The Day

This wasn't the world's best day.  But first, the important stuff.

Kaylee says that they're doing okay over there, that they have orientation today.  She said one more difficult thing is that the language barrier is larger there, there are fewer people who speak English, and they don't always have a translator around like they did in Thailand.  So she feels outside of the loop more, more "outside" what's going on.  She also accidentally ordered a shrimp omelette, and she hates shrimp, but she pretended like she meant to do that and ate it anyway so as to not be rude.  That's my girl.  ;)

Yesterday one of our small hangar doors was closing when the flywheel at the top that runs the cable through it came FLYING off, and hit the spinner on the 172.  There were two guys standing there too.  We are Super lucky that this huge flying piece of heavy iron only hit the spinner, and didn't hit anywhere else on that airplane, or one of the people standing there.  The door came busting down a good 5' too, which reiterates my angst at people leaving the airplane under the door for stuff.  This Stuff Happens.  Stay out from under the door.

So anyway, the one 172 had a dented spinner and was unairworthy until we inspected it.  Meanwhile, the other 172 was scheduled for a checkride this morning.  Except when Steve started it this morning, it had a dead mag.  Now we had no airworthy 172s and a checkride oral going on.  So all the hands were on deck, and we took the spinner off of KS and put it on 26F and the checkride went on, in a plane he hadn't been practicing in.  Same model, but every plane has its own personality, and he doesn't do well with things out of the norm.  He knew all this was going on and tried to focus on the oral.  Then they come in to do their takeoffs and landings, and the airport closes Runway 23 out of the blue while they're in the pattern, and tells them to use Runway 14.  Which is a crosswind, and the winds have picked up.  Another quick change.  He did a go-around on a landing early on, did another one when they switched runways, and then later on went to do another go around, and the examiner said he'd have to fail him if he couldn't make the landing, that he couldn't do more than two go-arounds.  So he failed on a landing for needing to do another go-around.   It is his fault too, for not settling in and focusing, he's capable, but he let everything rattle him.  But one thing after the other messed with him, and he was getting it done anyway.  Doing go-arounds if you're not feeling stable or right on shouldn't be grounds to fail, as long as you're doing them safely and properly.  By the same token, you can't take multiple tries to get one landing down and leave a person with confidence in your abilities, either.  So anyway, he's done minus one short field landing he has to make next time.  Next problem is that the examiner wants him to do it at Muncie or it'll be at least 3 weeks away.  But Muncie is a towered field, and he's not comfortable at towers.  So either we spend time and money going to Muncie to see if he can get comfortable enough to do a checkride recheck there, or he spends another month waiting to get his checkride redone here at Kokomo.  *sigh*

While he was up having trouble, I was in the Champ with someone who did the preflight, and didn't get the oil cap back on properly.  So when we landed, we had oil all down the side of the airplane.  Fortunately there was still plenty of oil in the engine, so nothing was hurt, just messed up.

It was 92 degrees today.  My next person was supposed to be a Pinch Hitter flight.  But she cracked a rib the other day, and can't hardly walk, or bend over, or cough, and she's in a lot of pain.  So we canceled for today and tomorrow, just stood outside and talked, and hopefully it'll start feeling better soon.  I then had three more flights in a row.  I was sweating like crazy, and the heat was getting to me.  I don't think my Discovery Flight had as much energy as I normally have.  The last guy of the day, he's talking about how sweaty he is, and he is, and how hot and tired he is, and I was like...dude...this is your one and only flight, for 1.3  Try doing this from 9 am on.  Tomorrow is supposed to be worse as far as temps.  Then it's supposed to cool down.  I don't want it to get cold, because I don't want winter.  But I'll pass on this 92 to 95 degree heat wave too.  Whew.

The lady in the Champ also had trouble.  She was real close to being done with the tailwheel endorsement--until today when she was flailing around, not pinning her tail, not seeing the light crosswind at the time, it just wasn't her day, and I felt bad because it was also her birthday, and the day she'd hoped to be signed off for her endorsement.  Instead, it was a struggle, ending in me ending it early, and then us finding oil all over, and sweating some more.

So, like I said, it was a long, hot day, where a lot of things didn't go right.  So hopefully tomorrow is a better day for everyone!

