We went down to Breeze-Inn tonight for dinner with pilot friends, and had a nice evening out.
There's nothing to watch on TV but a Presidential address, so we're watching a movie called "Nobody", and enjoying it quite a bit, actually. I like go git 'em movies.
The Bonanza I tried to transport to California and broke down in Bullhead City--he got it back the rest of the way home today. When he landed, a group of people were there waiting with balloons and signs. They arrived safely and uneventfully. He said the biggest problem was that mice had gotten in and chewed through snacks we'd left in a box in the back seat, and chewed a hole through the back panel under the hat rack, and left poop and rice krispies over the back seat. Whoops. lol I just hope that's all they chewed through in there. :o These are the photos he sent me. I just thought that was kind of cool. The end of the journey.
I'm going to look into flying the T-6 at Oshkosh this year, in the formation. To do that, I'm going to have to go to the formation clinic in Iowa ahead of time. Then there's no guarantees, as they may force me to have someone in my back seat at OSH for the first time, and that means I have to get someone to do it and not fly themselves, which is tricky if you're not one of the cool kids. But I'm going to try. I started by emailing NATA and telling them I'd like to turn my formation card from JLFA into a NATA formation card. When Jordan Brown did his formation card out in California, he did it in Katanas, a small underpowered warbird, and NATA gave him a card no problem. I did my formation card with 4 T-6s, with all NATA members. There is no good reason they shouldn't grant me the same thing. Other than I'm not known in their circles well yet. I show up every year to their Oshkosh meeting, sit quietly, say hi to the few people I know, and leave. But I'm still going to be annoyed if they won't do it for me without another checkride. I have more years flying, more hours flying, more experience flying, more T-6 flying, than Jordan. If they do it for him and not me, well, that's some bullcrap. So I'm starting that process. It'll be expensive. Flying to Iowa in it, flying missions there, flying back, flying up to Oshkosh, flying there, that's a lot of gas. But I may have a limited time to be able to do it. The T-6 may not be around forever. So...we think it's time to push and try to do it, just in case, so I don't run out of time and opportunity.
It's funny, I've never really felt like I was anything but a newbie, like I was lesser than a lot of those guys. But I'm not. How many of them have 12,000 hours in all sorts of different planes from little taildraggers off of grass strips to turboprops at FL410 into Atlanta or whatever, and everything in between. How many of them are CFI/CFII/MEI, warbird instructors who teach people in various warbirds, not just fly to pancake breakfasts and fly-bys? I'm not saying I'm God's Gift to aviation, but I'm not a joke, or a wanna-be, either. I've been flying a T-6 (13 of them actually) for 13 years, for 650 hours. They let Trey fly with them as a 250 hour, almost all in C-172s, brand new Commercial pilot. So, at the moment anyway, I feel done with secretly feeling a little inferior. Every dude I know who starts out, seems to have no problem feeling like he deserves to be there. Pushes his way in and just goes for it. I've never been a "push my way in" person, and I don't think I regret that. It's just not me. But I think I've proved myself by still being here. Now I'll have to prove myself with them in the plane. I've been doing it one at a time over years, but now it's time to do it there, at their house, and hope I can get them to give me the time of day this time. The biggest thing I have to do is stop trying to be perfect all the time. You can't be. They aren't. So just because I'm not, doesn't mean I shouldn't do things. There's my own little pep talk for the day. ;)
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