First thing this morning I had a message from an annoyed guy who drove to Westfield to fly a plane that wasn't there. He hadn't checked his messages apparently, because we sent it out the day before that we'd moved the plane to Kokomo, as the Kokomo Champ went down for maintenance and the Westfield Champ had nobody scheduled all weekend. Zero people on it. So we moved it up here to take care of the *lots* of people who needed a plane, and let people know. And he was annoyed. And kept saying HE never got the message. Okay, well. We sent it. Other people got it. I'm guessing him not seeing the message does not equal him not getting the message. We didn't even get home till 9:30 pm, so, sorry we didn't see you'd scheduled it late, after we sent a message out that it was moved, before your 7:30 am flight the next morning, and didn't know to check with you that you got the email okay about it.
The first flight of the day started all right, with me spending two hours in the Champ with the new guy from Michigan. He got bumped yesterday when we had the maintenance problem. I thought he was from Illinois, but it was Michigan. So we flew a full two hours, doing air work, then grass takeoffs and landings at Glenndale, then Kokomo's concrete. He actually did well, just needs to work on the flare, but his feet are pretty quick!
Meanwhile, scheduling had messed up one of my students. From 2-4 I was supposed to be in the Champ with one girl, and she was still on the plane, but I had been removed. So another girl scheduled me from 2-4 in the 172. Both girls needed to fly, both had been canceled or put off for various reasons. So I'd been marked off for lunch, my last lesson ended at 11:45 am, and what I did was fly with the one from 12-2, then fly with the other 2-4. Meanwhile Mikey went to Miller's and picked up a sandwich for me, which I ate while the 2 pm girl preflighted.
The Champ leaked fuel All Over the 2 pm girl. Her legs were wet, her socks, the floor, her seat. We sopped it up with a rag, but as soon as we leveled off it quit doing it. I was watching it rain fuel up there. It hasn't done it before, I don't think it did it on subsequent flights. I have NO idea. But the smell was obviously strong, so we had the windows open, and I told her not to smoke. Good thing there isn't much of an electrical system in there. ;)
Both Champ girl and 172 girl really had a small to medium breakthrough on landing today though, so that's good. :)
Somewhere in here I learn that the young man who just passed his Private decided to take a trip to Kentucky out of the gate, and was going to come home, but thunderstorms popped up. So he stayed. Then he was going to come home anyway, and Steve had to stop him because there was weather in between him and us that he wasn't paying attention to. He texted me tonight that he'd come home now but it's super dark and his phone doesn't work the greatest in the air. I pointed out he also had rain, 4 miles visibility and 200' scattered clouds in between here and there, which you can't see at night. I want to yell at him. He got his Private like two days ago, and then just decides to jump into the plane and go on a big trip and ask no questions. It's a license to learn. You never get more than about 100 nm away on a perfect day in your training. It's summer, heading south, and you didn't think to maybe see how to check the weather more than just "it looks VFR here and there, I'm good." *sigh*
So him not getting home meant that the person who had the plane after him had to be moved or canceled. Luckily he could be moved to the plane I was supposed to be in. So here's how that goes. I'm supposed to be in 26F from 5-7:30 pm. I make it 5-7 pm so I can move K to 26F off of KS which is now trapped in Kentucky. 26F has a Discovery Flight from 4-5. My guy goes to preflight our plane at 4:45 pm, and the plane is just now firing up. The instructor talked too long, and didn't get started until it was basically our time. So now we're running late. Which puts the guy behind us whom I already moved, late. This is not making me in a good mood. I text the instructor and say "we had the plane at 5." and let him know that with three of us in a row on this plane, and the FBO closing at 6, he'd better make sure he has gas. So when he got back about 40 minutes later, he called the fuel truck. Except it had been full to start with so they could only put 5 gallons in, which annoys them and delayed us further.
I'm trying to teach cross countries to my guy, and everything is all messy, it was just a struggle. The guy who made us late kept apologizing, while making an excuse he was "talking like Steve" (Steve doesn't make people lose their time slot on the airplane when he talks too much), the kid stuck in KY didn't really apologize but talked about how frustrating it was while making excuses about why the weather was such a shock (the TAFs all talked about storms along the route), and tomorrow I have two people that are difficult students and a last flight that doesn't end until almost 9 pm. So I'm feeling a little grumpy today.
106.9 hours in the last 30 days. I'm just curious what my record will be now.
I was feeling grumpy and hungry even though I shouldn't have been that hungry, but I stopped at Taco Bell, ate three things, came home, made dessert cookie dough balls with cream cheese and butter and ate two of THOSE too. Those were good. Now I'm too full and feel icky, but I suppose it was supposed to make me feel better about being grumpy today? I don't know. It was oddly satisfying at the time, but I suppose I ought to balance it with a salad tomorrow for lunch, if I get to eat lunch tomorrow. So far I should be able to, but you never know how this goes these days.
Kaylee went shopping for some back to school clothes and then worked for a few hours tonight and made $50. She seems to be doing all right. Not that I've seen a lot of her lately.
Pardon the language. Tomorrow's Friday but that doesn't make me feel better,
as Fridays and Saturdays aren't a vacation either. ;)
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