Line-up on the ramp of the four of us doing the fly-over 

What the spinner looked like after the hangar door broke and fell on it.  Good thing it wasn't someone's head.  Or the prop.  Or the windshield.  Or...anything else.

Quickly

Kaylee is on a plane to Bangkok right now, and heading to her new place and next adventure.  Her new address will be.

Kaylee Stants

c/o Ignite Dreams

44/299 petyong Mae Sai

Chiang Rai 57130

She says she's not sure how it'll work in sending stuff, but she requested a couple things that I'll try to send, and I'll figure out how long it'll take and the cost and see how it goes.  She'll be there until Nov. 5th, so we'd just need to be sure it got there before she left, or wasn't that important if she wasn't there to collect it.

Steve just bought our plane tickets out to Oregon, and Kaylee's plane ticket home.  Buddy was THAT expensive.  Though not as expensive as flying ourselves in anything we've got.  Plus we'll be out there for a few days, so that's transportation and room and board to cover too.   Yeowch.

Today I had a formation fly-over of Hope, Indiana.  There were four of us, two T-6s (JP and me) and two CJ-6s (Bob & Roy).  It was for a veteran's parade, annually, and went well, but getting down there was the tricky part.  The weather moved in, and I had some scuddy clouds and some rain to wait out and then fly around.  When I pull up my Flightaware track down there, it makes me laugh because it's a wandering trail.  But I didn't get wet.  

I was supposed to put more time on Walt's T-6 too, and maybe get it to Metro, but...the weather, and I was exhausted and sweaty and he didn't have a ride arranged, so we postponed it.  I was also supposed to fly someone else's T-6 from Evansville to Michigan by the end of the month, but they never got back to me.  I'll text them tomorrow, but the end of the month is tomorrow, so we'll have to see.  Maybe they found someone else to do it, which I wouldn't actually mind that much to be honest.

I had someone today tell me that the Harpoon down in Indy needs pilots but the current instructor down there "takes some getting used to".  That made me laugh, because unless it's a different guy and/or group by now, it's the same one that Warbird Digest did an article on and I was a photo ship for them and they were so terrible they couldn't figure out which way was west, or how to fly over a lake, or anything.  They were ridiculous, and cocky, and the guy had the nerve to tell me I didn't make him nervous, because I didn't have a FAST card.  He was the one who was So Bad.  SO bad.  We never worked with him again.  

I have a guy on a checkride tomorrow, and I just hope it goes well.  The weather needs to hold off, and he needs to get it in and done.  Private.  Here's hoping for the best.

Steve and I headed south Friday, and came home Saturday.  Just a quick overnight.  We visited the home of Herkey Green, who started the "Checkertail Clan" warbirds in Kokomo, as Nathan is from that area and wanted to honor them.  We wandered down to Paducah too. 

Shadow of the Aerostar on takeoff

KLWV, where I learned to fly

Checkertail Memorial

Paducah downtown

Bugs. Lots of bugs.

Paducah downtown

Me & Steve

The Dam

The Lake

Steve sleeping in the back of the plane again.  ;)

Lonnnng

My day was pretty non-stop, and I've hit a wall of tired for the night.  I hope I don't have to get up again until it's time to go to bed.  :)

First up this morning was my first ever dermatology appointment.  While I can't say that is a great time, being inspected head to toe with three people in the room, I am glad I went.  And that was the fastest, most efficient doctor visit I have EVER had.  For anything.  My appointment was 9 am.  I got there at 8:55 am.  I'd done the paperwork online.  I just had to check in.  Within 10 minutes they called me back and told me what to do.  I was done and out of there by 9:37 a.m.  I've never seen anything like that!!  She documented a few places on my skin, and then said "You have very boring skin".  Well, good!  She said there's nothing there, and that I should just come back in a year for another check up.  She did tell me to start using sunscreen, but it needs to be mineral based thick cream sunscreen and not chemical spray sunscreen.  I can barely handle the thin lightweight sprays.  I really can't handle thick creamy stuff on me.  So I'm afraid I'm going to have to continue in on my habits as they are.  I have capitulated and I buy both a moisturizer and a foundation that have SPF in them, so at least I'm trying to protect my face better.  But seriously, all in all, that was an amazing appointment.

