never flown formation with it. So everybody but Glenn was a newbie of sorts. The day progressed great. New guy got so good he didn't need a safety pilot any more. I figured out the vernier throttle and turbocharged engine having a little lag time by the end, was a little rusty at first on station keeping and figuring out stuff, but nailed both my rejoins, and the element takeoff and landing. What that means is the two of us took off side by side together, and landed together, me on the left side of the runway, him on the right side of the runway, and never the two shall cross their lines. :) What was really funny though, was the plane was so unfamiliar to me, I couldn't find the fuel pump. I couldn't find the trim wheel. I couldn't find the fuel selector. These things were all hidden and in awkward positions. The fuel selector and the fuel pump I found while I was on the ground prior to starting up, so I'd be ready. The gear, which is hidden behind a post, I found by feel repeatedly until I knew I could pull it without looking down at it. I forgot about the trim wheel. On take off, it pitched up pretty hard, and I couldn't hardly push it down enough, and I couldn't find the manual wheel. Finally I got it all down. The second flight of the day I was comfortable with the plane and everything went pretty well. It was fun.
Kaylee texted me "Did you just fly over our house? I saw you." I said yes, and she said "Are you texting and flying??" I said no, I'd just landed. I do text and fly, but not in the middle of a 4-ship formation. lol Later she said she heard us and went running outside and saw us changing positions in the formation.
When I walked in the door, Kaylee said "I can always tell when you've been flying. Like today. When you walked in, your hair was kind of messy and you were happy."
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Hump Day
I think I finally saw a little progress today on the piano piece. Not good enough to be "live" yet, but at least there's hope I'll get it eventually. The sad thing is, the piece isn't that hard, and would have been nothing to learn how I used to play. Goes to show the deterioration of skill sets that aren't used. ;)
I had a flight today in the Champ with a tailwheel guy. His second flight with me. The first day we had gusty winds, up to 25 knots or so. Today we had gusty winds again, up to 24-25 knots last I heard. There were storms all to the south, west and north of us. We just stayed in the pattern until one of the cells aimed at us and my windshield was getting wet, then came on in for a final landing. We did three-point and wheel crosswind takeoffs and landings on grass, and he did really well with it. So we ended after an hour, and next up I take him to Kokomo for some concrete work. We'll see how that goes...
Kaylee practiced her song and dance for auditions tonight for us. The dance it top notch. I don't see how that can get any better. The song, she's not "American Idol" quality, but her voice is getting strong, and she's on tune and in rhythm and sounds good. So we shall see. Her audition is late tomorrow night, around 9 pm. She'll find out Friday after school how it went. She's nervous. So are we.
My student turning final in the Champ.
The cell that eventually made us land, as it grew large, heavy, and serious.
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Tuesday
I was just up and starting to practice the piano this morning, when Steve called and said "How long would it take you to get the house ready for the cleaning people? Yeah, that's today". I had 15 minutes before they were supposed to arrive, I hadn't showered, the house was in disarray. I tore through that house, including Kaylee's room, had the whole thing picked up, dishes put away and dirty dishes in the dishwasher, clothes off the table, all the clutter picked up, in 15 minutes flat, and was out of the house within 10 minutes of them arriving. That was talent, I tell you, talent.
Jon had adjusted the idle lean mixture on the T-6, so it needed pulled out, started, and run on the ground. Well, if you're going to go to the effort of pulling it out and starting it up, it would be silly not to at least take it around. So I took off, flew by Glenndale, and came back in, for a quick run. Messed up my hair for the rest of the day, but that's a small price to pay. That is not a bad way to start your morning. The big hangar door was being worked on again, so I parked out on the ramp. It was a windy day, up over 20 knots, but close to the runway, and warm, and sunny, and blue, and beautiful...
After lunch I did come home and practice the piano for awhile. I'm not sure I'm getting any better. But...I must be, right? lol
I had one more lesson today, a checkride prep flight. Winds were up to 24 knots and it was bumpy, but that makes it good practice. If you can do it within standards on a bumpy, windy day, you can certainly do it within standards on a smoother, quieter day.
Steve was out there with a student too, and when we were done we contemplated taking up something to go do some practice, but the winds hadn't calmed down yet and we were both tired and hungry. So we went to Red Lobster for dinner instead.
Kaylee had "Academic Bowl" after school today. The bus took her to Western School, and they had events all evening. Her team came in very well in all categories except English, which is funny, but not great. I went to pick her up at 9:30 pm, she needed food, and we were home around 10, finally.
Jon had adjusted the idle lean mixture on the T-6, so it needed pulled out, started, and run on the ground. Well, if you're going to go to the effort of pulling it out and starting it up, it would be silly not to at least take it around. So I took off, flew by Glenndale, and came back in, for a quick run. Messed up my hair for the rest of the day, but that's a small price to pay. That is not a bad way to start your morning. The big hangar door was being worked on again, so I parked out on the ramp. It was a windy day, up over 20 knots, but close to the runway, and warm, and sunny, and blue, and beautiful...
After lunch I did come home and practice the piano for awhile. I'm not sure I'm getting any better. But...I must be, right? lol
I had one more lesson today, a checkride prep flight. Winds were up to 24 knots and it was bumpy, but that makes it good practice. If you can do it within standards on a bumpy, windy day, you can certainly do it within standards on a smoother, quieter day.
Steve was out there with a student too, and when we were done we contemplated taking up something to go do some practice, but the winds hadn't calmed down yet and we were both tired and hungry. So we went to Red Lobster for dinner instead.
Kaylee had "Academic Bowl" after school today. The bus took her to Western School, and they had events all evening. Her team came in very well in all categories except English, which is funny, but not great. I went to pick her up at 9:30 pm, she needed food, and we were home around 10, finally.
The welder working on 'our' door hinge.
His hard-working (seriously) wife sitting below.
His hard-working (seriously) wife sitting below.
Messy-headed Post-T6 flight head. :)
Monday, April 17, 2017
Back At It
Finally, today I woke up and actually felt good, all day. Woo hoo!
During the morning hours I practiced off and on for a couple hours on the piano. You'd think I'd be really good at it by now, but no, still not able to do it without too many mistakes, and still not able to do it as fast as it should be. I'll keep working on it.
After lunch we ran out to Glenndale as Ron was working on the Glenndale Champ. It is having starting issues, so he messed with the fuel in it. Eventually we figured out what might be the problem, and it's not something that can be quickly fixed right now, so he left the fuel "rich" and we have to work around it to get it started and keep it running at first. So after some work and a few starts, I took it around the pattern once real quick to test fly it and make sure it was good to go for students later, until we get a chance to fix the actual issue.
I then had students from 3-7 p.m. in the 172. They're both brand new, on their first few flights, which is always hard as there is so much information and so much going on. But it was a beautiful day to fly, weather was great, winds were light, and it made for a great training day.
At 7 I came home and picked up Kaylee and took her to the mall. She needed to buy a dress for her Encore audition. She goes to this one store in the mall where they have clearance sales all the time. She got six dresses/shirts of clothing and two pair of shoes for $80. That's amazing. She couldn't decide which of three dresses she wanted to wear, and they were under $10 each, so we got them. Her auditions (dance and singing) are Thursday.
Finally home for good before 9 pm. Long day, but productive and good.
During the morning hours I practiced off and on for a couple hours on the piano. You'd think I'd be really good at it by now, but no, still not able to do it without too many mistakes, and still not able to do it as fast as it should be. I'll keep working on it.
After lunch we ran out to Glenndale as Ron was working on the Glenndale Champ. It is having starting issues, so he messed with the fuel in it. Eventually we figured out what might be the problem, and it's not something that can be quickly fixed right now, so he left the fuel "rich" and we have to work around it to get it started and keep it running at first. So after some work and a few starts, I took it around the pattern once real quick to test fly it and make sure it was good to go for students later, until we get a chance to fix the actual issue.
I then had students from 3-7 p.m. in the 172. They're both brand new, on their first few flights, which is always hard as there is so much information and so much going on. But it was a beautiful day to fly, weather was great, winds were light, and it made for a great training day.
