Having said all that, I said somewhere that I hadn't even seen my friends in over a month. That was true up until today. It wasn't planned, and everyone stayed 6' apart, nobody was coughing or feeling puny or had even been anywhere else, nobody touched each other, and I used enough hand washing and sanitizer today to make my hands dry, but it was a beautiful day, and one at a time, for one reason or another, under ten of us all ended up at the airport at the same time. Steve and Kaylee drove the Corvette out there, then out on the roads. (He found a hill to have her practice on too. Not a big one, but big enough she had to work at it, so that was good.) I went out to go fly with her, but it didn't end up happening because it was gusty and windy today. Nathan went out there to work on the Aerostar's annual. Chuck came out because he hasn't left his home in a month and he's going nuts and wanted some fresh air. Glenn Antoine came out to go fly the RG and saw the rest of us were out there. Jerry Long was out there to work on some stuff for the Saratoga. Ron Beachy was out there working on the wingtip of the Champ for awhile. Jessie Clement flew in in his Cub and waved from a distance. The Wilds had a party going on over at their place, 4 or 5 cars, all the aerobatic planes were going up and doing aerobatics. We never saw them in person, never got on the same side of the airport even, but you could see the planes out and about. It was the first nice day we've had in a bit, and obviously people came out in numbers. Apart from each other.
We also had an unofficial running of the C-45 for the first time in a couple years. We're going to have an official first running a little bit later, but for now we wanted to make sure it would run before having everyone come out, have a party, (after the lock down of course), and then have it have problems. So Steve pulled out the 340, I pulled out the Cheyenne, Nathan pulled out BOB, and then he fired it up. The first time he had to shut it down because the left engine oil pressure wasn't rising. So we checked the oil, added a little more, and ran it again. The right engine didn't want to start at all, maybe a primer issue, but once it did get running, she sounded good. He ran it for a little while, ran it up a little bit, tested out the feathering and unfeathering buttons, checked over the gauges and stuff, and then shut it back down. It was really nice to see the white smoke blowing out the back, hear the two radials run. Ahhhhhh
Then Nathan put away BOB, and I put away the 340 and the Cheyenne, and Chuck went home to take a nap, and Jerry went home, and Ron went home, and Steve and Nathan and I shut everything up and reluctantly went home.
Today was the first time I've needed to get gas in my car since this really started. That Buick gets amazing gas mileage. I had gloves, tossed them afterwards. I'll be good to go another month at this rate of driving.
One of our friends posted that they're starting plans for Nonkosh. I thought that was good. NotKosh.
Kaylee sat down with Steve and I today and discussed visiting a nutritionist over the summer. She went once, got a lot out of it, and wants to keep going. So she's going to get a part time summer job, hopefully at Ben's Coffee Shop in town, to help cover the costs (insurance doesn't and it's not cheap). She has a friend who works there, says the owner could use the help, and will get her an application/meeting. She's actually looking forward to it, too. Learning how to make different coffee, interacting with customers, making money. The downside is the store opens at 7 am and she's so upside down on her schedule right now that she's going to bed around 4-5 am and sleeping until noon. So that'll be a challenge. Steve said the only requirement he has on the nutritionist is that she's not allowed to become vegan. She informed us that her nutritionist is a woman who is also a hunter. She hunts all sorts of meat, and uses every bit of it. So, Steve's biggest fears were allayed. ;)
Kaylee wrote up a "Letter of Persuasion" on this. She's only done that a couple times, but it started when she was little and wanted an iPod Touch. She did her homework. Wrote out a letter to her dad about what she wanted, and why, and what her plan was. I helped her with the first one a little, because she was young, and I suggested she remove the line "It's my money", because, at age 11 or whatever it was, no, it really isn't. :D She did remove that line, and was more respectful, and he was so blown away by the logical, thorough research and presentation, that he one-upped it. She didn't get the iPod Touch, because that was just an iPhone without the phone. So he just got her her first phone, with strict rules on how to use it. So anytime something is big or important to her, she'll write out her thoughts on paper so she can organize them, be logical, do research, and come up with a plan. It's only been maybe two times before today. So that's what she did with this, successfully. It's actually a pretty good life skill to learn too. :)
These are the pictures from today. I can't post them on Facebook because this didn't happen today. The CAF guys want to be there for the "First Run-Up". So...they will be. Now that we know it'll run. ;)
The start of the wingtip repair. We joke that a bird strike happened on the back of the wing.
(That's a slow airplane joke).
BOB
Glenn, standing by a fire extinguisher, socially distant, like me. ;)
She looks good. HE looks good? It looks good.
Nathan pushing it away into the hangar.
Just a few seconds of engine running goodness.
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