I ran through McDonald's on my way out to the airport so I'd have some food for the day, and then I flew from 10:30-1, 1-3, 3-4:45.  Then hopped in the Aerostar and flew to Marion, where I flew from 5 pm to 7 pm in Walt's T-6, breaking in the new engine.  Got back in the Aerostar and landed back at Kokomo around 7:30 pm.  Hit Wendy's on the way home for some chili, ran a load of laundry to pack for tomorrow, and am now sitting on the couch trying not to fall asleep.  ;)

It was a weird wind day.  Fairly calm on the surface, but beat you to pieces in the air.  That's part of what wiped me out.  Just got beat up all day!  I flew in the RG with one, the C-172 with a brand new 16 year old girl who is overly energetic, flighty, hard to teach, and tiring, and the 172 with the young man who needs to get his medical in the works.  The T-6 was, as I said, a brand new engine.  So a long run-up, a solid check-over and preflight, and the first hour in the air I didn't leave the glide range of the runway.  Just in case.  I circled overhead at 3500', out of the way of other traffic, so that at any time should I lose that shiny new engine, I could make it to the runway no problem.  It purred like a kitten, so I stayed up a full two hours to try to get as much solid time on it as possible.  I landed when I was down to 1 hour of fuel. 

Kaylee sent me this picture.  Her group went into the Red Light District, which she described as full of bars, nudity, and the women working in them were all prostitutes.  She said they go into these places, and buy a beverage (non-alcoholic of course), and sit and talk to the women, get to know them, be an ear, someone who doesn't want anything from the women.  She said that the women they talked to were eager to just interact and talk with them.  They ministered to them the best they can, and she said it was an incredible experience and that she is in awe of a few things.

The shiny new 2019 penny on the R-1340 engine

Helmet doesn't work in this plane well, unfortunately.

Marion from the air

Kaylee and others in Thailand

Quickly

I don't have much to say about today.  I had flight students, I got my receipts sent out for those who wrote checks for the BBQ Bash, I made phone calls, got gas, got my contacts, deposited cash and checks from the Bash, stayed busy all day. 

I can see the colors changing, the sun doing that thing where it's a big ball of fire blinding you in the evenings.  I can feel the Fall Doldrums, I'm just too busy to wallow in them yet.

I threw away my shoes that had hydraulic fluid on them.  Looking at the stains in the light, it's distracting.  ;)  Besides, they never did smell right after that.  And they're worn out anyway.  I've worn them all year, to Oshkosh, walked a loooot of miles in those things.   But I really liked them, so I looked up the serial number and ordered another pair exactly like them, arriving in the next couple days.

Super busy week and weekend.  Tomorrow I don't even have lunch scheduled.  I have a 9 am doctor appointment (first dermatology appointment), then an 11-1 flight, then 1-3, 3:30-5, and 5 to dark.  Who needs a break anyway, right? ;)

Joisey

Yep, 4:45 a.m. my alarm went off, and I was sleeping so hard it was incorporated into my dream for a few seconds.  Teterboro is known to be pretty gnarly airspace, plus there were multiple TFRs on top of each other out there.  So Dustin and I were ready to be on our toes.  Ends up...no big deal at all.  Sure, it was busy.  It's in the Washington DC SFRA airspace and there are airplanes all over.  It's always busy out there.  But it wasn't anything worse than any other airport out there, at least not today.  We got in just fine, and then had to sit on the taxiway for a long time watching a parade of jets go by before we could taxi across the runway and park at the FBO. One thing that was different, was the SEA of jets out there.  I mean...I've never seen anything like it.  Two different jet companies are on field, Net Jets and something else, plus 6 FBOs, and the ramps were *stuffed* with jets.  Everywhere.  When we got out in our little piston twin, they hauled us off to the back corner asap, and stacked jets so close around us we barely had room to taxi out when it was time to leave.  I said "Top off all 5 tanks please" and they said "Jet A, right?"  NO.  Not Jet A.  So I stood by the window and watched those guys until the 100LL truck went by and went to the plane so I could be sure they didn't mess it up, because that's a very common error places make...especially when everything else on that field, including the few other airplanes there with props instead of jets, all take Jet A.  

