The Week Beginneth

Kaylee blew in last night for a few minutes, with Meredith.  Mer leaves for her adventure in a couple of days, so they were spending some time together, and Kaylee ran home to pick up her world map so she could put it on her wall in her dorm room, and a couple other things.  She was in good spirits, busy, says she has five classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays now and it is swamping her on those days, but on Mon/Wed/Fri she only has one class, so at least she gets a break in between.  She was upbeat, and it was good to see her.  She blew in, grabbed some stuff, hugged me because I made her, and blew out.  :)

There is going to be a free online screening of the "Rise Above: WASP" movie.  It's like 19 minutes long.  If you go to This Link, you'll be able to see the trailer, and both my fly-by and one of Kaylee's cameo appearances is in the trailer.  You can also register there to watch it free online between Sept. 8th and 13th.   Kinda cool!

Last night I was talking on the phone when I cracked my toe, middle toe on my right foot, on Kaylee's guitar stand.  Today it was a different color than all my other toes, and lordie it hurts.  I don't know if I broke it broke it, or bruised it, but it no feel so good.  Either way there's nothing they do for you for toes but tape it up, and I can do that myself if I have to.  But hopping up on the T-6, and down from it, and using the rudders in it, those things all hurt.  Walking hurt.  Sitting here sitting still it kind of throbs now and then.  I hurt my toe, man.  lol

I flew with the T-6 fellow again today, and we did a lot of three point landings, and I think he's getting them down pretty well!  I think we smoothed out his takeoffs and landings both.  Then I did a cross country in the 172 with someone, and he was doing a good job in the pattern, so I went ahead and soloed him too.  He was disappointed only in one thing--he only got to do two landings because he had to go to the bathroom too badly.  :D  So we're supposed to fly again on Wednesday, and I told him if the weather is good and he is consistent, he can go to the bathroom first, and then show me 3 consistent TOLS, and then he can do as many as he wants solo.  It was a good day.

My drug test came back and I passed it.  Whew.  I'm sure we were all worried about that.  ;)

Steve has an inspection with an FAA guy for Checkertail T-6 tomorrow, and I'm joining him for that in case they have any questions.

I have a lot going on all of a sudden in September.  I have a tailwheel endorsement I'm traveling to Huntington to do in hopefully just a few days, but I'm taking several full days off on the schedule to do it.  It's the son of the man who owned the shop who built Nathan's T-6.  He's a warbird pilot, tailwheel pilot of a lot of different airplanes, but not a CFI, so he can't do his son's endorsement.  But that's kind of neat that he asked us to do it.  I'll be doing it in his own Cub.  Then I've got a person coming from Boston, one from N. Carolina, and one from N. Jersey, all three coming at the same time, to do some flying, a flight review, training, tailwheel stuff, etc. and join us at the BBQ Bash.  They'll be here as many as 5 days.  Right after they leave, I have a guy coming from W. Virginia to do his tailwheel endorsement, because he can't find anywhere else to do it anywhere near him!  I sent him to Ohio where I know a place, but they make you do your own full insurance, they have none, and we ended up being cheaper, and he'd rather fly with me.  So he's here for a full week, in case that's what it takes.  Meanwhile I'm checking out Larry in this T-6 and it's going to take a little time to cover everything we need to.  And Jordan has a fellow who may want to start his T-6 checkout in Walt's former T-6 soon, and I'll need to take a chunk of days to do that too.  I mean...that's a lot.  And in the meantime I DO have normal students I'm trying to keep up with too!  September is going to be hopping.  I hope the weather holds out!

Not Super Restful But Not Bad

I know I've been saying it a lot, but yesterday I was so tired by the end of it that my whole body hurt.  The crops are turning colors, the ears of corn are starting to droop, and it was in the 50s this morning.  I don't think summer is done yet, but the signs are showing, and we all know what comes after that.  So even though it's a little *too* busy some days, like yesterday, I can appreciate it, because I know I'm not always going to have a day where I can fly a T-6 in formation with a C-45, then land on a grass strip in a Champ, then take a different T-6 somewhere else, then work towards soloing a teenager, etc.  You never know what's coming, nor what's going away, so you have to appreciate what you have and what you can while you can.  And I do appreciate it all.  Some day I'm going to be left with pictures and memories, and nobody else will really care about either, so I guess I try to make as many of them as I can.  Steve went with me yesterday and that's always fun too, and we have a good time with it.  He liked my join-up move too.  :D

This morning I was out to the airport on my day off, to fly the Navy T-6 with its owner.  We flew about an hour and a half, and made some progress. That reminds me.  I've had three people in the last month who used brakes on a tailwheel airplane when they shouldn't have, that made things get exciting, and that's something you can't really fix.  If someone hits a brake and the tailwheel kicks out and swings around, you aren't stopping it at speed.  So.  I tell people to lay off the brakes even though they're used to taxiing with them dragging along in their Cessnas and Pipers.  People are also taxiing them faster than they need to, or trying to get off at a specific intersection, so that they then have to hit the brakes.  I'm about to get a lot less pleasant about it.  Let it roll, man, trust me, it's a lot less exciting.  And slow down.  And this is coming from a speed demon.  But not on the ground in a taildragger I'm not.

