Two Pilots & an LSW: Fatigue Friday

Friday, September 10, 2021

Fatigue Friday

This is basically what I said on Facebook, plus appropriate paragraphs, a few more details, and more pictures.

I'm too tired to be clever, so I'm going to do a "Today I" thing.

Today I woke up at 5 am, even though I didn't have to get up until 5:45. I woke up at 2, 3, and 5, and just gave up and got up anyway. My sleep has been terrible. I can fall asleep, and then a couple hours later I wake back up, and I'm up every hour or two, all night, until sometime after 3 or 4, and then I'm just awake and it isn't happening. I'm getting *really* tired. You can't go like that for this long and not have some effects. I've been dragging. I can't take a sleep aid (other than the melatonin which helps me get right to sleep at least) if I'm going to be flying in the morning, as it'll make me too groggy, but tomorrow I don't have anything early, and I'm whipped, so I'm going to take a Z-quil or something and see if I can knock myself out for 6-7 hours in a ROW for once.

I drove an hour to Frankfort pre-dawn, and took E's 340 over to Ohio, and waited while they worked on a bad headset jack, an over-temped CHT on the left engine and a dead EGT on the left engine (bad probes or connections). Took it for a test flight, all well, flew it back to Kokomo. When I got to Kokomo, the door of the airplane didn't want to open. There's a hydraulic strut that keeps the door from just dropping down hard, and that bound up, and was leaking hydraulic fluid all over the place. Spencer took that hydraulic arm/strut off for me and we put it in the back of the plane so I could deliver it to E later.

I took our white Mercury SUV courtesy car and drove to Glenndale for lunch, and met Steve there. There wasn't a lot of food, but there was enough, if everyone was kind. :D Afterwards I drove back and flew a birthday flight with a young 82 year old former pilot who didn't tell any of her friends, airport friends, kids, grandkids or great-grandkids that she was going flying for the first time in decades, on her birthday, in a C-172. Her last logbook entry was 1977! Her husband was a pilot, he had passed away several years ago, and she just wanted to get back up herself. She was nervous and tense, but she did it, and we flew around her house, Glenndale, just looked at stuff until she was ready to come in and land. She decided I should do the landing, so I did.

After we talked for awhile, I needed to fly the 340 back to Frankfort, where I met the owner, E, and he and I went back up for another hour practicing instrument approaches with all the fancy new avionics, all glass, touch screens, fancy pants button pushing, in preparation for our two trips to Florida coming up soon. I've never worked with that autopilot before, and it's all very fancy. The Garmin 750 is the one Garmin unit I don't know great, and it's not like the 530, but I'm getting there. The G600 inside is a newer version than the one in the other 340, and I'm still figuring out parts of that, too. The only familiar thing is transponder. lol But I think we've figured out how to shoot an ILS and an RNAV approach. It doesn't help to be able to hand fly if you can't set it up on the avionics properly, so the button pushing is important at this level. I wouldn't call myself perfect or even super proficient at it yet, but I didn't do too bad.

We landed back at Frankfort, did his logbook, and I drove my car an hour back into Kokomo to meet Kaylee at Olive Garden, before making it home about 14 hours after I left the house, and writing this.

She's doing okay. Her recent blood work showed her iron levels to be back in the normal range, and she's not consistent on taking iron, because it's constipating, so I'm glad it's better. Also, the fact that she went in and got blood work done without me forcing her or having to go hold her hand. She's getting better! She's loving working as a professor's assistant. She's just now figuring out that some of her easy classes can be used to work on projects for some of her other not so easy classes. I thought that was funny, it hadn't occurred to her to sit in one class and work on something for another. Ha, I used to read my books for pleasure in the middle of classes that bored me.

Steve's out by the fire with friends, Kaylee headed back to school, Ann went to dinner with Kelly, the lady that comes three times a week now to spend time, help with meds, fix meals, etc. Apparently they had a lovely time out and about. :)

Me, I'm a little worn out, but who can complain about a day like that?? There will be plenty of time to sit and stare at the TV--in February.

I don't know why these pictures are in reverse order. They're numbered backwards! Oh well.