This FBO was pretty cool though.  Rich man's FBO.  They had private sleep rooms where I could lock the door, turn a light down low, they had a pillow and a blanket that had a wrap on it saying "Cleaned just for you!".  I laid down for over an hour to try to rest for the upcoming T-6 flight this evening.  The pilot's lounge had a pool table in it, and was up on the second story, surrounded by windows so you could see the sea of jets out there.  Everyone walking around in their black pants and white shirts, except me, and I had on black pants and a red shirt and dress boots, because I just had a feeling I shouldn't wear my Glenndale t-shirt today as normal.  ;)  I was completely surrounded by jet boys!  I mean, I'm trying to describe to you how many jets were on this one field, and I'm at a loss.  I've never seen anything like it.

But it still wasn't any harder getting in and out of than anywhere else out there.  At least today.

I left the airport and had an ahi tuna salad for lunch, and then I was sitting there waiting for Dustin to get back, and I heard somebody say "I didn't see the plane, but I do see Laura".  I turn around, and there is Jordan and Matt.  They are friends who flew in from Terre Haute (Indiana) today, had never been to Teterboro before, and ended up arriving before I left.  We took a selfie as proof.  Two Indiana friends who met up in Teterboro of all places at the same time.  

The view taking off and landing at Teterboro is pretty cool, but you need a better camera with a better zoom than my cellphone.  It just didn't work well.  But the view of NYC is pretty neat.  

When I got home, I took the Aerostar over to Marion to fly Walt's T-6.  Except we discovered an oil leak, so after running it a little bit, I shut it down, and he worked on the leak while I headed home.  I'll fly it Thursday for the first time instead.  Brand spanking new engine, zero air time yet, two run-ups on the ground.  I'll wear proper shoes next Thursday anyway.  I was wearing dress boots...not the best T-6 flying shoes.  lol

Trevor's Bash Shots this year

Sunrise on the way to NJ

They runway on the right, the city skyline, a fraction of it.

Just a tiny couple of rows of jets

Our poor piston baby on the ramp before they moved even more jets all around it.

Jordan, Matt & Me.

You can sort of see the skyline if you blow it up.

One shiny new 2019 penny in the Pratt & Whitney on Walt's T-6

Out of order but again a view of the city if you look at the bigger version.  Sort of.

The Day After

Actually, today was pretty good for me.  I had scheduled myself off work today for once, and that's the way to do it.  I was able to catch up on a bunch of stuff.  Steve and AE got most of the Bash stuff put away and back in place.  We're still figuring up the figures.   I do the cash counting, because I've actually always been fast and accurate at that for some reason.  I count it twice to verify, but I've never had to count a third time because I got two different answers.  Kind of an odd but helpful skill to have, I guess.

I got SMA checks deposited, and tonight I am working on writing thank you receipt notes for them.  I'm SO BAD at that in general, too much time goes by that it's rude.  So this time I'm by golly doing it now.  And I'm taking some with me tomorrow on my trip so I can finish them there if possible.

My trip tomorrow is to Teterboro, New Jersey. Lord have Mercy.  First, it's in the middle of the Washington DC TFR.  Fine, it's not like I haven't been there before.  Next, it's one of the busiest airports out there, and it's usually a serious mess.  Great.  In fact, airline pilots all complain hard about it--one guy just said "Worst. Airspace. Ever."  I know, I know.  Now, add in 3 other TFRs happening right there right now.  There's some VIP movement, and there's a tiny cutout allowing traffic into Teterboro...barely.  It's going to be a cluster.  Best of all, I get to get up at 4:45 a.m. and leave the house by 5:30 to be wheels up by 6 am.  I'm supposed to be home by 6 pm, and then I hop in something and go right over to Marion Airport, where I will be test flying Walt's T-6 for the first time since its brand new engine, annual, and a BUNCH of work that was done on the fuel lines, fuel pump, landing gear, hydraulic lines, just about everything major.  I've got until about dark to fly that for a little time and start checking it out.   I'll try to take a nap in Teterboro if I can, instead of wandering around, so I'll be more rested.

Here's a weird factoid.  Two friends from Terre Haute are flying into Teterboro tomorrow.  They're landing at 1 pm.  I'll be leaving around 2 pm so we'll be there at the same time for about an hour.  They're going into the same FBO I am, and there are six FBOs on field.  Neither of us has ever been to Teterboro before.  What are the odds of this??