At 7 I came home and picked up Kaylee and took her to the mall. She needed to buy a dress for her Encore audition. She goes to this one store in the mall where they have clearance sales all the time. She got six dresses/shirts of clothing and two pair of shoes for $80. That's amazing. She couldn't decide which of three dresses she wanted to wear, and they were under $10 each, so we got them. Her auditions (dance and singing) are Thursday.
Finally home for good before 9 pm. Long day, but productive and good.
Sunday, April 16, 2017
Easter
Kaylee played the saxophone for the church she attends, said it went well, and then was the person who moved the slides with words during the singing part of the music service. I picked her up, and then Steve and I went out to eat breakfast. Kaylee was tired and didn't want to go, but felt so bad not going she was going to come anyway, afraid that we'd be sad that she wasn't joining us. Nice kid, but we told her we were fine. :)
I ended up still not feeling well, headache this afternoon, which finally went away around 9:30 pm. I think it's seasonal. Yesterday my eyes wouldn't stop running and today I could feel the pressure in my head. I'm soooo over this. Spending Easter with a pounding headache is great.
But our tree in our front yard is blooming so beautifully. Talk about Spring, Rebirth, Easter...
This was a sign at the restaurant we had breakfast at this morning. I sent it to Kay. :)
Saturday, April 15, 2017
Tailwheel Saturday
The winds were supposed to be pretty high today, but I had two guys from Lafayette who have been cancelled for two or three weeks in a row because of weather who wanted to get started on a tailwheel endorsement. They came out 30 minutes earlier so we could hopefully get more in before the wind moved in, and when we started the winds were about a 40 degree crosswind at 12-13 knots. I took the one guy first, and we flew for just under an hour, and then I could tell the winds were kicking up. So I suggested we land and let the next guy go before it got too rough. He and I took off, and it was already rough. We did air work, then came in to land. By now the winds were up to about 25 knots, at 40-50 degrees off the runway, so in the light Champ that's a workout, especially for someone's first tailwheel lesson. We got two landings in, and he called Uncle. All in all it went great, and the first guy loved it so much he talked it up to his roommate, who wants to come out and fly too, at least once. This all came about from the talk I gave at Purdue to their flight club, about tailwheels. So two new members getting their tailwheel endorsements and one guy coming out for a Discovery Flight, months later, and they're having a lot of fun with it, so that's great. :)
The only bad thing was that somewhere at the end of the first flight, my head started hurting. By the end of the second flight, it hurt enough that I felt sick to my stomach. So I got some food, and caffeine, and tried to combat that, but it didn't work and I couldn't even finish the food. I wanted to nap but Kaylee wanted to sit out here and talk with me, so we talked for a couple hours. Then I told her I needed a nap...laid on the couch, just started to doze off, and someone came to my back door knocking. I dealt with that, and then couldn't sleep again, and she had a birthday party to attend anyway. I drove her to the store to get the gift, out to the party, and then she needed picked up in an hour anyway, then Steve was home, and...I am officially tired of feeling yucky! The head got better, but I have these circles under my eyes and my eyes won't stop running and I'm not hungry, can't eat anything, and I'm almost done whining now. ;)
Tomorrow Kaylee is playing the saxophone with some string instruments at the early morning church service for Easter. She was practicing tonight, and wanted to speed up the song because it was hard to hold her breath that long. I told her she could not jazz up and speed up the stately Easter song. She promptly belted it out at double the speed, and it was really funny. She wouldn't let me record her doing it, but I can just picture the folks at church and their faces if she did that during the service. Heh.
Here are a couple photos from the back seat of the Champ today. I hadn't been in that Champ since December of 2015, which really surprises me...but it has been down for quite awhile, so...
The only bad thing was that somewhere at the end of the first flight, my head started hurting. By the end of the second flight, it hurt enough that I felt sick to my stomach. So I got some food, and caffeine, and tried to combat that, but it didn't work and I couldn't even finish the food. I wanted to nap but Kaylee wanted to sit out here and talk with me, so we talked for a couple hours. Then I told her I needed a nap...laid on the couch, just started to doze off, and someone came to my back door knocking. I dealt with that, and then couldn't sleep again, and she had a birthday party to attend anyway. I drove her to the store to get the gift, out to the party, and then she needed picked up in an hour anyway, then Steve was home, and...I am officially tired of feeling yucky! The head got better, but I have these circles under my eyes and my eyes won't stop running and I'm not hungry, can't eat anything, and I'm almost done whining now. ;)
Tomorrow Kaylee is playing the saxophone with some string instruments at the early morning church service for Easter. She was practicing tonight, and wanted to speed up the song because it was hard to hold her breath that long. I told her she could not jazz up and speed up the stately Easter song. She promptly belted it out at double the speed, and it was really funny. She wouldn't let me record her doing it, but I can just picture the folks at church and their faces if she did that during the service. Heh.
Here are a couple photos from the back seat of the Champ today. I hadn't been in that Champ since December of 2015, which really surprises me...but it has been down for quite awhile, so...
The purple flowers in the field next to us were really pretty, I enjoyed them.
Dandelions, purple weeds, grass runway, muddy wing, I like all of these things.
Friday, April 14, 2017
Springing
I tried to go to bed at a good hour. Instead, I ended up lying there awake for a couple hours, until I got up and read a book on the couch. Finally around 2 am I took a sleeping pill, since I was still wide awake and didn't have to get up early in the morning. Well, finally went to sleep around 3 am. I was only able to sleep until 8:30 or so, so I continue my days of feeling a little bit like a beaten-up zombie.
Fortunately, while I stayed busy doing various things, I only had one flight, with a young man, his first flight in an airplane. His dad went along, a friend of Nathan's, which is how they got hooked up with us. Nice family, the kid is probably going to switch over to a flight major at Purdue and everyone thought it would be a good idea if he'd actually been in an airplane first to make sure he actually liked it and could handle it. He did. :)
Tonight was AE's birthday, so at the last minute Steve and AE decided to go to eat, so I met them at Half Moon for dinner. We sat around outside in the back yard for awhile, the guys lit a fire when it got dark, and it's nice and warm. I smelled cut grass today, as I walked around in a t-shirt and even felt my face get a little sweaty in the airplane before we got the engine running and the air moving. Spring really feels like it's here, today. It felt good.
I just caught my logbook up tonight too, and realize that I finally broke 1000 hours tailwheel time with my last flight--in the T-6. That seems appropriate. I like that.
Fortunately, while I stayed busy doing various things, I only had one flight, with a young man, his first flight in an airplane. His dad went along, a friend of Nathan's, which is how they got hooked up with us. Nice family, the kid is probably going to switch over to a flight major at Purdue and everyone thought it would be a good idea if he'd actually been in an airplane first to make sure he actually liked it and could handle it. He did. :)
Tonight was AE's birthday, so at the last minute Steve and AE decided to go to eat, so I met them at Half Moon for dinner. We sat around outside in the back yard for awhile, the guys lit a fire when it got dark, and it's nice and warm. I smelled cut grass today, as I walked around in a t-shirt and even felt my face get a little sweaty in the airplane before we got the engine running and the air moving. Spring really feels like it's here, today. It felt good.
I just caught my logbook up tonight too, and realize that I finally broke 1000 hours tailwheel time with my last flight--in the T-6. That seems appropriate. I like that.
Thursday, April 13, 2017
Still Hopping
(Skip the first paragraph if you don't want to read about bad dreams). For some reason I woke up at 3 am, had the weirdest and most unpleasant dreams. A friend of mine was standing in line at Sam's Club, and he looked homeless and acted completely vacant mentally. I had to escort him out of the store, and I was shocked and horrified in my dream. Then I was standing outside looking up and grinning at a large jet formation at dusk. Like a dozen of them. Enjoying the view, you know? Two of them moved into place behind the rest--and collided. I saw one streak downward and hit the ground, and as I'm horrified, suddenly I see the second one also lost control and balled into the whole formation. There was fire all over the sky as they all collided and fell and I just stood there stunned. I had about 4 dreams in a row like those, all weird and bad, and I couldn't sleep at all after 3 am. So when I had to get up at 5:30, I was not feeling it. I was exhausted. Fortunately it was good weather.