My allergies have just been way unhappy with me, I'm guessing weather and maybe seasonal stuff too.  Anyway, Steve is working outside, the cats have been living outside anytime we will let them, Kaylee has seemingly been doing fine, work has been keeping us very busy, and here are the pictures I and Trevor took yesterday. Oddly they uploaded all out of order.  Fine.  You can figure it out.

Sunset, the end of the day.

Ana in the Champ

BOB and Checkertail at Noblesville's grass strip.

And the Tom Woods P-51

Me in the SNJ ferrying it to Kokomo

Crashing Sam's wedding at Glenndale

Every morning I drive past these sunflowers. Early in the morning they almost glow. This was too late in the morning and the picture isn't great.  But I'll hopefully get one before they die.

Great shot of the Mustang

The two of us firing up to leave.

We're not as close as it looks here, for the record. But it's a cool shot.

I was kinda far back on this one.

Winging It

Yesterday didn't go as I hoped.  I woke up early in the morning with the start of a bad headache, so I took something to kick it and tried to go back to sleep.  Never could get back to sleep, so I got up, tired.  Hot, sweaty, all day.  Storms were going to be rolling through so I had to get the other T-6 off the ramp and over to a hangar at Marion, and catch a ride home in the back seat of the 172RG.  I also had to go in and do a drug and alcohol test for Checkertail's rides program.  I passed the alcohol test with a 0.00 BAC, and now we'll cross our fingers on the drugs.  ;)  I'd had another flight that evening, but when the weather moved in, my headache came back, worse than before.  By the time I got home, I had to take something to stop it.  It kicked my butt.

This morning went much better.  I still woke up way too early and couldn't get back to sleep, but at least my head was clear.  It's hard to describe how happy a person can be to wake up without a headache!

This day was packed out too.  Steve and I got out to the airport around 9, and pulled out the Cheyenne, 340, and T-6.  I topped off the T-6 with oil, Steve topped the left engine of BOB, I did the right engine, we pulled IT out, then put away the 340 and the Cheyenne.  I pulled the prop through on the Six, got the fuel truck over, all this work, and JP got there around 9:45.  He took BOB up with Zach F. and did three currency takeoffs and landings while Steve and I waited on the ground.  When he was ready, I fired up the T-6.  He took off on 32, I took off right behind him, and spent the next several minutes trying to cut him off or catch him.  We didn't communicate via radio, we just flew down there together, flew over the field nicely, and then I thought he kicked me out to land, so I backed way off to give him space to land and taxi clear.  Then he made a radio call that our flight of two was coming down for a pass.  I'm like...DOH.  I'm not anywhere close to him.  So I powered up as much as I could, cut him off as much as I could, and I caught him, and then about blew past him in the process, and the pass did not look good because I was all over the place.  So uncool.  lol

The winds were gusting a bit, and I caught a gust right on landing, but managed to make a good one out of it.  It was fun being there and being parked and having the Twin Beech, the T-6, and the Mustang all there today.  Larry J. said that this was the first time a Twin Beech had ever been into Noblesville.  Cool Beans!  We had a good burger, and AE brought his homemade ice cream, and we had a nice time seeing folks.  Trevor was there with his camera, and I met a couple of important folks I guess, and we had a nice conversation. 

