Strain

A few things are causing some strain around here.

First and foremost, Kaylee's best friend Mer is dropping out of college, moving to N. Carolina, and going to a revival church program thing for two months, to start with.  One of the problems with that is that Kaylee & Mer had their own private double room.  No suite-mates, just the two of them, and they were both really looking forward to that.  With Meredith dropping out, now Kaylee is alone in the room, and doesn't even have anyone else around she knows, no other group to be around, no group of suite-mates to befriend and hang out with.  If they do what they claim with the COVID rules, she'll be isolated a lot in her room.  Alone.  Which is the absolute last thing she needs.  Mer had a full ride scholarship from the Lily Foundation for four years of college.  Full ride, fully paid for four years at an expensive private college.  She's dropping out after one year.  *sigh*   She went to a revival over the weekend and decided that she was called to drop out a week before school starts and follow the revival group.  Kaylee is supporting her, while mourning the upcoming start to her next year and what all that will mean for her.

I have a student who has a checkride on Saturday and he's not ready.  He's not passing his oral exam info, and today on the flight he didn't remember how to properly do a single takeoff, landing, or maneuver.  He can fly fine, but he has to be told what to do.  He won't be told what to do on his checkride.  Now we're all in a pickle though.  If we have to cancel his checkride because he's not ready, it's a black mark on us and we may lose the ability to use this examiner, and we need him.  If we cancel at the last minute, he can't fill that slot, and he loses the income.  If we cancel the checkride now and the kid could get ready in the next 3 days, then the kid is in trouble.  He's headed off to Purdue, and if he doesn't have his checkride done, he starts off a semester behind.  Now, he did this to himself, he waited too long to start studying, assumed it would just be easy, and is finding out it's not so easy.  But there's no winning here unless he can pull his act together and memorize a ton of stuff in the next three days.   Learn all the flying maneuvers, learn all the oral exam stuff.  In three days.  I can't send him to a guy coming from St. Louis if he's not ready, I can't cancel at the last minute without affecting the examiner negatively, and if I cancel, the student is probably hosed on getting his checkride done in time before he goes to Purdue.  So this is just a bad, stressful deal, for me and for him.  Urgh.

I had three flights today.  The checkride prep that didn't go well.  Next up is someone getting close to solo, but her plane was down for maintenance, so we took 32L, which is very different from what she's used to.  It caused her some anxiety, but it ended pretty well.  Last but not least I took up a brand new CFI who has his tailwheel endorsement and wants to teach tailwheel, but we don't want him teaching until he gets some time and experience in the back seat.  So we did three takeoffs and landings with him in the back into the wind, and he said "I'd like to say this is challenging, but it's not."  So I moved him over to the crosswind runway.  9 knots at a 60 degree crosswind, so not a lot of wind.  And then it got more challenging for him.  We had some basic technique issues to work on having little to do with what seat you're in.  I suggested he go up and practice crosswinds from the front seat for a little while and make sure he fine tuned that, and then we'd go back up and hit it from the back seat again.  And wheel landings, and bounce recovery, etc.  Then, it's one thing to do it yourself and another all together to save it from someone else.  So I believe he left with a little more respect for tailwheel flight instructing than he started.

Kaylee had a good day at work today, had several friends come in, got over $100 in tips for the evening, and is feeling much more confident.  It's only her 4th shift, and she's already up and running pretty well.  I told her she'd be good at it.  :)

I feel like I'm forgetting something, but I don't know what.  I'm a little tense, have a bit of a knot in my stomach, so maybe I'll go to bed and get some sleep and wake up to another day.  :)