I had a student I didn't want to cancel this morning, so I took her along with us to Ohio at the crack of dawn, and she enjoyed that. :) I had this thing timed down to the minute. I dropped off D in Akron/Canton, Ohio, then turned around and flew right home, didn't even go inside the FBO. I let Heather fly us home, and she did great keeping us straight and level and on course, considering this was her fifth flight lesson and it was in an Aerostar and not a C-172! I landed at 9:50, signed a logbook, got in my car, and pulled in my driveway at 10:13, in exactly the right time to pick up Ann and take her to an appointment at 10:30. We got done and I got her home and myself to lunch right at 11:55 am, dead on time. Within minutes. Like clockwork, I tell you! :)
I tried to take a nap from 1:30-2:30, before my next lesson, but in the middle Kaylee texted me asking me about a bomb. I thought WHAT? There's a bomb threat at the school or in town? So I start googling, and I can't find anything. Come to find out, she meant in international news, the MOAB. But by then I couldn't go to sleep anyway. So I dragged myself to the next flight as is.
We needed to go to Muncie to do tower controlled field takeoffs and landings. There were rain showers all over, and some of them were too heavy to fly through. So we went around them, got to Muncie, practiced three of them, then had to land for a heavy rainshower moving through, so we went into the restaurant and I got a piece of pie and a cup of coffee. The person I was with was too nervous to eat or drink anything, because as soon as the shower passed, I signed him off for his first solo in the 172, and his first solo at a tower controlled field, too. So he went out and did three takeoffs and landings, and was pretty excited about it. I took photos of my student this morning flying the Aerostar, and my student this evening in the 172, soloing and flying us home afterwards, and...it was a good day.
Now. Two things. One, Dennis posted the photo of us in front of the T-6, and yes, it's horrible. And two, as I may have mentioned, Kaylee has a recital coming up in which she is supposed to sing and I'm supposed to play the piano. Tonight I tried playing the piece. It has some easy parts, but it's FAST. Really fast. And I don't know the song, so the rhythm isn't coming easily to me. Her teacher played it and Kaylee recorded it, so I can hear it, but our piano is so out of tune it's in a totally different key, meaning I can't try to play along to pick up the rhythm well. And we shouldn't practice on it, because she'll learn the wrong key. I texted Steve in a mini panic explaining this, and he laughed and said he thought the text came from Kaylee at first because it sounded like her panicking over one of her songs. lol I spent over an hour trying to nail down the first line. It's all staccato, and all fast staccato, and my fingers just aren't moving like they're supposed to. Even if I slow it down I'm not keeping in rhythm. UGH I am so out of practice on the piano. It's been decades since I really played for real now. I don't know when this recital even IS, but I do know I am in a little bit of trouble. Steve says not to panic, to just play what I can, simplify the hard parts, and relax. I need time alone in the house to keep pounding that out until I get good enough that Kaylee and I can practice together. Lord I hope I can pull it together and I hope this thing isn't in a week or less. Help...
Tomorrow at least is a light day, thank heavens, maybe I'll have time alone to keep practicing. :o
I had a student I didn't want to cancel this morning, so I took her along with us to Ohio at the crack of dawn, and she enjoyed that. :) I had this thing timed down to the minute. I dropped off D in Akron/Canton, Ohio, then turned around and flew right home, didn't even go inside the FBO. I let Heather fly us home, and she did great keeping us straight and level and on course, considering this was her fifth flight lesson and it was in an Aerostar and not a C-172! I landed at 9:50, signed a logbook, got in my car, and pulled in my driveway at 10:13, in exactly the right time to pick up Ann and take her to an appointment at 10:30. We got done and I got her home and myself to lunch right at 11:55 am, dead on time. Within minutes. Like clockwork, I tell you! :)
I tried to take a nap from 1:30-2:30, before my next lesson, but in the middle Kaylee texted me asking me about a bomb. I thought WHAT? There's a bomb threat at the school or in town? So I start googling, and I can't find anything. Come to find out, she meant in international news, the MOAB. But by then I couldn't go to sleep anyway. So I dragged myself to the next flight as is.
We needed to go to Muncie to do tower controlled field takeoffs and landings. There were rain showers all over, and some of them were too heavy to fly through. So we went around them, got to Muncie, practiced three of them, then had to land for a heavy rainshower moving through, so we went into the restaurant and I got a piece of pie and a cup of coffee. The person I was with was too nervous to eat or drink anything, because as soon as the shower passed, I signed him off for his first solo in the 172, and his first solo at a tower controlled field, too. So he went out and did three takeoffs and landings, and was pretty excited about it. I took photos of my student this morning flying the Aerostar, and my student this evening in the 172, soloing and flying us home afterwards, and...it was a good day.
Now. Two things. One, Dennis posted the photo of us in front of the T-6, and yes, it's horrible. And two, as I may have mentioned, Kaylee has a recital coming up in which she is supposed to sing and I'm supposed to play the piano. Tonight I tried playing the piece. It has some easy parts, but it's FAST. Really fast. And I don't know the song, so the rhythm isn't coming easily to me. Her teacher played it and Kaylee recorded it, so I can hear it, but our piano is so out of tune it's in a totally different key, meaning I can't try to play along to pick up the rhythm well. And we shouldn't practice on it, because she'll learn the wrong key. I texted Steve in a mini panic explaining this, and he laughed and said he thought the text came from Kaylee at first because it sounded like her panicking over one of her songs. lol I spent over an hour trying to nail down the first line. It's all staccato, and all fast staccato, and my fingers just aren't moving like they're supposed to. Even if I slow it down I'm not keeping in rhythm. UGH I am so out of practice on the piano. It's been decades since I really played for real now. I don't know when this recital even IS, but I do know I am in a little bit of trouble. Steve says not to panic, to just play what I can, simplify the hard parts, and relax. I need time alone in the house to keep pounding that out until I get good enough that Kaylee and I can practice together. Lord I hope I can pull it together and I hope this thing isn't in a week or less. Help...
Tomorrow at least is a light day, thank heavens, maybe I'll have time alone to keep practicing. :o
Walking to the airplane to solo after showers moved through.
First takeoff
Takeoff with the tower in the frame...
Smiling on the way home...
And the happy young lady flying the Aerostar on the way home from Ohio.
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
WASP
Fortunately this morning I was able to be up and functioning pretty well and much better than the day before. I went out to Kokomo and took the T-6 up on its first post-maintenance flight, the first time I'd flown it in almost 7 months. Sept. 22nd was the last flight in it. So not only was it getting its first flight in more than half a year, so was I. :) So I did two 3-point and one wheel landing, landed, checked for leaks or problems, then loaded up Dennis and we headed to DuPage, IL.
I had him do the flying, and we arrived at the WASP event just about right on time. The event went well. There were over 50 people there, which surprised me on a Wednesday at high noon. The lunch was quite fancy, expensive and tasty. One speaker was the granddaughter of a WASP who passed away and was the first WASP to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery as a veteran. The other was the first female fighter pilot, who on 9/11 was tasked with taking off without armament and stopping a hijacked airliner by running herself into it. She didn't have to, because it was the airliner where the passengers rose up and tried to take the plane back, and crashed in a field in PA. She is spearheading the efforts to raise awareness and funding for the WASP program. They are both excellent speakers and did a good job.
Afterwards the organizers took photos of the main people in front of the T-6, and included Dennis and I in one of the photos since we brought the plane. I actually didn't want to be in the photos. All the ladies up there were skinny, tanned, well-coiffed ladies in dresses and heels. I'd flown there in a T-6 and the required flight suit, with flat wild hair and sweater on under the flight suit, so lumpier looking than usual in that thing. It's just not attractive, and I'm fine sitting in an airplane and working and not looking all fashionable, but getting an official photo taken with everybody else looking trim and dressed to the nines and me looking rumpled and dumpy makes me...less pleased. Oh well, hopefully it won't be a photo they post all over the place. ;)
On the trip home, I had Dennis do some maneuvers, and then he did a couple takeoffs and landings from the back seat.
Steve and I went out to dinner in Greentown afterwards, and then I came home while he picked up Kaylee from a church function she was helping out at.
I'm pretty wiped out, not fully recovered here, but tomorrow I'm up at 5:45 a.m. for a quick trip to Ohio. At least the weather looks good...
