That's all I know on Kaylee for now, so the rest of this is flying stuff. I had set my alarm for 5:30 a.m. I woke up at 4 am, then woke back up at 5:20 a.m. Beat my alarm, again, but I was feeling good. Rested. Alert. Ready to take on the day. I showered and took a little extra time with my hair and make-up, put mousse in and everything, wore a nice shirt, and was ready to show up a few minutes early and be ready to go.
I get to Kokomo, finish preflighting the Aerostar, open the hangar, pull it out, close the hangar, put all my stuff in, climb in, and...when I turn on the fuel valve for the right engine, I get no "zhooot" noise. That's the noise a fuel valve makes when it turns on. ;) I tried it in the crossfeed position and didn't get the double zhoot noise either. I decided to prime and start the right engine anyway to see, and it started, and ran for long enough I started wondering if I was wrong, and then the fuel pressure dropped to zero, and it was done. So obviously I can't take the Aerostar. I get back out, open the hangar, tug it away, close the hangar, and by now it's raining, by the way, and my hair, clothes, and face are soaked both with the 100% humidity in this heat, and the actual rain. I'm now a mess, and now that all combined with me now being LATE, when they only have a short window to do this, makes me angry. I go over to the other hangar after texting D and asking if I could use the 340, and there are tables and chairs all in the way, along with the T-6 in the front. Nathan is there now too, taking the Cheyenne to PA. We start sliding chairs and tables out of the way, hauling them like crazy. I'm moving big chocks out of the way, opening the big door, hauling out the T-6, hauling out the 340, Nathan pushes the T-6 back away, all this takes awhile, and I am just completely drenched. Still mad. My flight plan was in the Aerostar, but I don't have time to file anything else, I need to GO. So I decide I'll just ask Grissom to change it for me. I taxi over and call up GUS, and get...nothing. No answer. I look up the NOTAMs, and sure enough, that frequency is notamd out of service. I try their main frequency 121.05, and get nothing. So I have to sit there running and call on my cell phone to get my IFR clearance, because the weather isn't good enough for me to depart VFR for long. I'm on the ground running for a long time, and Nathan is waiting on the other runway in the Cheyenne. Apparently Chicago was so backed up they just shut down the remote. Nathan asked the controller about it when he finally got in the air, and I heard the guy say "Chicago had a ton of reroutes for weather and they got too busy, and just don't care about Kokomo." Anyway, I finally get in the air, and I have another problem. I can't pretend to be the Aerostar like you could in the old days, because now these planes have ADS-B on board. So I am squawking that I am the 340. I get in the air and call the controller and tell him I had to switch planes and I'm in this N# now. I had to give him my entire flight plan info over the air, because plane type and everything else was different. He's not pleased, but he did it, so I made sure to thank him before I left him. ;)
I also couldn't find my sunglasses this morning. I know now that I left them by my printer, but I thought, no big deal. Well, it sort of was. I also couldn't find where I left my keys, but that one was not a big deal because the guys found them by the computer in the hangar.
You get the idea here that now my nice peaceful morning, raring to go represent womankind in T-6s, show up and look professional and all that, was a little strained. The only thing that had gone right was that the 340 already had fuel in it. I looked like a drowned rat, my makeup was rained and sweated off. So I started trying to repair those things in the 45 minutes I had before I arrived. I put the air conditioner on and put both vents on my hair to try to dry it out at least. lol
When I got there, I couldn't find the museum without asking Unicom, and once I parked I couldn't find the conference room, and once I found the conference room, nobody was in it. I was 30 minutes late. I had no phone numbers, just email addresses, so I sent an email "I'm here in the conference room". Then I got a call, "Oh, we're all at the restaurant, forgot we were going to meet in the conference room." From here on out, the day got much better.
I met with the film crew who had done the "Rise Above: Tuskegee Airman" film and promos. And I met with a real Tuskegee Airman who was there, and Bill S. and Mark N., two of the CAF big wigs who were there for this. The photo ship wasn't going to be ready until 10, and we had all briefed now, and it was just after 9, so they asked if I wanted a familiarization flight in the T-6. Frankly, yes I did, but I also know that was as much for their benefit as mine. They wanted to make sure I could fly the plane before we did this. So I went up with Mark, who flies everything from gliders to supersonic whatevers, has had his own T-6 for 30 years, flies the B29s and flies jets for a living and so forth. I went through and did my thing. Found everything in the cockpit, asked a few questions, buckled in and fired it right up. I flew around for a few minutes, then cranked it around a little and said "Yep, it flies like a T-6!" and came in for an almost perfect tail low wheel landing. Taxiied back in, shut down, and he went up to Bill S. and I heard him say "Yeah, she's good. She flies it very well. Probably better than you." and then they both laughed. He repeated my "flies like a T-6" comment, guess he liked that. He's kidding, but still nice. I thought that meant I was going to take it up by myself on the formation flight, but that didn't end up happening.