Bash Day Two

We made it.  :)

It was windy and gusty and bumpy today, moreso than yesterday.  But the weather started off forecast for rain possibly at 8 am and winds of 35 knots by 1 pm.  Neither of those things happened.  The rain didn't come until 8 pm, and then it was just a sprinkle.  And the winds were gusting around 27 knots, but 27 we can deal with.  35 not so much.   It was still on the edge of being too much, not because of the winds themselves, but the turbulence and the gusts, particularly from about the surface to around 300' or so.  In other words, right on takeoff and landing, it got interesting.  Takeoff you can handle, because you're climbing away and have plenty of room.  Landing, I'm coming in over the wires, watching my airspeed fluctuate 20 mph in a fraction of a second.  I see it bouncing close to stall speed, all the way up to way too fast for me to be able to get it down and stopped on the runway.  So I just tried to average it out and hold it as close to 85 mph, which is 5 mph fast for landing there, that I could.  It was a little bit like a rodeo coming down final, over the wires, dropping down, catching it, and then...poof.  The turbulence and gusts were diminished and the actual landing wasn't that bad.  Thank heavens.  lol

We ended up doing 361 rides over the two days.  Of those, 16 were T-6 rides, and most of those were yesterday.  I was TIRED yesterday.  :)  Today I only did three of them.  One guy I had in the back seat spent the whole time chuckling and giggling.  He had the best time.  Another is the dad of one of the airport folks, and piped up with "You know, I think you're a really, really good pilot."  He's a pretty old school guy, and a former pilot, and not overly wordy, so it was a pretty good compliment coming from him.  I appreciated it.  Then to end the night, we loaded up Dale E. into the back.  His legs don't work quite right, and he can't bend well, and he's 88.  So it took some extra effort, but we got him in.  I asked if he minded being along for my traditional low pass farewell sequence, and he said "HECK no.  You do it."  So I did, and he had fun.  It took a little extra effort to get him back out of the plane, but we managed, with two casualties. One, he scraped his arm and leg getting out, which caused him to bleed (he says 88 year olds bleed easy and it was 'totally worth it'), and Two, he stomped on a headset cord and tore the wire out of it, so now we need to repair the plug.  But he doesn't know that and I didn't tell him.  He'll probably not get in a T-6 again, so I'm glad we got to go do it.

The disgruntled rider provider took off, after telling Steve he owed for 20 gallons, and Steve told him to forget it.  He really owed for over 50 gallons.  Not very stand up of the fellow, now is it.  He was hot and cold to us too.  He'd be friendly, then grumpy.  Same with his loader.  Susan, one of our workers, was chatting and friendly with the guy, walked away for a minute, came back and said something to him, and he snapped at her.  Hot and cold.  I'm glad we won't be asking him back.  I've had more than enough of that guy.  And no, I'm not going to contact him and tell him he owes us for more fuel.  It's worth the money to me to be done with him for good. 

Well, you know what's next, putting stuff away, recuperating, counting money, paying bills, seeing what all we end up with, but I know the gross amount, and it was good.  And that's without any sponsor checks that have or will hopefully come in to defray the costs.  We shall see.  I'm so thankful that the weather held off and let us get the weekend in.   Now I'm waiting for the pictures to come in.  :)

Kaylee says she misses home and she feels a little culture shock.  She can't read anything there, can't talk to hardly anyone there, and is just feeling a little twitchy.  She texted me that she feels twitchy but can't remember what that means exactly.  I said "restless, the need to do SOMETHING but nothing sounds good.  Agitated."  She said "Ah.  Yep, that's it."  So pray for her to settle in, a little peace.  She's got 7 weeks left to go!

Bash Day One

The Bash was overall pretty good today.  The weather held out.  I stayed busy on the T-6.  I met some people who had a great time and to whom the ride meant a lot.  Steve was fairly relaxed and said he enjoyed himself.  The regular rides also seemed to be pretty steady.