When it was time to leave, we decided to do another pass for the cameras.  I took off right behind JP and tried to cut him off, but he wasn't powering back nor giving me time or angles to catch him, just like on takeoff out of Kokomo.  I told him I wanted to come up on his right, hoping he'd swing to the right and let me join up, but he just stayed in the pattern.  He turned base, I told him I was pretty far behind him, and I knew if I didn't catch him soon, I'd be doing a pass exactly like the first time.  I really needed him to see where I was back there and pull back his power and give me an angle and a second to join up.  But when he turned base, I judged where we were vs the runway, and I thought, well, I'm not going to get to the right side, but maybe I can catch him and join up on the left.  So I left my power up, aimed at him, cut him off, and thought maybe I'd get it done.  Well, it worked out great.  Right as I was coming up on him, I realized I had enough "smash" (energy) that I could swing right underneath him and form up on the right side after all.  I did it, came right at him to the left, dipped under and swung up on the right, and locked into place as we were on fairly short final.  We came down and did our pass, and then departed the area to the north.  I was pleased with how it worked out.  I didn't have much time to get and stay stable tucked in there, and I think I drifted back a bit at one point, but all in all, I was quite pleased with myself on it.  :D

Got back to Kokomo, and there was more work.  First was getting the fuel truck over to top off both the warbirds.  Then I had students.  Three of them.  The winds were gusty, and the first was a tailwheel person who wanted to finish their endorsement but didn't perform well at all in the winds making it so I couldn't sign them off.  The second was in the 172, and she did great, and I think I'm going to be able to solo her in the next flight or two.  She did better as a pre-solo student than the Commercial multi pilot did in the tailwheel, for the record.  I ended early with her so Steve could fly me to Marion to pick up the T-6 there to park at Kokomo for my training sortie in it tomorrow.  Got back about 20 minutes late for my last flight of the day, which was back in the Champ, and that was also takeoffs and landings, it was calmer by then, but still didn't go quite as well as she hoped.  We went over to Glenndale to do some, and unfortunately found we were crashing a wedding.  Sam H. got married today and as we landed and taxied by, we saw the ceremony was going on RIGHT THEN.  Yikes, talk about being a distraction!  Not cool! LOL  So we got out of there as fast as we could and went back to Kokomo to practice instead.

I finally called it after an hour and a half.  I was so tired my body ached, and I said "That's it, I'm done!  We're calling it for the night."

8:30 I headed to Wendy's and home, where I'm trying to work up the energy to go to bed.  I'd be asleep already if I didn't have to get up to go lie down.

Tomorrow like I said, T-6 instructing with Larry, hopefully good weather and a good safe time. 

I have a lot of pictures from today but I'm too...guess what...tired, to download them, adjust them, and post them.  So here's the one I put up on FB.  I liked this one.  The rest I'll get tomorrow.  Oh, and the first one I put up on Instagram.  I took this one on the way home from Noblesville.  A ground photographer (Trevor) took the second one.  :)

Bleh

I would never.  :(

I heard back from Kaylee this morning.  She said she's been busy, but that it's going well.  Said she loves her social work classes a lot, and has already made some good friends with people in there already.  Tonight she texted me that she'd had her audition for the university singers at 6 pm, and she was accepted into that group as a first soprano.  She couldn't audition for the musical because they met at the same time as one of her existing mandatory classes.  Which was a bummer, it was like the Sound of Music or something she really wanted to be a part of.  But so be it.  I think she's doing okay, best I can tell via text without emojis attached. Her last text was "Sorry, super busy today! Ha ha!"  I'm glad she's busy and good.  :)

I didn't feel all that well today.  I think the barometric pressure changes and weather got me.  Woke up with a headache, low grade, had it most of the day.  Didn't feel great all day.  All my flights canceled for today, which actually benefited me.  I could have flown with the last flight of the day, but I just didn't feel good, so I used the weather like everyone else had, and we didn't go.  Tomorrow we'll have to see what the weather does, and hopefully my system gets on board with everything and is back to normal by then.

I spent a good hour plus in the Twin Beech again on the ground, doing ground run-ups, while Steve tries to fix the vacuum pressure in it.  We're going to fly it Saturday, so trying to fix it up before then.  I am now a master at starting it.  I have started it...what, 20 times in the last two days?  I got that thing down.

Next I flew Larry's T-6 over to Marion, and accidentally made an excellent crosswind three-point landing in it.  I do mean accidentally, too.  His airplane sits different and the sight picture is different, and Marion's runway is narrower than Kokomo, and I haven't really yet made a good landing in that plane over there.  Today I was debating between wheel and three point (never a good idea. Pick one and go for it or you'll get the worst of both).  It drops a bit, I yank back to save it, and the right wheel into the wind rolls onto the runway along with the tailwheel, then the left main came down, pretty as a perfect picture.  Too bad I didn't take that picture on purpose.  ;)  Anyway.  Eric put it away, and then Zach F. and Greg O. came and got me in the RG, using it as an opportunity for Zach to practice being an instrument instructor and Greg practicing instrument approaches.  Perfect.  That's two days in a row I rode in the back of a Cessna while other people were up front.  I'm less comfortable with today's combination of people up front, but they did a good job.  :)

It was another hot, brutal, muggy day.  Not feeling well on top of that heat, I was still outside at the airport all day, and it got to me.  So I'm glad to be home, in Air Conditioning, recuperating, and hoping for a good night's sleep, no headaches, a good day tomorrow.

