Relief

I had to get up at 5:30 am for my student Ana's checkride. Get the logbooks for the plane out, open up the big hangar and the maintenance hangar, get some fans going for air flow. When she arrived I had her preflight the plane and make sure it was full of fuel and in good shape. I set up a table in the big hangar and told everyone to go away until after the checkride.  Right as he got there, I asked her about her payment, and she said she had a credit card. He only takes cash, or sometimes checks if he must. She lives an hour and a half away, and he doesn't start the checkride without payment in hand.  So I told her not to stress. I talked to him for a few minutes about Twin Beech's, and Oshkosh, then told him I'd go take care of the cash and be back. So he agreed to start the checkride.

I ran home, collected all the cash, put it in an envelope, and ran back to the airport at a high rate of speed. The oral went well, and I gave her the cash to give to him. We reviewed the weather, which had been weird all day. Storms right off to the west that never moved in, winds that were supposed to be high and then died off right when she did the flight.  I watched her takeoff, and then the nerves settled in--for me. I hate checkrides. So much can go wrong. She was supposed to move to Purdue this weekend, so if she failed...  I watched three landings and two takeoffs plus a go-around, and everything I saw looked good.  They taxied in, and it was done, and she passed, said it was the best she'd ever done the maneuvers.  I was so relieved. I feel like I'll be able to sleep better tonight than I have the last few nights. These dumb checkrides are almost as tough on me as they are on my students. ;)

After lunch I ran up BOB and took it up on a maintenance flight.  NOW the winds started gusting up again, but at least it wasn't too far off the runway.  It was bumpy and gusty and windy, and I always feel like BOB is a handful waiting to be a HandFull.  The test flight was to make sure all was well before we give rides in it on Saturday down in Indy.  All checked out great. I'm going to let JP do most of the C-45 rides, and I'll do T-6 rides. But Nathan and I are going to take it down to Indy together.

At 2 pm I had another flight in an Archer with a kid with 10 hours, and he's actually doing really well, not too far off from solo.  He's Steve C's student, and Steve wanted me to check him out and see how he's doing.  He needs a few more things, crosswinds and balloon-bounce recovery, and a little more consistency on the flare, but he's close.  Meanwhile the weather just hung out, big storms, right off to the west, never moving in.  I was so thankful, we got so much done today with BOB and the checkride.

It was great being done by 4 pm, and I'm tired, and plan on a solid night's sleep. I don't even have anything I have to do in the morning, so I can sleep in, if my brain will let me this time.  Exciting stuff.  ;)