I had him do the flying, and we arrived at the WASP event just about right on time. The event went well. There were over 50 people there, which surprised me on a Wednesday at high noon. The lunch was quite fancy, expensive and tasty. One speaker was the granddaughter of a WASP who passed away and was the first WASP to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery as a veteran. The other was the first female fighter pilot, who on 9/11 was tasked with taking off without armament and stopping a hijacked airliner by running herself into it. She didn't have to, because it was the airliner where the passengers rose up and tried to take the plane back, and crashed in a field in PA. She is spearheading the efforts to raise awareness and funding for the WASP program. They are both excellent speakers and did a good job.
Afterwards the organizers took photos of the main people in front of the T-6, and included Dennis and I in one of the photos since we brought the plane. I actually didn't want to be in the photos. All the ladies up there were skinny, tanned, well-coiffed ladies in dresses and heels. I'd flown there in a T-6 and the required flight suit, with flat wild hair and sweater on under the flight suit, so lumpier looking than usual in that thing. It's just not attractive, and I'm fine sitting in an airplane and working and not looking all fashionable, but getting an official photo taken with everybody else looking trim and dressed to the nines and me looking rumpled and dumpy makes me...less pleased. Oh well, hopefully it won't be a photo they post all over the place. ;)
On the trip home, I had Dennis do some maneuvers, and then he did a couple takeoffs and landings from the back seat.
Steve and I went out to dinner in Greentown afterwards, and then I came home while he picked up Kaylee from a church function she was helping out at.
I'm pretty wiped out, not fully recovered here, but tomorrow I'm up at 5:45 a.m. for a quick trip to Ohio. At least the weather looks good...
Trying to get Dennis back there and failing, but I got myself.
There he is. lol
Grissom off the wing on the way home.
Trying to get a picture of the WASP hat...
You can see this one better...
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
Saddle Sore
I was going to say "Back in the Saddle", but that sounds more vibrant and alive than I actually feel. So... ;)
The alarm at 6 am was not welcomed. But I got up and moving, loaded up four guys, a bunch of bags, and a metal part (it's a good thing we were not in Gumby after all...they had some big baggage), and took the Cheyenne to N. Carolina. There was a line of storms in between us, but it was thin and not that high, and I was over the top of it at 27,000'. I was only on the ground a little while, waiting for them to bring back another metal part for me to fly home, and then I was home by 11:30 am. I was all used up by then, so I came straight home and crawled into bed until sometime after 1 pm. That gave me the break I needed. I left around 3 and grabbed a cheeseburger for lunch--and that's how I know when I'm actually sick, because I had to force myself to eat that burger. I was *not* hungry and it tasted bad. Next up I had two students in a row. I made it through them, and they both had a bit of a breakthrough on what they were doing, so it was a worthwhile day for them.
A quick run to the store, and home to rest up a little before tomorrow.
Tonight Kaylee's Encore audition dance was shown to everyone, and they have the next week or so to learn and memorize it and then perform it for auditions. She says it's not hard, just fast, and that she wishes it was harder so more people would have trouble with it so she could stand out better for being good at the choreography. She just went to her room and I'll bet you $50 she's in there practicing it already again.
Our big hangar door broke a hinge. So all the (airworthy) planes except the Cheyenne are out of it for now. Hopefully a fellow can come re-weld that hinge soon, before the 340 is supposed to be back. The Cheyenne tug threw a belt too, fortunately after I had it out for the flight this morning. All sorts of things kept going wrong today. Steve had a rough day, and my day wasn't rough as much as I just didn't feel good and had a lot to do. But back on the positives, at least I felt good *enough*. I could get the job done and wasn't bound helpless to the couch. Now. Tomorrow morning I need to feel good enough too. The T-6 requires more concentration than the Cheyenne at moments, believe it or not. The autopilot is a handy feature when you don't feel like having to work too hard. ;)
The alarm at 6 am was not welcomed. But I got up and moving, loaded up four guys, a bunch of bags, and a metal part (it's a good thing we were not in Gumby after all...they had some big baggage), and took the Cheyenne to N. Carolina. There was a line of storms in between us, but it was thin and not that high, and I was over the top of it at 27,000'. I was only on the ground a little while, waiting for them to bring back another metal part for me to fly home, and then I was home by 11:30 am. I was all used up by then, so I came straight home and crawled into bed until sometime after 1 pm. That gave me the break I needed. I left around 3 and grabbed a cheeseburger for lunch--and that's how I know when I'm actually sick, because I had to force myself to eat that burger. I was *not* hungry and it tasted bad. Next up I had two students in a row. I made it through them, and they both had a bit of a breakthrough on what they were doing, so it was a worthwhile day for them.
A quick run to the store, and home to rest up a little before tomorrow.
Tonight Kaylee's Encore audition dance was shown to everyone, and they have the next week or so to learn and memorize it and then perform it for auditions. She says it's not hard, just fast, and that she wishes it was harder so more people would have trouble with it so she could stand out better for being good at the choreography. She just went to her room and I'll bet you $50 she's in there practicing it already again.
Our big hangar door broke a hinge. So all the (airworthy) planes except the Cheyenne are out of it for now. Hopefully a fellow can come re-weld that hinge soon, before the 340 is supposed to be back. The Cheyenne tug threw a belt too, fortunately after I had it out for the flight this morning. All sorts of things kept going wrong today. Steve had a rough day, and my day wasn't rough as much as I just didn't feel good and had a lot to do. But back on the positives, at least I felt good *enough*. I could get the job done and wasn't bound helpless to the couch. Now. Tomorrow morning I need to feel good enough too. The T-6 requires more concentration than the Cheyenne at moments, believe it or not. The autopilot is a handy feature when you don't feel like having to work too hard. ;)
FL270 and all is well.
I like being paid for listening to music in an empty plane on the way home.
Monday, April 10, 2017
Greeeeat
Saturday I woke up with a scratchy throat, but I didn't think anything of it, I kept drinking water and ignored it. Sunday I woke up with a head cold. By Sunday evening my nose was a faucet and I felt terrible. So I spent Sunday and today sitting in my chair, napping, drinking hot tea or water, gazing off. I'm sleeping and resting as much as I can, because I have to go to N. Carolina tomorrow at 7:30 am, and have students until sunset when I get back, if I can pull it off. Weather has been awful and tomorrow is the first day the weather is good and they're all trying to get in...and I get sick. *sigh* Then Wednesday I'm supposed to take the T-6 up to Chicago for a WASP event. So I don't have time to be sick and it needs to go away now.
Kaylee went to her second dance place to look into the tap class. She says this class was way under what she was even able to do, that she could have just joined in right there and done better than they were doing, so she doesn't think she'll learn a lot from them. It was also called the "Tween" class. She says "I am not a tween. Tweens are twelve. I am sixteen, a full-on TEEN". Lol She liked the other place better. So she has one more place to maybe look into, then she'll decide. While she was there, she ran into what you'd call a special needs girl who used to go to her school. The girl insisted on putting Kaylee's phone number into her phone, and her number into Kaylee's phone, absolutely demanded it, and Kaylee wasn't able to be what felt to her to be rude enough to say no, and within 10 minutes of Kaylee getting home, the girl was texting her asking her when and where they could meet up and hang out. Kaylee's trying to figure out how to not be mean or rude to the girl while not being forced into constant communication. Always tricky, particularly for people who don't get normal social cues on when someone is not interested.
Well, I need to go to bed early tonight, and pray that tomorrow I wake up feeling human, because I have a Cheyenne trip to N. Carolina. Fortunately the weather looks good, so I shouldn't have much to deal with.
Kaylee went to her second dance place to look into the tap class. She says this class was way under what she was even able to do, that she could have just joined in right there and done better than they were doing, so she doesn't think she'll learn a lot from them. It was also called the "Tween" class. She says "I am not a tween. Tweens are twelve. I am sixteen, a full-on TEEN". Lol She liked the other place better. So she has one more place to maybe look into, then she'll decide. While she was there, she ran into what you'd call a special needs girl who used to go to her school. The girl insisted on putting Kaylee's phone number into her phone, and her number into Kaylee's phone, absolutely demanded it, and Kaylee wasn't able to be what felt to her to be rude enough to say no, and within 10 minutes of Kaylee getting home, the girl was texting her asking her when and where they could meet up and hang out. Kaylee's trying to figure out how to not be mean or rude to the girl while not being forced into constant communication. Always tricky, particularly for people who don't get normal social cues on when someone is not interested.