Thanks for your prayers and thoughts for Kaylee.  I think this semester is off to a decent start, and hoping Covid doesn't cause them any more trouble this year...

Warbird Wednesday

I don't know anything else about Kaylee.  Ann is still not quite back to feeling herself.  Steve was fine most of the day but this evening his throat started getting scratchy again.  Me, I sweated and was hot and sticky and icky all day, but I'm fine.

I was out there at 8:30 am to fly with the young lady I'm getting real close to soloing.  We did my last few flights stuff.  Extra go-arounds, balloon/bounce recovery using power, etc.  I'd say one to two more flights and I may send her off.  That'll be fun.

My T-6 guy was waiting on me when I got done, so we pulled out all the airplanes, and he and I went up in Checkertail.  He wants to fly it from the back, so that makes it extra easy and relaxing for me, just riding around in the front while someone else does all the work.   We flew for an hour, and then I fired up the Twin Beech about a dozen times.  I lost track how many times, but considering how much you have to wobble pump and prime each engine every time to start it, I actually bruised my thumb by the time we were done.  We're trying to fix the vacuum pump, ended up with a fuel pressure problem, fixed that, went back to work on the vacuum pump, and all in all it took in all seriousness 7 or 8 start ups.  That's 15-17 primer strokes on the right engine, about 8-9 on the left engine, and wobbling up fuel pressure in between most each of the strokes.  7-8 times.  That was a lot of work, man! 

Steve and I ran into Greentown to deliver a sleeping bag to Meredith's family for her upcoming trip, and we stopped at Subway for lunch.  Wore our masks inside like good people, even though we were more than 6' away from anyone else, took it off when we sat down.  I refused to follow the directive to get a new cup if you wanted a refill though.  What a pointless waste.  It's not like we're licking the outside of our cups.  They have lids.  You peel off the lid, push the cup against the drink dispenser bar.  Kind of hard to get the covid from this action.  Besides, all the cups are stacked up in a stack for everyone who goes by to touch, grab, breathe on, etc.  Gimme a break.

When we got back, I finished up the rest of the test runs on the Beech, and then hopped into the back seat of the C-172, with a large fellow who hadn't flown in years up front, with full fuel, three of us, on a very high density altitude day, and Jerry in the right seat.  You can see that Jerry is one of the few people I trust to get in the back of an airplane with.  :)  We were on our way to Marion for me to pick up the T-6.  I flew it back to Kokomo, got it situated and ready to go, topped off with fuel, etc., and then in about 20 minutes the owner was there and ready to go.

It was ten days short of being one year ago that I last flew that plane with the owner, and ended up in some hot water.  I think we were both having some flashbacks to start with.  He was nervous.  I wasn't nervous but I was...alert.  We talked, we took it slowly, I discussed expectations and what we were going to do, and we went out and just flew around a bit, ran through the landing procedures in the air first, came in and did one landing, full stop, taxi back, take off, leave the pattern and fly for a minute, and we spent a good amount of time just doing that.  He did well.  And we had a good time. We broke the bad juju.  So the first time we ever flew the plane together, we had the hydraulic line burst, uncertain the gear was locked because he couldn't tell if the pins were in and I can't see from the back seat, hydraulic fluid all over, soaking my feet, making it so I couldn't get out of the airplane, no flap landing, and a bad time landing where we ended up in a bit of a wrestling match, and a very, v e r y close call to a cartwheel.  The second time I flew the plane, I was bringing it from Huntington to Kokomo after its extended annual where it had a lot of things fixed that needed fixed.  That's the flight where I got about 10 miles from home when the chip light came on.  Which could mean your engine could fail at any second, debris, usually metal, detected.  But that didn't happen, that ended up being a false alarm (thank goodness).  I had a few uneventful flights after that, taking it to Marion and back by myself, flying it with Steve once to test out a right turning tendency after the annual.   So this flight was the real test, back in the plane with the owner, who is a super nice guy, and I enjoy his company, and flying with him.  And I'm very grateful it was an uneventful, pleasant, nothing went wrong flight, and that he did such a nice job with it after all this time.

