Sunshine

What a gorgeous day today is.  First thing this morning I went in the 172 with a young lady, and we were to do a cross country to Wabash.  She hadn't really checked the weather.  It was clear at Kokomo.  It was not clear at Wabash.  We took off, went to 2500', then had to come down to 2000', then down to 1800', then down to 1600', and I'm just waiting to see what she does.  When we got down to 1400', we were only 7 miles away from the airport, but it got worse ahead.  It was a great discussion on "get-there-itis", and the accident chain, and weather awareness, and red flags, and when to turn around and abort mission.  We never made it to Wabash, but it was a much better lesson than if we had.  We came back to Kokomo and did some takeoffs and landings to get her current on that again.  

I was supposed to fly in the T-6 with a guy after that, but he canceled.  So instead I went up in the Legend Cub with Tim.  We went over to Glenndale and did some takeoffs and landings, then came back in where he greased a light crosswind landing back at home base.  Steve and I ate a Miller sandwich (Mennonite store) for lunch, and then I took up the Legend Cub for my own first 'solo' in it.  I went up and did power off and on stalls, and it is SO docile.  Steep turns, and that's where I found out the attitude indicator will only show you at 30-35 degrees bank angle no matter what you're actually at, and it will set off a red flashing arrow pointing in the opposite direction of your turn, telling you to shallow out.  Who needs that in an attitude indicator?!  I need it to indicate my attitude, not tell me to shallow it out.  Besides, even the Private Pilot curriculum requires a 45 degree bank angle turn.  And Commercial up to 50-55 degrees.  Up to 60 is "legal" non-aerobatic turns.  So...30?  Really??  Dumb design.  But I had fun with the Cub.  I only had it up a half hour, but I did the airwork, and then three three-point landings, a wheel landing, and a one-wheel landing, and it was super easy to fly.  The only weird thing is how stiff the rudders are.  They are spring loaded to go back to neutral, and they are heavy to push.  So it takes a little getting used to to get a feel for them, and it's hard to be as smooth and precise as you can be on rudders that only go where YOU tell them to, not where springs take them back to.  The idle is also set a little high, so it doesn't want to land.  But I was really impressed at how short the takeoff and landing performance was.  It has enough horsepower to get the job done quickly.  Nice airplane.  I haven't flown it with the doors open yet because it's too cold outside, but hopefully he keeps it until Spring so I get the chance to fly it the "right" way.  ;)

Steve or I needed to get home to do Ann's eye drops, so I ran and did that. Then headed to Glenndale to pick up our packages out there, over to the other side of town for a couple errands, then finally home to work on my logbook, downloading photos, all that good stuff.  It was SUCH a beautiful evening.  It's a shame that all my afternoon flights canceled for one reason or another.  One was working and forgot she had scheduled work at the same time as a flight.  The second was exposed to someone who has some congestion, and she isn't sure if it's a cold or a covid, so she's staying away.  Tomorrow one of my guys says he has a cold and he's staying home too.  I appreciate that.  A cold is worse than allergies right now, thanks to 1) not knowing for SURE it's a cold and 2) if you're coughing, even if it IS just a cold, everyone else will think you have The Virus too.  Anyway, so that took out all the people this afternoon who would have totally loved to have been able to fly this beautiful afternoon.  I wanted to go back out and go back up just to do it myself.  I was really tempted...

Greg M. sent me small versions of some of the photos he took of the Twin Beech when JP and I went up at Terre Haute for a photo shoot.  They turned out really well.  We're not allowed to post them on social media yet because Tim S. is going to write up an article about it in Warbird Digest Magazine, and print the photos there.  Which is cool!  But I can post a couple here, as long as the three of you who read this don't share them.  ;)

And here are photos from flying the Legend Cub today.

Well, the first two are C-172. The weather we were headed into

Bird of Prey shadow coming in to land

I like all yellow better, but that N Number is interesting.

Look how high off the ground I already am at this point!

Look at all the windows.  Above, behind, to the sides, you have this huge field of view.

Me messing around with steep turns. You can see the AI only shows a 35 degree bank angle while you can clearly see that's not a 35 degree bank angle I'm actually at.

This one shows the light on the AI telling me to roll back to the right.  Which I still think is funny.  Mind ya business, AI!