Well, I need to go to bed early tonight, and pray that tomorrow I wake up feeling human, because I have a Cheyenne trip to N. Carolina. Fortunately the weather looks good, so I shouldn't have much to deal with.
Saturday, April 08, 2017
Winging It
I stayed hopping today, and it was busy at Kokomo all day. I stopped at Dirty Dan's Donuts to try to pick up, well, donuts, and they were already sold out by the time I got there at like 9 a.m. They open at 1 am, and there is often a line down the block, especially on Friday nights. Apparently they sell out very early and don't make more. That's my question. Why be open all morning if you're sold out before 9 am, and why not make more donuts? *sigh* So anyway, I stopped at Meijer instead since we don't have a Krispy Kreme and Dunkin Donuts went out of business this year. Grocery store donuts it is.
The CAF fellows all came out to Kokomo today to do a mandatory annual flight training day in the PT-26. I rode in the back and did check flights with five guys, which takes longer than you'd think. I did four official check flights, then a fifth flight with a guy who is still checking out in the plane and isn't ready to be cut loose in it yet. Steve was at the hold short line on this fellow's first takeoff, and thought that we were about to wreck. For a second I thought the same thing, but fortunately the PT is forgiving and I'm still pretty fast. I'll say it again, the tailwheel stuff has given me the most grey hairs. It's one thing to take off and land yourself and fix your own little bobbles, it's something else when someone puts the aileron the wrong way then stomps the wrong rudder then boosts in power in one fast move, making you go faster towards your surprise almost ground loop. I got it under control before we got to the runway lights, thankfully, but my heart rate took a few seconds to slow back down as we taxiied off, talked about it, and went back for another, less eventful try at it. Even the forgiving ones go bad fast in the right circumstances.
After I finished them up, they all ran for home while I was still flying with the rest of them, and then I flew Nathan over to Muncie to pick up Gumby. We were in the 172, which took awhile, but not as long as it would have in the PT. :)
Once Gumby was home, I ran home and picked up Kaylee. By now it's 5 pm. She preflights and we do just under an hour worth of flying, in the pattern. This makes lesson #4, officially, and the second time we stayed in the pattern. She has down the procedures fairly well, not quite perfect on airspeed control in the turns, but holds a nice steady final all the way down. We haven't done the landings still, just the pattern. She was mad because it was a crosswind landing, and even though she held the nose straight with rudder all the way down final, and kept us pretty close to the middle with the aileron she didn't touch down as soft as she wanted, deemed it "horrible", and was disgusted with herself. She's definitely a pilot personality--her own harshest critic, and Type A perfectionist when it comes to stuff like that. She's doing well.
When we got home, Steve still had a flight to do, so Kaylee and I watched The Sound of Music in the living room together. She kept giving me little factoids about the movie. "Did you know the nun couldn't hit the high notes so her songs were dubbed in?" "Did you know that Gretyl actually swallowed so much water when the canoe overturned that she threw up on her sister who carried her out of the water because Julie Andrews was supposed to grab her, but Julie fell on the wrong side of the canoe when it tipped so she didn't get to her in time?" "Did you know her wedding veil was 14' long?" "Did you know Christopher Plummer turned down another movie to do this one and was so disappointed, hated this movie so much, he spent most of his time drinking on set, and was drunk when he sang the last song?" Every few moments she'd fill me in on a little tidbit like that. lol That's a long move, like four hours...and still a good one.
Now everyone else is in bed, my throat is scratchy and I'm beat, so I'm glad to have tomorrow off. I hope.
The CAF fellows all came out to Kokomo today to do a mandatory annual flight training day in the PT-26. I rode in the back and did check flights with five guys, which takes longer than you'd think. I did four official check flights, then a fifth flight with a guy who is still checking out in the plane and isn't ready to be cut loose in it yet. Steve was at the hold short line on this fellow's first takeoff, and thought that we were about to wreck. For a second I thought the same thing, but fortunately the PT is forgiving and I'm still pretty fast. I'll say it again, the tailwheel stuff has given me the most grey hairs. It's one thing to take off and land yourself and fix your own little bobbles, it's something else when someone puts the aileron the wrong way then stomps the wrong rudder then boosts in power in one fast move, making you go faster towards your surprise almost ground loop. I got it under control before we got to the runway lights, thankfully, but my heart rate took a few seconds to slow back down as we taxiied off, talked about it, and went back for another, less eventful try at it. Even the forgiving ones go bad fast in the right circumstances.
After I finished them up, they all ran for home while I was still flying with the rest of them, and then I flew Nathan over to Muncie to pick up Gumby. We were in the 172, which took awhile, but not as long as it would have in the PT. :)
Once Gumby was home, I ran home and picked up Kaylee. By now it's 5 pm. She preflights and we do just under an hour worth of flying, in the pattern. This makes lesson #4, officially, and the second time we stayed in the pattern. She has down the procedures fairly well, not quite perfect on airspeed control in the turns, but holds a nice steady final all the way down. We haven't done the landings still, just the pattern. She was mad because it was a crosswind landing, and even though she held the nose straight with rudder all the way down final, and kept us pretty close to the middle with the aileron she didn't touch down as soft as she wanted, deemed it "horrible", and was disgusted with herself. She's definitely a pilot personality--her own harshest critic, and Type A perfectionist when it comes to stuff like that. She's doing well.
When we got home, Steve still had a flight to do, so Kaylee and I watched The Sound of Music in the living room together. She kept giving me little factoids about the movie. "Did you know the nun couldn't hit the high notes so her songs were dubbed in?" "Did you know that Gretyl actually swallowed so much water when the canoe overturned that she threw up on her sister who carried her out of the water because Julie Andrews was supposed to grab her, but Julie fell on the wrong side of the canoe when it tipped so she didn't get to her in time?" "Did you know her wedding veil was 14' long?" "Did you know Christopher Plummer turned down another movie to do this one and was so disappointed, hated this movie so much, he spent most of his time drinking on set, and was drunk when he sang the last song?" Every few moments she'd fill me in on a little tidbit like that. lol That's a long move, like four hours...and still a good one.
Now everyone else is in bed, my throat is scratchy and I'm beat, so I'm glad to have tomorrow off. I hope.
PT in the corner waiting to fly.
Me drinking a bottle of water I'll regret shortly. Darned flightsuits.
Kokomo
Officialness
Watching a PT land from another PT. Not a common sight.
Friday, April 07, 2017
Success
We had two goals this Spring Break. One, to fly as much as possible, and two, to get the Learner's Permit done for Driver's Ed. Well, we flew as much as possible, but this weather has *not* cooperated. We've gotten like 3 flights in. I hope to get another one in tomorrow with her, but in two weeks, trying to fly every day, we'll have gotten in 4 flights. Ah well, that is life in aviation, particularly during April in Indiana.
As to the second goal, mission accomplished today! I quizzed her on the driver's ed info, gathered together her passport, her birth certificate, her social security card, my passport, my driver's license, my gun carry permit (showed street address) and a bill showing my street address, and we walked in, got a number, proved we were legit, and she took the test. Fifty questions, and she passed easily. She was annoyed because she didn't know they were going to take her photo (I didn't either), so she wasn't prepared, but I told her not to worry, when she gets her real license they'll redo the photo and she can put on lipstick then. ;) So she walked out with her learner's permit in hand!
