Taildragging Thursday

The morning started early, as I met up with a husband/wife team from northern Indiana.  They're both airline pilots, and she's a former military Hornet pilot, too.  She hasn't flown anything in 5 years, as she battled breast cancer.  He wants to buy a T-28, she said she wasn't even that fond of GA flying and is trying to open up to it some.  He doesn't do much GA flying either, but wants to get a warbird.  So they wanted to try out a T-6 as a possible cheaper first step to warbirds than a T-28.  Both of them were nervous, and they argued about who was going first.  Neither of them wanted to get in.  She's saying "You scared?  You're scared, aren't you!"  He was trying to push her to go, finally I left and said "I'm going to get the plane ready, whoever comes out, I'll help you get in."  Evidently she lost.  She came out there.  She'd gained about 150 lbs she said, and she was having a hard time getting in the back, so I got a ladder out and we got her in and buckled up.  She was nervous about s-turns on taxi, nervous about flying at all, any yaw.  So I took off and just went straight, and completely and dead smooth.  The T-6 can be a super gentle, smooth airplane, and every turn I did was tiny, gentle, coordinated, and after about 20 minutes she started relaxing.  She didn't even want to touch it herself.  Then she asked if we could do steeper turns, so I did about 30 degrees, then she wanted more so I did 45.  She liked that, liked the G's, reminded her of the Hornet.  So I asked if I could do something more aggressive, and she said sure.  I cranked it over into about an 80 degree bank turn, and rolled out 180 degrees later, and she loved it, and had me do a bunch of them, left and right.  Then I got HER to do some of the flying.  She wouldn't do a lot, but she flew straight and level and did some shallow turns, and I took it as a victory.  We were cruising along, talking about the history of the plane, and she said "This is one of the best, coolest experiences of my life".  Wow!   When I landed, I accidentally completely rolled it on, just a dead smooth landing, and when she got out, she hugged the plane, said she loved it, put a bow on it, she wants one.  And then she said to her husband as I was walking away "She is an excellent pilot!"  They each have something like 15,000 hours too, so we had a lot of time up there in the sky today.  lol  He was next.  He was the one who had been gung ho to get a warbird, she was just going along with it.  We went up and did a low pass of them on the runway, climbed up and did some wing overs, and a couple rolls, flew by Glenndale, went back up and did a loop.  He liked it all, but he wasn't as impressed as she was with the whole thing.  It lit her fire--it didn't light his.  I thought that was funny.  You never can tell, you know?!  I made a super nice landing with him too, which means I have now used up all my good landing luck for the foreseeable future.  

Next up I ran to Wendy's to get a chicken sandwich, then went flying in the Champ with Ana.  After that I stopped at the grocery store to pick up some stuff for Kaylee.  That ole Almond Milk.  lol  Did Ann's eye drops, came home.  And so goeth today.