There were some extra challenges this year.  Coca-Cola didn't show, so instead of free drinks for the weekend, we had to buy them all, which adds a lot of expense.  The Port-o-Pots, which have been donated for many years now, were unavailable, so we had to rent them for a lot of money from a town an hour away.  We were missing a lot of people.  Our dee jay and Sunday service crew.  The skydivers.  Our head regular rides coordinator.  The pilot for one of the rides airplanes, so it just sat static.  Our head tech and warbird sales guy.  Our head inside t-shirt and product and SMA informer sales lady.  One of our best helps in the food tent.  Our transient airplane parker, who retired for good.  Tomorrow the other half of our main rest-of-rides seller will be gone.  It's been a bit of a scramble, and Steve did a good job doing what he does, which is making stuff happen and figuring out solutions to problems.  We covered, we managed, and it ran fairly smoothly, actually! One of the other issues, the one that actually got to me, was that one of the people there giving rides wasn't getting many riders, and he made a statement that actually really hurt my feelings.  It takes a lot to go from just annoying me (which it did Steve), to actually making me sad, and he managed it.  Now, keeping in mind I woke up at 4:30 am and couldn't go back to sleep, so I'm tired, hot, sweating, been busy all day, and maybe over-reacting, but still. Hurt my feelings off.  So I'm having a cup of warm tea and eating some cherry twizzler bites and relaxing on the couch and gearing up for tomorrow, which has a forecast of some pretty gnarly winds and possible rain.  We shall see how it goes, if it goes.  If nothing else, Mother Nature held out for today, and we got a fair amount of t-shirt sales, food, and regular & T-6 rides in, which is all good.  The Stearman didn't do a ton, but he did some, and it picked up in the afternoon for both him and the biplane.   I was really surprised that the T-6 stayed busy all day.  I figured at $275 a ride, people would jump all over the New Standard ($80 adults, $60 kids) and the Stearman ($175).  Instead, they went with me mostly.  I don't know how many I did--I lost track.  But it was a good amount.

Dinner went well, Cathy & Lon & Alonna came up too.  They were here to visit Lon's Mom, and they stopped and stayed with Ann last night and tonight, and came out to the airport this evening.  So I took Alonna up on a quick fly-by flight.  Buzzing the runway for the day.  She really enjoyed it-said she couldn't quit grinning, and said it's better than a rollercoaster because you control it and can do what you want.  I had another guy who paid extra to go longer and do aerobatics, so we went up and did that.  I had a couple of very old gentlemen who needed help getting in and out of the seat, but who also wanted yanked around.  A couple of first time fliers who were nervous but excited.  A former student of mine, and on my landing with him, I had my only bounce of the day.  It was so rough on the runway that once I bounced, it went back up and then I hit a launching ramp, and I just went around.  He laughed and said it made him feel better to see me bounce one.  Glad to oblige.  ;)

Well, I'm pretty beat.  I'm going to put this away and hope for a good tomorrow, too!

Yawning

I was in the air for 7.5 hours today, and running from one thing to the next from the time I left the house at 7:45 am until the time I got back to the house at 9:00 something p.m.  I had one hour between 5-6 before my last guy came, and I about fell asleep waiting for him.  I sort of wish I could have!  My biggest problem was poor planning on my part for food.  I didn't have a moment to eat nor any place to get food until about 2:30 pm.  At that point I was at Glenndale, and I asked Chuck if there was any food up there, and he actually went home and slapped together a ham and cheese sandwich and ran it back to me on the golf cart before I left for my next flight, along with a bottle of Gatoraid.  And that saved the day right there, folks.  It's the only thing I ate until 8 something at night.  That'll get ya.  I would have been in trouble without that sandwich.

So I took the old 172 down to Westfield, and flew in the Champ for 2 hours with a lady working on her tailwheel endorsement.  She turned a corner today and pretty much has it down, so now we get to do some more fun stuff.  One wheel landings, good crosswind landings if we get any, etc.  We've done power off landings, big old slip to landings, 3-points, wheel landings, concrete and grass.  She's coming along.  :)

I flew the 172 back to Kokomo and the Stearman landed right behind me.  He had me sit up front, and then I took off, climbed up to about 2500', did steep turns, slow flight, power off stall, and then about 5 takeoffs and landings.  I didn't have it down perfectly yet, but it wasn't bad.  It was my first time landing a Stearman.   My last landing I squeaked it on nicely, rolled nicely, then it swerved a bit on me, but not bad.  Calm wind day, too, which I hear makes a difference in a Stearman.  I did the warbird thing backwards, really flying the T-6 before any other warbird.  Even the Mustang, though I didn't do the takeoffs and landings, I flew it for about 30 hours.  THEN I flew the PT-26, and NOW I fly a Stearman.  You're supposed to start small and build your way up.  I started big and worked my way down.