That was the last flight of the day, and I was pretty beat.  I stopped at Meijer with my sweaty, sticky self, to pick up some food, came home and had eggs for dinner, because I can, and because we had a lot of extra eggs from NOshkosh and we've been eating on them.  Which is fine, I like eggs.  lol

I guess I'm a little worried about Kaylee because I haven't heard from her, and when I texted her she didn't answer, and I know she had a bad day yesterday.  But I'm hoping she's just busy with friends or settling in doing homework or whatever, but doing okay.

Checkertail--Army Air Corps

Two of Jon's granddaughters who came to work with him today.

Three of us red-headed ladies in the Twin Beech.  They're more red than me.  :)

A view you don't see often. Me in the back.
The guy in the front left? I soloed him in like 1997 and he became a CFI. (Hasn't flown for a decade).

Navy, SNJ

Larry up front flying.

More Like a Monday

The only good thing that happened today was that my first flight canceled.  It's the one who doesn't want to be there and makes it tough when we do go fly.  I figured since we flew yesterday, she wouldn't want to fly today too, and sure enough, she canceled at 5:30 am.  The rest of the day didn't go as planned.

Kaylee texted me that her audition for the IWU choir groups was terrible and one of the more humiliating things she's done.  She said she sounded terrible, did a completely awful job, and didn't get a call back for the groups she hoped to get into.  She did get a call back for the "university singers", which she says is the group that is open to anyone.  She's not sure if she's going to do that or not.  Her call back for that is at the same time that auditions are happening for the musical, which she'd like to try to get into too.  So, she didn't have a very good day.

Ann isn't feeling well today either, dizzy and nauseated.

Steve came home today saying he got overheated, dehydrated, and fatigued having not slept well the night before and ending up with another brutally hot day where he was out in it most of the day.  He had a low grade fever when he got home, but I think it was just from overheating, because two hours later it was back to normal.

I canceled T-6 training this afternoon because of possible weather concerns, and then the weather was fine.  So that made a couple people unhappy.  Now I'll be doing it tomorrow, and it's going to be a very long, brutally hot and muggy, day.  8:30 am to 8 pm.

I let the cats outside for several hours today because our deck gets hot, and they like it out there.  Dulcie slept under the rose bush most of the afternoon, and Roadie hung out under the tree.  Neither wanted to come inside.  I think Dulcie is getting more fragile.  She wants to be outside all the time.  If she was able to defend herself, or if we knew it was her last day, we'd let her just go to sleep out there and stay out as long as she wanted, or pass away on her own terms out there.  But we get a lot of wildlife back here, things with teeth and claws, and she couldn't defend herself.  She's moving very slowly these days though.

We have a Champ at Glenndale that is hand prop only.  Another at Kokomo that has a starter and is more recently restored.  And an older one at Westfield with a starter.  Well, our newer one is down for maintenance so the older one is up here, and it's BUSY.  The older one just sold and will be going away shortly.  So now we have a bunch of people in a tailwheel and we're down planes.  Also, insurance has come along and smacked us down.  We could only afford to put one of the Champs on "solo operations", and the other had to be dual only.  Plus to instruct in the Champ, insurance required 750 total time, 150 hours tailwheel, and 25 in the Champ.  That's a LOT, and actually kicks off two of our existing Champ instructors and makes a third "no way" for awhile to come.  It actually leaves me and Jerry K as the only two currently qualified to instruct in them up here, and Nick down in Westfield.  That's nuts.  So we're trying to figure out how to handle all these people now that we've got one down and one going away and fewer instructors.  Insurance rules the world, man.

For posterity sake, here comes Hurricane Laura.  Laura was a little quiet at first, and folks thought it was fizzling.  And then it started picking up a head of steam.

Oh, and this came in the mail today, so I guess that's a good thing.  :)

More

I had flights from 8:30 am to 8:30 pm.  I had flights through my lunch hour, then Steve and I went to eat at 1:30 pm, and then I was out there until 8:30.  I was in the Champ most of the day, so at least I had the open window, but it was 90 degrees today, with a heat index over 97 last time I looked.  That's a long day.  I finished one kid's tailwheel endorsement, have another girl close to solo, one frustrating flight, and one person's 4th flight lesson that went well.

Kaylee had her first day of class, and it's a politics class she's required to take.  Her professor had everyone fill out a survey.  It was supposed to be anonymous, but they had to leave them at their desks on top of a paper with their names on it.  The survey asked things like if you're Republican, Democrat or Independent, and things about how you believe.  She said that because it was obvious it wasn't going to be anonymous, she refused to answer some of the questions.  I said good for her.  She's not looking forward to this class, because it's supposed to be discussion based and she has no desire to argue in a politics class three days a week with other college kids.  I don't blame her there, either.  She also had a dental appointment today, and has a filling to get taken care of in a few weeks.  More needles.  She'll love that.