I drove us out to Greentown to get a celebratory iced coffee from "The Hydration Station", and then had her drive us home. It was her first time on the actual roads. Until today she's just been in parking lots. When I first learned to drive, I remember hitting a big dirt empty lot and practicing driving a stick on the column in my grandpa's big white van a bit, and then I remember my cousin Jimmy taking me in his car on the back roads in Kansas as a young teen. I was so tense and nervous I was all sweaty and zoned out until I realized I was concentrating super hard. I couldn't believe he let me drive a car on a road. lol But then it was in Omaha I had official driving lessons. I don't remember a lot about it except he came to me, and he asked if I wanted to learn in a stick or an automatic, and I said yes, both. I do remember being on one of the hills in Omaha with a truck right behind me and being terrified of rolling backwards into him while trying to start up. I didn't, so that's good. ;)
Our first drive home was okay but a touch rough to start. Kaylee was hugging the right side of the road so tight she was almost driving off the road, and was pretty nervous, and I had to keep pointing left to get her to move over. Then we hit the busy roads in town on our way home. Hwy 31, etc. She was a little over-aggressive on a few turns, but then started smoothing out. The last one made us both laugh as she was turning into our driveway. There was a Jeep parked in front of our driveway, which is very narrow with a large pole on the side. She didn't cut the turn tight enough and was aimed at the Jeep with some gas in. I had to reach over and spin the wheel pretty hard to get us onto the driveway, and we swerved a little there, and then we got straightened out. Round One was a little tiring for both her and me. I wanted my own set of controls over there, and it's kind of a helpless feeling when you're doing 55 mph and hoping nothing too drastic happens since all you can do is move a wheel. But we did it! We rested a couple hours, and then she drove us to her friend's house for a end-of-Spring-Break party. Round two was smoother, she did well, we were both more relaxed, and it went great! We both agreed that she's gonna drive with me first for a bit until she's getting pretty smooth, and then we'll turn her loose with her dad to start driving herself to school with him.
So, mission accomplished! Now on to logging 40 hours of driving time and finishing up the whole license. She didn't want me to say anything on Facebook, because she said she was one of the last people in her friend group to get the permit and she didn't want to make a production out of it. So I won't, but this place doesn't count since nobody but grandparents really sees it. ;)
We're both just really glad to have that over with and out of the way so we can get on with the business of learning to drive. We're going to continue working on the flying as we can get it in, and in the next few weeks she's going to be focused real hard on her audition, learning the dance routine, for the Encore auditions. She's so nervous about it she's making me nervous...
She did let me take this one picture, but wouldn't hold up her temporary certificate in case anyone read the info on it. Neither one of us wanted me to take a picture of her while she was actually driving. We were concentrating so hard that we didn't even have the radio on, which is a first! No way was I whipping out my phone and not watch the road for a few seconds. lol I'll get a photo of her later, I'm sure, but for now, we're just going to be conservative and careful, which I'm sure everyone appreciates. She picks up things very fast. Annoyingly fast. Her second time out was twice as smooth as her first. I have a feeling she'll be driving pretty well pretty soon here.
My baby's growin' up!
As to the second goal, mission accomplished today! I quizzed her on the driver's ed info, gathered together her passport, her birth certificate, her social security card, my passport, my driver's license, my gun carry permit (showed street address) and a bill showing my street address, and we walked in, got a number, proved we were legit, and she took the test. Fifty questions, and she passed easily. She was annoyed because she didn't know they were going to take her photo (I didn't either), so she wasn't prepared, but I told her not to worry, when she gets her real license they'll redo the photo and she can put on lipstick then. ;) So she walked out with her learner's permit in hand!
I drove us out to Greentown to get a celebratory iced coffee from "The Hydration Station", and then had her drive us home. It was her first time on the actual roads. Until today she's just been in parking lots. When I first learned to drive, I remember hitting a big dirt empty lot and practicing driving a stick on the column in my grandpa's big white van a bit, and then I remember my cousin Jimmy taking me in his car on the back roads in Kansas as a young teen. I was so tense and nervous I was all sweaty and zoned out until I realized I was concentrating super hard. I couldn't believe he let me drive a car on a road. lol But then it was in Omaha I had official driving lessons. I don't remember a lot about it except he came to me, and he asked if I wanted to learn in a stick or an automatic, and I said yes, both. I do remember being on one of the hills in Omaha with a truck right behind me and being terrified of rolling backwards into him while trying to start up. I didn't, so that's good. ;)
Our first drive home was okay but a touch rough to start. Kaylee was hugging the right side of the road so tight she was almost driving off the road, and was pretty nervous, and I had to keep pointing left to get her to move over. Then we hit the busy roads in town on our way home. Hwy 31, etc. She was a little over-aggressive on a few turns, but then started smoothing out. The last one made us both laugh as she was turning into our driveway. There was a Jeep parked in front of our driveway, which is very narrow with a large pole on the side. She didn't cut the turn tight enough and was aimed at the Jeep with some gas in. I had to reach over and spin the wheel pretty hard to get us onto the driveway, and we swerved a little there, and then we got straightened out. Round One was a little tiring for both her and me. I wanted my own set of controls over there, and it's kind of a helpless feeling when you're doing 55 mph and hoping nothing too drastic happens since all you can do is move a wheel. But we did it! We rested a couple hours, and then she drove us to her friend's house for a end-of-Spring-Break party. Round two was smoother, she did well, we were both more relaxed, and it went great! We both agreed that she's gonna drive with me first for a bit until she's getting pretty smooth, and then we'll turn her loose with her dad to start driving herself to school with him.
So, mission accomplished! Now on to logging 40 hours of driving time and finishing up the whole license. She didn't want me to say anything on Facebook, because she said she was one of the last people in her friend group to get the permit and she didn't want to make a production out of it. So I won't, but this place doesn't count since nobody but grandparents really sees it. ;)
We're both just really glad to have that over with and out of the way so we can get on with the business of learning to drive. We're going to continue working on the flying as we can get it in, and in the next few weeks she's going to be focused real hard on her audition, learning the dance routine, for the Encore auditions. She's so nervous about it she's making me nervous...
She did let me take this one picture, but wouldn't hold up her temporary certificate in case anyone read the info on it. Neither one of us wanted me to take a picture of her while she was actually driving. We were concentrating so hard that we didn't even have the radio on, which is a first! No way was I whipping out my phone and not watch the road for a few seconds. lol I'll get a photo of her later, I'm sure, but for now, we're just going to be conservative and careful, which I'm sure everyone appreciates. She picks up things very fast. Annoyingly fast. Her second time out was twice as smooth as her first. I have a feeling she'll be driving pretty well pretty soon here.
My baby's growin' up!
Thursday, April 06, 2017
Mid-Week Bluster
Wednesday passed with me realizing how old I really am getting, considering I felt like doggie doo after one night of no sleep and then running all day. I slept great the next night and still woke up feeling like I'd been beaten up. I just can't do that insomnia thing and get away with it any more! I did get to go down to eat with Steve and the pilot group. I had to wolf down my food and leave early, because Kaylee had something to go to.
Kaylee has decided she'd be interested in taking up tap dancing again. So she did the research. She contacted each of the places in town and asked them if she would be able to observe one of their classes. They got back to her, and the first one was Wednesday night at 8:30 pm. So as we were driving there (in the pouring rain), I said "I presume you want me to come in, right?" She said "No, I don't think so. I was the one who contacted them, it's been me this far, I might as well go in and just handle it." I said "Not that long ago you sure wouldn't have wanted to do that." And she said "Let's just call it a precursor trial to adulthood." That made me laugh. She did like the class. It was small, relaxed, friendly, and she liked it. So Monday evening she goes to the other main place in town, with the reputation of being strict and competitive, to see if they really are or not, see if that's what she wants to do.
This morning I had an eye doctor appointment so I could get more contacts. I was glad to see that my prescription was pretty close to the same--close enough that he left the contacts the same. I hadn't been since sometime in 2015, so it's good that my vision didn't continue to tank as fast as it did for awhile there.
The winds were really strong today, up to about 40 knots, canceling all my flights, so instead I swapped with Steve so he could get some other work done. Kaylee and I have been canceled for flying most of the week, of course so has everyone else. She's working on watching "The Sound of Music" repeatedly. She says it is her absolute favorite movie right now and has watched it something like 4 times already in the last week. Hey, she has good taste at least. :)
Kaylee has decided she'd be interested in taking up tap dancing again. So she did the research. She contacted each of the places in town and asked them if she would be able to observe one of their classes. They got back to her, and the first one was Wednesday night at 8:30 pm. So as we were driving there (in the pouring rain), I said "I presume you want me to come in, right?" She said "No, I don't think so. I was the one who contacted them, it's been me this far, I might as well go in and just handle it." I said "Not that long ago you sure wouldn't have wanted to do that." And she said "Let's just call it a precursor trial to adulthood." That made me laugh. She did like the class. It was small, relaxed, friendly, and she liked it. So Monday evening she goes to the other main place in town, with the reputation of being strict and competitive, to see if they really are or not, see if that's what she wants to do.