I then hopped out at Kokomo, and he took the Stearman over to Glenndale for the weekend, and I took the T-6 over to Glenndale to pick him up.  That's where Chuck and his sandwich saved me.  ;)  From there Mike flew the T-6 from the back and we went to Shelbyville, to drop him back off and get his car.  He did 4 or 5 takeoffs and landings from the back, then I flew myself home.  Got home around 5 pm, ran up the Aerostar to make sure the CHT probe was working properly, then flew from 6-8.  Dinner with Steve and AE at a quick place, then home to work on BBQ Bash stuff.

This weekend's forecast is calling for high winds both days, with up to 30 knots on Sunday, and rain on Sunday.  One forecast says not until after 2 pm.  Another says by 11 a.m.  I hope the "not until after 2 pm" is the correct one.  *sigh*

Me & Mike

Just me on my way to Glenndale.

View from the front of the Stearman in a turn

Stearman all tucked away

Columbus

Fog killed off the first flight of the day, and when it burned off I took up the 172 on its post-maintenance flight.  All went pretty well there, so I returned it to service, and then brought Steve home some lunch.  He was having so much trouble getting his computer to work properly, getting information in to the FAA, calling people, etc., so he skipped lunch and I brought some to him.  I then had a 1:30 flight, and had the guys pull the T-6 out and top it off and get it ready, and then at 3:30 Steve and I hopped in and went to Columbus, Indiana.  They had a mini airshow on a Wednesday.  The Canadian Snowbirds used us as a stop on their way to somewhere else, and I'll tell you what, Columbus Indiana came OUT.  The crowd was really large, and it was impressive.  A KC-135 was there, and Jordan's C-47, which I climbed up into today and checked out (and I'm not sure how you land from that high up.  lol).  Then an L-5 stopped in, and us.  So that gave people some stuff to look at on the ramp, and the Snowbirds and the "Red Star Team" (a CJ-6 and two RVs) were on the "hot ramp" for the show.  As soon as we arrived, people were looking around the T-6, so I went ahead up on the wing and let people look around.  Not get in, but look.  It was super hot, sun beaming down, and I got very sticky and hot very quickly, but it's always nice to be able to let folks looks over the airplane and ask questions.  

Once the show started, I got off the wing and shut down the line, and we watched the show.  The airspace opened back up at 7 pm, and we headed out not too long after that so we could get back to Kokomo before the sun went all the way down.  The plane has great lights (except the panel lights are really dim), but you can't see the gear pins out on the wings to verify gear down.  So I brought a flashlight just in case, that I didn't end up needing to use.  We flew past Nathan and I gave a big wing rock to say hi, and he saw us.  :)  I didn't realize there was a plane waiting to take off, so I did an overhead break, circled around at sunset all lit up, and a Mooney keyed up and said "Lookin' good, T-6".  Aw, thanks!  I wish I had a picture of the plane lit up at sunset coming in.  :)   When we got back to the hangar, we rearranged stuff so we could leave the T-6 up front.  It goes in and out a lot more often than the 340, so we stuck that one in the back.  This winter we'll put the Six back in the back, but in the meantime, it is getting used a lot more!

It was nice seeing people.  Seeing Jordan and Matt was good, and getting a tour of the C-47.  And then I ran into Tim, a Red Star formation guy, who took the time to come over, say hi, give me a hug, and tell me to hurry up and get my formation card so I can join in on their events.  Ran into the student I rescheduled so I could come to the event--he came too.  lol  Anyway, all in all it was a good stop.

Kaylee called me this morning.  It was evening for her, which still is weird when I'm just getting up.  She said she's gaining weight out there because they eat a bunch of rice and bananas.  lol  She's still traumatized by the Tukos critters, but I think she'll live.  :)

I took quite a few pictures today, it was a nice flight home.  Not sure which to post so I'll hit most of them.

Steve & Zak

There are the Snowbirds

More of the Snowbirds

In the air. I enjoy their show more than most of the others.

Under the prop of the C-47

The T-6 over there on the ramp

Starburst

Over the KC-135

And over the T-6

Crowd shot

What you can't see well here is a Wingtip Snowbird photo--but they're taxiing past me, not me past them.  ;)

Sunset on the way home.

The back seat is so low, I can't see Steve back there.  But he is.  lol

Pretty sun

On the ground at Kokomo

You can see the taxiway lights in front of the wing.  Putting her away.