That's about it on this end.  It's going to be a hot week.  I'd better bring an extra shirt to the airport this week...

Sunday

I did some T-6 flying today, well, riding really.  Jordan was up front, and we did some air work, some wheel landings, and a couple three points.  At one point in the air, we were only around 2300', and he pushed the nose down to get some speed, and started pulling up.  He must have felt my eyebrows go up, because before I could decide to say anything, he piped up with "don't worry, I'm not going to go upside down".  I laughed, because like I said, he must have felt my vibe back there.  He said "I wouldn't feel comfortable doing a barrel roll this slow/low."  I said "I appreciate that!"  I looked up and all I could see is his white teeth in the little mirror.  Lol

Afterwards, Steve and AE and I went to Fritattas for breakfast/lunch, and then came home and Steve worked on paperwork while I haven't really done anything.  I took a nap, I surfed the internet, I watched a bad movie.  I relaxed, that's what I did.

Here's a little video clip of Kaylee's room.  I don't think it's finished yet, she had a mirror and some lights to put up too, but this is the general idea.  :)

Westfield Fly-In and Kaylee Move-In

Steve and I flew the T-6 down to Westfield this morning for their fly-in.  Usually their fly-in gets rained out, IFR'd out, or winded out.  Today was *gorgeous*.  And so many people came out.  Tom came out in the P-51, and was the big attraction, and we were the 2nd big attraction.  :D  I ended up giving two rides. One for 40 minutes, and he hooked up a Go Pro and recorded it. I did a few aerobatics with him.  He's a Kitfox tailwheel pilot who is going around hitting a bucket list.  Seaplane, glider, balloon, he just went up on an aerobatics lesson, and now a warbird.  He said he had no expectations, just wanted to go up in a T-6.  So we did, and had a good time.  After the loop, he liked that the best, and said "That doesn't happen fast, does it!"  I laughed and said no, nothing really happens fast, and then I said "actually, that's not true", and he responded with "bad stuff happens fast" to which I replied "you got it." 

The next rider, it was his 90th birthday.  His son and family bought him a ride for his birthday.  He is a veteran, a former military pilot, also owned a taildragger that he flew afterwards.  It took a fair amount to get him in the back of the plane, but he made it after a lot of effort.  We went flying, and I asked him to take the controls, but he couldn't hear me in the plane.  So I did the ole stick wag and pointed back at him with both hands, so he took it then for a few minutes.  I took it back, and I asked if he wanted to do some stuff more than just flying around, but he couldn't hear or understand me at all.  So I started off with just a little wingover, and he said "wheeee", so I did a few more things, at one point he said "pulled some G's with that one!".  He seemed to like it, but I didn't want to take him fully upside down without his permission and I couldn't get it in the plane.  So I didn't.  Once we got on the ground, his family said he'd have enjoyed it, but I just don't throw people around without being able to tell them what I'm doing and asking if it's okay.  Especially not 90 year old people. 

When we got on the ground, he got out of that plane like a man 20 years younger.  Seriously, that happens all the time.  He hopped out of there no problem.  I heard him tell his family "she's a good pilot".  A lot of people who take rides say that, but I don't let that go to my head much, because people who don't know any better always say that if they survive a flight.  lol  But I do take the compliment from former military pilots, veteran pilots, pilots who flew these things for real and...know.  I appreciate it!

Oh, and the Thunderbirds flew over the airport today!  They were practicing over the Indy 500 for tomorrow, but they flew right over Westfield.  That was pretty cool.  ;)

We finally left the airport, got to Kokomo, put all the planes back away (the T-6 is in the back and the other two have to come out first), and went to Marion to help Kaylee finish moving in.  Turns out, she didn't need much help.  She and Meredith had gotten her room mostly ready to go.  Steve had to carry her mini fridge up three flights of stairs by hand, an act with which he maintained his Man Card firmly.  He hooked up some electric, but she needed an extension cord.  Hooked up her fridge, put together her shelf, and then she was done with us, and wanted to go to the store with Meredith to get the cord and some other things needed, before Meredith had to go home.  So we said goodbye, headed out, and met AE for dinner in Fairmount at a place called Grains and Grill.  (So far their maple pecan salmon is the best thing I've had there, SO tasty.)