The photo ship ran late, so that we lost a lot of our sun to the clouds. But we went up anyway, and Mark said he was going along to be a second set of eyes and such. The formation flight went fine. The Toga took off first, I took off second, and then I had to chase him down for several miles, because the Toga pilot isn't a formation pilot, and even though we talked about it in the briefing and even though I got on the radio and said something about him turning so I could join up, he made me chase him down straight ahead every time. They wanted me to pull up on them as close as possible, but in the wrong attitude for actual formation. I was way high on them, and as close as I could get, a low wing airplane on top not always being the best idea, but that was the angle they wanted. Then they wanted a "break" away. I did two of those, then we did the next shot of being wing to wing with them and a break away, and the final shot was of me flying right over the top of their heads at an angle. I hesitated on this one. It puts me blind to them and them to me. It's basically the biggest no no you can do. So we prearranged how we were going to do it. I'd radio call in that I was coming over the top and for them to hold completely steady. I had to do it twice, they wanted me to come a little farther back over the tail, so I did that, and they Loved the shot. The photographer, two helpers, and pilot all inside the Toga all went on about how cool that was. That they could hear me but not see me, and then Vrrrooooooom right over. They think that ended up being their money shot. That was the end of what we did. No aerobatics today, which made me laugh.
We then had to drive 39 miles back to the north to get home, because the photo ship took us on a cross country to the south instead of doing some turns to stay fairly local. lol
Afterwards we had lunch at the restaurant on field, and then I asked Mark if he'd sign off my pilot proficiency for the year. I expire in August, since that's when Doug R checked me out last year. We didn't do anything checkride-like this time, but he marked what little we did do and signed it off for the year. We were going over what we didn't do, and he said "I thought about having you do a go-around just to be a jerk. And I thought about having you do an overhead break, too. But I didn't." I offered to go fly some more if he wanted, to feel good about signing off the form, and he said "I don't need to fly with you any more." When we got out of the plane, he said "You fly a good plane." He also complimented me on the use of checklists and flows, and how I verbalize it. He said he really liked that. I said I like it when I know what people I am flying with for the first time are thinking or doing or looking at. Also, when we got out, I don't remember what words he used, but he said something about how he probably didn't need to go on the formation flight, but that none of them had ever flown with me before and didn't know me and just wanted to be sure. I can understand that, with the formation thing involved, and they know I don't have a card, so they don't really know what or how I'd do, with their airplane the first time.
All this was for a trailer for the movie, not the actual movie. They are filming for the movie next month, and didn't ask me to come down and fly for that so far. They currently don't have any other female T-6 pilots, but they may do the rest with the guy pilots, Go Pro up the airplane and do aerobatic sequence, etc. Or they may ask me to come down. I don't know yet. We'll see.
Afterwards they took a lot of photos. This was very unfortunate. I was in clothes under my flight suit, which makes it thicker and lumpier than it needs to be. I've sweated all day, my hair was a tornado from two T-6 flights, I had no sunglasses to hide behind and was squinting like crazy in the bright sun, I was extremely uncomfortable and messy and looked like a wreck. I got my photo in front of the plane, with the Tuskeegee Airman, with the whole crew, with Mark, all sorts of photos of me looking like an overweight wreck. I wouldn't mind my photo being taken if I could have cleaned up first. I'm afraid to even look at those when they come out and hate to see them plastered all over. I know that's sad, but who likes to look their worst, publicly?
When it was time to fly home, there were little thunderstorm cells all over the place, like popcorn kernels or whack-a-mole. Flying up above it all was too much hassle and risky since I didn't know the tops, and wanted to stay in the clear to see them and avoid them. That many with delayed weather, I'd fly right into something that just popped up if I was IMC. So I stayed low, 3000', and just flew around all the individual cells. Made it home at the same time as Nathan in the Cheyenne. He literally landed as I was pulling off the runway, and we had nothing in common. He was in Pennsylvania, I was in Ohio, we hadn't talked, and he left at the same time I did that morning. Oddly coincidental!
When I got home, I decided to start a list of T-6s I have flown, and people I have checked out. Today's WASP T-6 makes the 7th T6 I've flown. T-6G, T-6D, SNJ-4 and SNJ-5 models, to be precise. I wrote down their years, who owned them, their N#s and model. Of those 7, one doesn't really count for more than yes I flew it, but it was my first flight in a T-6, in Tom Wood's T-6, with Duane Carroll up front. I did the flying, but I was the rider that I now let do the flying, except I did the takeoff and landing too. ;) I've now checked out four people in a T-6 fully, with another 5 who are in process or almost done. I wrote their names down too, but no other info there. Maybe I should put a date there too, or something. Anyway, I thought that was kind of neat.
There's more but I'm tired and it's late and I was up early and worked pretty hard and tomorrow is a busy day. The rest of this week is nuts again. Everyone is pushing us hard to get their flying in before we leave for Oshkosh. Pushing so hard that there's no open space, that people are on top of each other. One guy wants six hours before I leave so he can fly solo in the plane. One guy scheduled every evening just to get his in. One texted and emailed that he can't get a slot. I KNOW. Steve is having the same problems. We're going to be too tired from all this to enjoy our first few days at Oshkosh.
Speaking of tired...
On the way there, no real editing, that's what it looked like.
Welcome to Port Clinton, Ohio
Fifinella! The panel in the T-6
Little popcorn cells all over.
Some angry mother nature shots.
One nicely formed decent sized cell out front of me, from a distance.
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