Two Pilots & an LSW: Day After

Yesterday was pretty full. When I woke up, the weather was surprisingly good, just windy, so I went out and took up the 172RG for an hour and a half, circling around the airport, to break in the brand new engine on it. The turbulence was bad. I mean, really bad. It knocked the plane around so hard even I was uncomfortable, and I climbed to 5500' to find a smoother spot. Surface winds were gusting over 30 knots, which is why I canceled a pre-solo student trying to figure out the flare. :) Anyway, did that for 90 minutes then landed and got gas. The line guy had to have another guy come hold the ladder while he fueled up, because the winds were knocking him and the ladder around. He looked down at me and said "What are you doing out here in this?!" lol I went to lunch.

After lunch I went back up in the airplane for another two hours straight. The winds weren't any better but the turbulence was; I was able to stay a little lower this time. This time I plugged in a giant flight plan, going from Kokomo to Marion to Sheridan to Glenndale to Wabash and back and forth to a few of those. I set it up in the GPS and put on the autopilot and let it fly me around for two hours while I monitored. One time, coming from Wabash, my traffic showed something coming right at me, 200' above me. I'm looking and looking and finally I see these lights, and as it gets closer, I realize it's a KC-135. It's huge and it's aimed right at me. I stay the course for a moment, and then when he keeps coming too, I disconnect the autopilot and break left. At that exact same moment, he also broke left. (His left, not mine, so that's all good.) What's odd about that is that those are not the rules of engagement. The right of way rules clearly state that on a head-on scenario, both people are supposed to go right. I later tried to figure out why I went left, and then I realized...I wasn't in the MOA, and neither was he. But the MOA was off to my right and it's a good guess he's going to head that way. So I went the opposite way. At the same time it must have been time for him to turn towards his base, or the controllers moved him. But it looked synchronized the way we both broke left, not that far apart from each other (but not that close, don't worry).

I landed JUST in time to 1) head home to pick up Kaylee and take her to her voice lesson and 2) avoid some nasty weather moving through. It was perfect timing, and I got exactly the 5 hours total flight time in that the engine needed. Perfect.

Kaylee's voice lesson--I'm sitting there, and it is Dumping rain. Hard sheets of rain coming down. And there's a guy next to me mowing his lawn with an old push mower, in the rain. Getting soaked. It was...odd.

After her lesson, we went to Hydration Station for a drink, and then I had Kaylee drive us around for an hour. We just stayed on the back roads, relaxed, listened to music, I held her straw up to her lips so she could drink and drive safely occasionally. We'll do that one more time like that, and then I'll bring her back onto the busier roads. She seemed to be much more relaxed and comfortable this time than the last time.

We get home, and she says "Do you want to go to this?" and shows me a poster about a drive-in movie theater in Wabash. Gates open at 8 pm. It's now 6:30 pm. It'll take us an hour to get there. I'd already taken out my contacts and off my jeans, but I thought that sounded like a fun idea, so we did it. Kaylee packed a cooler with drinks and snacks, blankets and pillows, bug spray, and we stopped at a gas station for a few more goodies, and away we went. We got there before they opened, and figured out how to park, got ourselves set up, and heard thunder. I pulled up radar to see a nasty line of weather moving in. The theater people suggested we turn around so we could sit in the front of the car and watch, but we didn't, we stayed just like we were. When the rain started coming in the back, we shut the back door, turned on the windshield wiper and the air conditioning back there, and watched in the rain with the sound coming through the radio. It passed after about 15-20 minutes, and we opened back up and were quite comfortable from the on. :)

The drive-up theater is still a neat throw-back. Kids were out playing frisby, swinging on a playground set nearby, laughing and running around, it was a total family-friendly atmosphere. Lots of snacks and concessions, and oddly, alcohol available, but it just reminded me a lot of Oshkosh with all the people parked close to each other, friendly, relaxed, etc. My only issue was the people who couldn't turn on their car to keep their battery charged without also turning on their headlights. Grr.

We watched Dirty Dancing, the original. It's a little nostalgic, watching it with a daughter who is probably about the same age as I was when I saw it, or close. Soooo much better than the TV version that came out recently. I enjoyed it, and enjoyed hanging out with Kaylee. Her friend Meredith was going to come with her sister, but they chickened out when the weather got bad. We pooh-poohed that at first, but on the drive home I told Kaylee it was good that they weren't out in it.

I haven't had that hard of a time driving in poor visibility in years. The storms were long, heavy, and huge. I couldn't see. The windshield wipers were going as fast as they could, but it didn't matter. It was midnight, pitch black, the headlights from oncoming traffic would turn the sheet of water on your windshield into a glare. But there's nowhere good to pull off on the highway, and off to the side it's pitch black and an invitation to be rammed into by someone else who can't see. So I stuck my left wheel on the yellow line to the left, and followed that for as long as I could, slowly, to keep moving forward, watching for anyone in front of or behind me. I had a couple of semis I had to pass because they were throwing so much water on top of the 40 knot winds and sheets of rain that I just wanted away from them. It was a tense trip. Kaylee tried to nap, but the noise of the rain was so loud that she opened her eyes, saw what I was looking at and said "HOLY COW how do you see?" She also said she was glad she wasn't driving, and I said "No offense, but me too." lol It went like that for most of the drive home, even in town, and we didn't get home until 1:30 am. Long drive in bad weather...but it was worth it.

Today I flew in the morning, and the person I was flying with GOT it. That was so much fun. She's really been struggling with learning to land, struggling with all of flying, actually. It was a teenage girl, and like many of them I've flown with, her biggest hang-up was actually her own lack of confidence. She'd second-guess herself, not make a move unless I said to, under-correct and let the plane do whatever it wanted, etc. Today something clicked in. She came out and took charge. I love that moment. It's one of my favorite moments as a CFI. Not just someone soloing or getting a certificate, but the day something clicks and they realize that they GOT this. From there on out it goes fast. It was a good start to the day.

And then the weather moved in. Steve took the evening off from his deck relaxation in order to get work done so he didn't have to do it this weekend. Kaylee took a 4 hour nap. I took a 40 minute nap. Now I'm going to go out to Kokomo and pick up our new Warbird Training Centers t-shirts. And maybe some food.

Good day.