Watched "White House Down" to end the day, and now it's time to get some sleep.  Tomorrow I fly with Jordan Brown in the T-6, he needs to get current before transporting a T-6 back for a friend of his who bought one.  Who bought Walt's, to be precise.  So I'll have one less T-6 I can just borrow any time.  Phoo.  ;)

The 90 year old veteran in the back. You can't get good pics of back seaters. This made me laugh anyway.

A row of airplanes

The T-6 and the nose of the P-51

People and planes and cameras

Weekend Begins

My first flight of the day, at that overly early 8:30 am, ended after a fairly short time.  Beautiful morning again, and I was even awake and cheerful.  We took off on this perfectly calm, clear morning, got about 200' up in the air, and the engine lost some power.  That's kinda bad timing.  I reached to take over and swing around to a clear area, (not enough altitude to get back to the runway if it quit all the way), and the power came back up.  Then it dropped a little again, and came back up, and dropped a lot, and came back up.   Then it stayed up.  So we flew for an hour and a half.  Just kidding.  I had her do the landing and we taxiied in and shut it down. So that ended our day a little ingloriously.  It's the same girl who we ended up with a dead battery after she drove an hour to get there, when a connection failed.  Anyway.  After she left, I ran up the airplane at full power and did a static check (it was fine), then did a mag check at full power (didn't want to do one in the air and freak her out more), and it dropped about 200 RPM, smoothly, but still too much.  I shut it down, and there was smoke coming out of the air intakes.  That was odd.  So I took videos of these things and sent them to Steve, and he and the mechanics can take it from there.   Afterwards, she said "Well, I didn't think we were going to die.  You didn't seem too worried."  I normally don't make blanket statements but it seemed appropriate to say "We were not going to die, no."  Hopefully she comes back.  lol

Steve and I went to lunch, and for the first time in ages, there were five of us there.  Mostly it's just been me and Steve there, or us doing our own thing out at the airport.  Covid really messed up our daily lunches.  But that was nice, having lunch with folks again.

From there I had two Champ lessons.  One is a young girl, and today for the first time she she did a full takeoff, pattern and landing without me having to say anything.  She doesn't "HAVE" it, but she was able to do it safely without any input in calm conditions on grass once, and that's where it starts.  She was super excited.  That's always fun.  The next is a married lady who is getting a Sport Pilot certificate with her husband.  Just like the other couple that is doing that.  The husband is flying with one instructor, the wife with another.  Today she went with me, and I think we clicked pretty well, so she'll probably stay with me.  I can work with her better than I can the other wife who is doing it just to please her husband vs wanting to do it herself.  This lady is interested.  You can feel the difference.  She's nervous, but she and I will do just fine. 

I didn't get done till 8:30, I believe, then I stopped at Panera to pick up my dinner, because Kaylee ate my salad I'd been saving for dinner tonight.  She warned me ahead of time at least so I didn't come home to it.  ;)

Kaylee's been packing up everything today, getting stuff ready for her to move into IWU tomorrow.  Steve got the fridge out to the Jeep, lots else has been packed up, and tomorrow the plan is to go to Westfield in the T-6, give a ride or two, spend the morning/early afternoon at their event, fly home, drive to Marion, help Kaylee finish moving in.  I'll let you know how it goes!

The Champ at Glenndale today, with Ana.

Thursday

I woke up this morning with a low grade headache, a scratchy throat, and a runny nose.  So then you play the game of "Is This Allergies, A Cold, or COVID?"  I took the allergy pill and a Tylenol (or two) and shortly thereafter felt much better, so Allergies won the game for today.

It's been so beautiful outside.  I managed to not have any flights this morning somehow, so I did things like get gas in my car, stop at Panera for Ann, go to UPS and ship off a headset I'd borrowed, and get some official paperwork notarized, witnessed and signed.

This afternoon was a nice flight, and then we had our EAA chapter meeting.  It was only attended by like 15 people, which surprised me.  Steve said later we didn't really put it out to the club, which is probably why we didn't have many in attendance.  Chuck said people were still afraid.  I called baloney on that one, nobody's been afraid any other get-together.  ;)  Then I saw that Glenndale had like 5-6 airplanes out flying around at that same time, so I said...now I know where they went.  They just didn't want to go to Kokomo for the meeting.  Fine, we enjoyed the hot dogs, chips, cookies, and our own company just fine.  lol

Kaylee went shopping for college stuff today.  She has a mirror, a carpet/rug square, a larger trash can (her other one was too small and required too much emptying), a different laundry basket, some festive plastic dishes, and I'm not sure what else.  She has tomorrow to pack up and get everything ready, and part of Saturday.  Schools and colleges all over are getting shut down as students aren't smart enough to not get together in large groups, party, and post photos and videos of it.  I hope IWU holds out and the kids there are intelligent enough to at least...not post it if they do stuff.  lol

It's a bummer I have someone at 8:30 am tomorrow.  I wish she'd bump back to 9.  8:30 is just about 30 minutes too early when it means I have to get up at 7 instead of 7:30.  That 7 is just a smidge too early.  ;)

National Aviation Day

One of my favorite holidays, which tells you 1) I'm not a huge fan of holidays in general and 2), well, that about covers it.  ;)  I do enjoy the 4th of July, that's probably one of my favorites.  And Thanksgiving, I enjoy that one too.  Anyway.  Today it's National Aviation Day.