This morning I had an eye doctor appointment so I could get more contacts. I was glad to see that my prescription was pretty close to the same--close enough that he left the contacts the same. I hadn't been since sometime in 2015, so it's good that my vision didn't continue to tank as fast as it did for awhile there.
The winds were really strong today, up to about 40 knots, canceling all my flights, so instead I swapped with Steve so he could get some other work done. Kaylee and I have been canceled for flying most of the week, of course so has everyone else. She's working on watching "The Sound of Music" repeatedly. She says it is her absolute favorite movie right now and has watched it something like 4 times already in the last week. Hey, she has good taste at least. :)
Tuesday, April 04, 2017
Baroning
Somehow I set my alarm last night for the time I needed to be leaving the house--6:40 am--instead of the time I needed to get up--5:45 a.m. Fortunately (?) for me, I had a crappy night's sleep, kept waking up, tossing and turning. So I looked at the clock at 5:10 am, and then when a lot of time seemed to have passed and my alarm didn't go off, I looked again and it was almost 5:50 a.m. Thank goodness I have an internal alarm clock!
The weather wasn't good enough at 7 am for us to go over, being IFR. So we waited around until 8:30, and then I had him file IFR anyway. We went over to the Springfield area first, shot an RNAV approach in, broke out very high. We were there to pick up a C-182. He inspected the plane, looked over the logbooks, we were there about an hour doing all that, and then they went to do the paperwork, he handed the guy a check, and the guy said "Oh, I can't let it go for that." A says "That's what you agreed to, right?" The old fellow says "Yes, but that was before I put another $5,000 into the plane. I need more." So rather than renegotiate ahead of time, he just waited until three people flew over from an hour and 45 minutes away and spent an hour there with him before refusing to honor the deal he'd already made. Not cool, man. So that deal fell through when our people refused to bump up the price anymore on principal.
So next we went IFR over to Danville. This is where I was to pick up a Baron 58. I was a little on the twitchy side doing a ferry job. The airplane was out of annual, and was on a ferry permit. The weather was marginal VFR all day. Ferry jobs are often less than above board. But when we got there, the airplane was in great shape. The former owner was a veteran pilot, had a ton of experiences in Greenland, Iceland, all sorts of stuff. He took us to the warbird restoration shop on field and showed us a Messerschmidt that they were in the process of restoring, including a panel that had a bullet hole in it. It had been pulled out of a lake and was being restored, and is pretty cool. We listened to this fellows stories for hours. He was too nice and too full of information and history to rush. He was also a devoted Trump fan and hard core conservative who posted giant Trump signs on his property facing the main street of town, along with two flags, and every time someone puts graffiti on it or tears it down, he puts it back up. One of the neighbors of that field told him they don't agree with his politics but they do agree with his right to display his own sign on his own property without being threatened, so they help him by putting it back up for him when they see it knocked over.
He gave me a couple pointers on his airplane, which I appreciated. When it was time to go, he crawled up on the wing next to me, and asked "Why don't I read the checklist for you?" I said "Sure!" So he'd read an item: "Seatbelts" and I'd say back "Secure". Etc. All the way through. I think he liked that. When I got the left engine started within a blade or two, he sighed and said "You have it from here" and stepped down. I know he's going to miss it. Fortunately for him he also has a Bonanza and a Super Decathlon to keep him continued company. :) It was a really nice plane though. Older panel, but the plane itself is solid. I enjoyed the flight home in it, even if it was down at pattern altitude.
The whole day only worked out because of the low weather though. I was supposed to be back by 1 pm, then fly from 1-3, 3-5, and 5-7. The clouds were too low to fly 1-3 and 3-5, and the 5-7 was Kaylee and she ended up with other plans. So I didn't make as much money today doing this ferry job as I do on a MBros flight, but I made more than I would have if I'd been home not instructing. ;)
Saw this quote today and it made me laugh. It's so true, and so me, except I don't usually say it out loud, I usually stomp type it out on my keyboard.
Speak when you are angry--and you will make the best speech you'll ever regret.
--Laurence J. Peter
The weather wasn't good enough at 7 am for us to go over, being IFR. So we waited around until 8:30, and then I had him file IFR anyway. We went over to the Springfield area first, shot an RNAV approach in, broke out very high. We were there to pick up a C-182. He inspected the plane, looked over the logbooks, we were there about an hour doing all that, and then they went to do the paperwork, he handed the guy a check, and the guy said "Oh, I can't let it go for that." A says "That's what you agreed to, right?" The old fellow says "Yes, but that was before I put another $5,000 into the plane. I need more." So rather than renegotiate ahead of time, he just waited until three people flew over from an hour and 45 minutes away and spent an hour there with him before refusing to honor the deal he'd already made. Not cool, man. So that deal fell through when our people refused to bump up the price anymore on principal.
So next we went IFR over to Danville. This is where I was to pick up a Baron 58. I was a little on the twitchy side doing a ferry job. The airplane was out of annual, and was on a ferry permit. The weather was marginal VFR all day. Ferry jobs are often less than above board. But when we got there, the airplane was in great shape. The former owner was a veteran pilot, had a ton of experiences in Greenland, Iceland, all sorts of stuff. He took us to the warbird restoration shop on field and showed us a Messerschmidt that they were in the process of restoring, including a panel that had a bullet hole in it. It had been pulled out of a lake and was being restored, and is pretty cool. We listened to this fellows stories for hours. He was too nice and too full of information and history to rush. He was also a devoted Trump fan and hard core conservative who posted giant Trump signs on his property facing the main street of town, along with two flags, and every time someone puts graffiti on it or tears it down, he puts it back up. One of the neighbors of that field told him they don't agree with his politics but they do agree with his right to display his own sign on his own property without being threatened, so they help him by putting it back up for him when they see it knocked over.
He gave me a couple pointers on his airplane, which I appreciated. When it was time to go, he crawled up on the wing next to me, and asked "Why don't I read the checklist for you?" I said "Sure!" So he'd read an item: "Seatbelts" and I'd say back "Secure". Etc. All the way through. I think he liked that. When I got the left engine started within a blade or two, he sighed and said "You have it from here" and stepped down. I know he's going to miss it. Fortunately for him he also has a Bonanza and a Super Decathlon to keep him continued company. :) It was a really nice plane though. Older panel, but the plane itself is solid. I enjoyed the flight home in it, even if it was down at pattern altitude.
The whole day only worked out because of the low weather though. I was supposed to be back by 1 pm, then fly from 1-3, 3-5, and 5-7. The clouds were too low to fly 1-3 and 3-5, and the 5-7 was Kaylee and she ended up with other plans. So I didn't make as much money today doing this ferry job as I do on a MBros flight, but I made more than I would have if I'd been home not instructing. ;)
Saw this quote today and it made me laugh. It's so true, and so me, except I don't usually say it out loud, I usually stomp type it out on my keyboard.
Speak when you are angry--and you will make the best speech you'll ever regret.
--Laurence J. Peter
View on top from the C-210
Messerschmidt wing
Bullet hole...
View out of the Baron 58 on the way home.
Isn't that a pretty airplane? I like Barons. :)
Monday, April 03, 2017
Psych
Today was supposed to be a waste as far as weather. We cancelled our trip to Illinois to pick up the Baron based on the forecast, only to wake up to perfectly fine weather all day. Now we're going tomorrow, when the weather is again looking cruddy. As of now we're planning on leaving at 7 am and getting back around noon. I then have students from 1:00 pm - 7:30 pm. Gonna be a looooong day. If the weather holds out.
I had a Wednesday night trip for MBros "as close to downtown Washington DC as you can get me", but Wednesday there is a line of thunderstorms moving in that will probably last all day. Thursday--snow and rain, aka sleet. Naturally. So he's looking for an airline ticket instead. *sigh* Hate that.
Steve had a student today at 5:30. At 5:51, sitting at home, he remembered he had a student at 5:30. He calls the student in a panic to apologize for standing him up, only to have the student say "OMG, I thought we were going Wednesday, not today!" So...the CFI forgot and the student forgot at the same time on the same day. What are the chances of that one??