I have two young ladies working to get to solo that I flew with today.  One is in the Champ, and she's got a ways to go, but she's getting closer to figuring out the flare.  The second is in the 172, and she can do it, but she's not consistent at all.  I was hoping with today's calm winds that she'd be able to be consistent and maybe I could hop out and solo her.  But alas, the winds were 5 knots, but shifty, and it was just enough to mess her up, and she just couldn't get consistent, and I couldn't do it.  Hopefully soon though. 

We had a meeting down in Kempton over dinner, where I had a huge thick grilled chicken sandwich that was really good.  I'd had a spinach almond sliver salad for lunch, trying to balance things out as I did pick up a couple pounds over the last week.  So now of course Kaylee brings home farewell cake and cookies from her last day at work, and I have a piece of carrot cake in there too from Outback, and I'm like...*sigh*.  I'm not going to let it go bad, so tomorrow I'm eating at least the carrot cake.

After dinner we had to go back to Kokomo, and I needed to do a test flight on the T-6.  It had apparently a stuck valve last time I flew it, and the guys looked into it and did a few things, and I'm supposed to take it to Westfield on Saturday and do a ride or two, so it needed a test flight first.  Darn.  I took it up and it sounded fine, so I went up to 3500' at sunset and tried to get a photo of the sunset while upside down.  That didn't go well.  I can NOT do a proper roll with one hand holding up a camera.  Can't do it.  Bob Hoover I am not.  I suppose I just need to keep practicing, but it's like I need both hands to get the stick over all the way, and straight.  Otherwise I angle it and don't get it in all the way and end up dishing out of it all sloppy.  I also stuck my phone too far out the canopy trying to get one, and the wind caught my phone, and the only thing that saved me from losing another iPhone out of the T-6 was the fact I had it gripped by the pop lock on the back of it in between my two fingers.  I still almost lost it, but that's some good suction on that pop-it on the back, and it saved my bacon this time.  I can't imagine the reaction if I'd lost that thing out the window.  Again.  The first time wasn't my fault.  Someone ELSE botched a roll and I had to rescue the plane and my phone floated out of the map compartment and fell out.  This one, yeah, would've been all me.  ;)

Came back in after the sun went down, and put everything away.  We'd gotten to the airport at 8:10 pm.  Sunset is 8:35.  I had to pull out the 340, the Cheyenne, and the T-6.  I was hoping to be up before sunset, and I was, just about in perfect time.  I went over by Glenndale too, turned on my landing lights and nav lights, lit the plane up, and went by.  A couple folks were down there in golf carts.  One of them texted me and said "Thank you for that-so cool".  I said something about how a person has to say hello now and then, and he said "But you do it with style".  Thank you, thank you very much.  ;)

Tonight was Kaylee's last night at Outback.  She baked some chocolate chip cookies for her co-workers there, and burnt them all.  Our oven does that and we can't figure out why.  The racks are up high.  I bought new pans even.  The bottoms of stuff burns all the time!  It's annoying!  Anyway.  So she then had to make oatmeal cookies because we didn't have any more chocolate chips.  And we took those out of the oven early so the bottoms wouldn't burn, and let them half finish baking on top of the hot stove.   She took them into work, and texted me that everybody loved them, thought they were delicious, and were pleased she'd thought of them.  In the meantime, THEY got HER a goodbye cake, not one from Outback, either, but from a bakery.  And a couple of her friends who worked there came in and were served by her, and tipped well as a fare-thee-well.  She had a good last day of work, and I think will miss the people there.  She liked the job, and interacting with the public, and having friends there.  Next up, packing up for college, hoping it doesn't get canceled, and moving in on Saturday.

Champing

The first pic I took, my hair was a hairnado back there and blocked the view.  So the second time I tried it I moved my hair out of the way.  Still didn't really work.  Oh well.

The sunset off the hangars looked like gold

The rest are self explanatory.  T-6 at sunset.