The rest of the day was spent on the computer, email, text, and phone. It was really kind of annoying, there were so many things going on and it took hours and hours to wrap up all the different projects, problems, etc. That's what Steve does most of the time each day. No wonder it makes him tired and cranky sometimes. I couldn't do that on a regular basis.
We ("We" not actually us) put an offer down on a Champ for Westfield, so that's exciting. It's out in Iowa, and we (maybe actually us this time) hope to go out soon and look it over and bring it back home. That'll be great to have a Champ back.
A student of ours is about to buy a Baron, so I'll be flying around with him in that for a bit, which will be fun. I always did like the Baron. This is a 58 instead of the 55 Nathan had.
Had a little discussion with the airport manager today, which reaffirmed how important direct and clear communication is. I asked a line guy if it would be possible for him to stay over after hours and give me fuel, that we'd be happy to pay an after hours fee or whatever was needed. I didn't know what the policy was. He said he needed to ask the manager. The manager didn't answer then, so we didn't do it. Later he told me the manager got mad that he'd even asked, and said no. So I asked the manager what the policy was, if there was a way I could arrange after hour fueling, etc. He let me know that the line person had said "Laura wants me to stay after closing and fuel her up, will you give me overtime". Well, folks, that's not how you ask about that, and that's not what I said, the offer to pay after hour fee was never passed on, etc. So I cleared the air with the manager and next time will just text him directly if I need something after hours. But the lesson should be to the line guy on how to communicate.
Harrison Ford won't be facing any FAA charges for landing on the taxiway. Some people are yelling "white privilege" basically, rich white guy getting away with something. I personally am pretty sure that him being rich and famous hurt him a lot more than helped him on this one. Lots of people have landed on taxiways or the wrong runways at controlled fields, and they don't get slammed with FAA punishments either, so why should he just because he's famous? I'm glad he's not in trouble, at least not with the FAA. Public opinion and perception is another story altogether, and if he ever has anything else happen, I pity him.
Nathan might get the T-6 done within the next week, and if so I'm going to fly it to DuPage to a WASP event. My backseater is a sponsor of the event, and is willing to pay for the gas if I take him along and let him do the flying, which is good with me. :)
Tomorrow will arrive early and probably be a bit of a pain, so guess I'll check off...
I had a Wednesday night trip for MBros "as close to downtown Washington DC as you can get me", but Wednesday there is a line of thunderstorms moving in that will probably last all day. Thursday--snow and rain, aka sleet. Naturally. So he's looking for an airline ticket instead. *sigh* Hate that.
Steve had a student today at 5:30. At 5:51, sitting at home, he remembered he had a student at 5:30. He calls the student in a panic to apologize for standing him up, only to have the student say "OMG, I thought we were going Wednesday, not today!" So...the CFI forgot and the student forgot at the same time on the same day. What are the chances of that one??
The rest of the day was spent on the computer, email, text, and phone. It was really kind of annoying, there were so many things going on and it took hours and hours to wrap up all the different projects, problems, etc. That's what Steve does most of the time each day. No wonder it makes him tired and cranky sometimes. I couldn't do that on a regular basis.
We ("We" not actually us) put an offer down on a Champ for Westfield, so that's exciting. It's out in Iowa, and we (maybe actually us this time) hope to go out soon and look it over and bring it back home. That'll be great to have a Champ back.
A student of ours is about to buy a Baron, so I'll be flying around with him in that for a bit, which will be fun. I always did like the Baron. This is a 58 instead of the 55 Nathan had.
Had a little discussion with the airport manager today, which reaffirmed how important direct and clear communication is. I asked a line guy if it would be possible for him to stay over after hours and give me fuel, that we'd be happy to pay an after hours fee or whatever was needed. I didn't know what the policy was. He said he needed to ask the manager. The manager didn't answer then, so we didn't do it. Later he told me the manager got mad that he'd even asked, and said no. So I asked the manager what the policy was, if there was a way I could arrange after hour fueling, etc. He let me know that the line person had said "Laura wants me to stay after closing and fuel her up, will you give me overtime". Well, folks, that's not how you ask about that, and that's not what I said, the offer to pay after hour fee was never passed on, etc. So I cleared the air with the manager and next time will just text him directly if I need something after hours. But the lesson should be to the line guy on how to communicate.
Harrison Ford won't be facing any FAA charges for landing on the taxiway. Some people are yelling "white privilege" basically, rich white guy getting away with something. I personally am pretty sure that him being rich and famous hurt him a lot more than helped him on this one. Lots of people have landed on taxiways or the wrong runways at controlled fields, and they don't get slammed with FAA punishments either, so why should he just because he's famous? I'm glad he's not in trouble, at least not with the FAA. Public opinion and perception is another story altogether, and if he ever has anything else happen, I pity him.
Nathan might get the T-6 done within the next week, and if so I'm going to fly it to DuPage to a WASP event. My backseater is a sponsor of the event, and is willing to pay for the gas if I take him along and let him do the flying, which is good with me. :)
Tomorrow will arrive early and probably be a bit of a pain, so guess I'll check off...
Sunday, April 02, 2017
Sunny Day
It was a sunny Sunday. Our new roof looks good, Steve did lots of work around the house, Kaylee slept in until noon and then grumbled at me when I went to wake her up, so I took her phone, turned on an annoying song, put it on the other side of her room, and left. She mumbled "I don't like you!" I said "Yes you do". Heh.
At 3 pm Kaylee and I went out flying. Today we did power off and on stalls, slips, ground reference maneuvers, and the pattern. Something that impressed me--I was talking about s-turns across a road. She got the point and was able to visualize it enough to tell me that she'd need to have a steeper turn on "this" side in order to make it over the road. It doesn't sound like much, but I don't remember anybody else filling in the "how to do the maneuver" before I finished explaining it. When I said she wanted to be the same distance from the road on either side regardless of winds, she said "Sure, like a sine wave, equal distance." She understood, and does a good job holding her airspeed down final. Weather is going to be bad tomorrow, but Tuesday I'm hoping to get her back up and work on mostly pattern stuff. I've been pushing her. Any other time we've flown, I've been easy on her, keeping it light and fun. Now we still try to have a good time, but we're working. I can tell when she's having enough, when she gets tired or sloppy, and that's when we fly over Greentown or Mississinewa, or just around Kokomo then come in and land. This time we made it longer than previous flights. She was annoyed because her landing wasn't that great yet. I told her we haven't started working on that for real yet, first things first, and she's moving there fast. :)
After she and I flew, I ran her to her youth group, then went back to Kokomo and flew the Cub for awhile. It was slightly chilly at 60 degrees with the door and window hanging open and the air blowing at you at 60-80 mph, but bundled up it was warm enough, and worth it.
One photo I sneaked of Kaylee preflighting the 172, and then a series of landing shots with me and my shadow...
At 3 pm Kaylee and I went out flying. Today we did power off and on stalls, slips, ground reference maneuvers, and the pattern. Something that impressed me--I was talking about s-turns across a road. She got the point and was able to visualize it enough to tell me that she'd need to have a steeper turn on "this" side in order to make it over the road. It doesn't sound like much, but I don't remember anybody else filling in the "how to do the maneuver" before I finished explaining it. When I said she wanted to be the same distance from the road on either side regardless of winds, she said "Sure, like a sine wave, equal distance." She understood, and does a good job holding her airspeed down final. Weather is going to be bad tomorrow, but Tuesday I'm hoping to get her back up and work on mostly pattern stuff. I've been pushing her. Any other time we've flown, I've been easy on her, keeping it light and fun. Now we still try to have a good time, but we're working. I can tell when she's having enough, when she gets tired or sloppy, and that's when we fly over Greentown or Mississinewa, or just around Kokomo then come in and land. This time we made it longer than previous flights. She was annoyed because her landing wasn't that great yet. I told her we haven't started working on that for real yet, first things first, and she's moving there fast. :)
After she and I flew, I ran her to her youth group, then went back to Kokomo and flew the Cub for awhile. It was slightly chilly at 60 degrees with the door and window hanging open and the air blowing at you at 60-80 mph, but bundled up it was warm enough, and worth it.
One photo I sneaked of Kaylee preflighting the 172, and then a series of landing shots with me and my shadow...
Airport off the wing.
A view down a long final
And some shadows...
Eek! :)
I like how you can see the tailwheel, the prop, the struts, everything in these shadows...
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