Halloween

I felt really bad yesterday.  I was fatigued, had a headache different than the usual bad ones, but more like a band across my whole head.  I took a 2 hour nap and was still tired. My stomach hurt, couldn't hardly eat, I was queasy.  My resting heartrate is normally 59-65.  Yesterday it ran more like 80-90.  When I finally went to bed, it was a day wasted on the couch feeling like crap.

Today, Halloween, I had a T-6 flight to do.  So like I said on Facebook, for Halloween I dressed up as a T-6 instructor.  When I woke up this morning, I walked out and Steve eyeballed me with his eyebrows up like "WELL?"  The guy was coming from the Chicago area and if I couldn't go, we needed to call it off early.  Fortunately when I woke up, the headache was gone and my head was clear.  I felt a little weak, I hadn't eaten much in a couple days, but I felt like a little bit of a tired me again at least.  So I had some oatmeal with walnuts for a little something substantial and filling and nutritious for a late breakfast, and decided I could do today.

Steve and I went out to Kokomo, and my "student", Ed, flew in with his 13 year old son, in a Baron.  He's an aerobatic pilot, instructor, flies an Extra 300 and Super Decathlon for work, they have a flight school over in the Chicago area. They're thinking of buying a T-6 for the school and he wanted to fly one first. The winds kicked up, 280 gusting to 25 knots, which is about as much as I care to do in there, especially from the back seat.  But this guy seemed to have the qualifications that I decided to do it.  We took off, climbed up, did some maneuvering.  Power off dirty and clean stalls, ran through the landing sequence a few times, did a couple of aileron rolls and wingovers, only because he's an aerobatic instructor.  Otherwise I don't teach aerobatics, but if someone is already proficient and I believe them based on how they're handling the plane... It went well.

Coming back in to land, he came in on 23.  When I looked at the wind sock, it looked like it was mostly down Runway 32, but we stuck with the crosswind anyway.  He made a nice touchdown, then didn't get the crosswind correction in and it started to go.  I rescued it, and then we did another one, and he did great on that one.  It was now a direct crosswind, which is a hand full.  I was done, and just relaxing as we taxied in, and he said "Do you mind taking my son up for a quick round the pattern?"

It's gusty, I'm about done, but...okay.  So I took up young Andrew, let him 'fly' it for a bit, did a couple of maneuvers, then an overhead break and landing on Runway 32, where it was right down the runway. Gusty still, but at least less work.  We don't usually take kids, but it's our discretion.  People in the back have full access to stomping a brake or grabbing a stick or shutting off the mags or whatever, so we don't usually put kids or problem people back there.  But this boy has grown up around airplanes and knew what was what, so I did it.  We had fun, were only up for about 15 minutes.

Afterwards we talked, filled out logbooks, of both the young man and his dad, put the planes away, and then Steve and I went to Mexican for dinner. We hadn't eaten that day.  We were supposed to fly from 12:30-like 1:30 or so.  He was late, then we had to talk about the airplane, then we started up at 2 pm, flew until 3:15, then I flew with his son, and all in all we didn't leave until 4:30 pm.  So we came home and did Ann's dinner at 5, and then we went out and ate for the first time all day. Luckily I had that oatmeal in the morning. Steve hadn't had anything.  So we ate these 10" burritos and both regretted it.  ;)

I am still not quite 100%, but I'm good enough.  Tomorrow is a busy day.

Mr. Bones hanging around

Ed up front flying us around

The 13 year old back there is so short you can't even see his head.  lol

Cool sky back there behind the 340

Shadow of the T-6 along with it

The sky was dark below the clouds, but there was no rain. It was pretty.

Briefly

I haven't flown the last two days--I woke up yesterday and this morning with more headaches.  I'm wondering if it's a rebound headache at this point, but I still don't feel quite right tonight.  I'm half afraid to go to bed tonight in case I wake up with another one.  Three days in a row is the most I've ever had happen, I'm hoping to not have four now.

So nothing else has happened, at least in my world.  Laundry, dishes, paperwork, Tylenol.

People

Woke up with a headache at 7 am, and didn't have enough time to take meds and go back to sleep and get rid of it, so I didn't feel good most of the morning.  But I had a checkride prep flight, and the weather is only pretty for today, not the next two days, and she hadn't flown in a month, so I didn't cancel her.  It worked out well, she did a good job, and I made it through too.  

Then one of the 172s we use in the club, the owner waited until the last minute to renew his insurance, then instead of just renewing it, he tried to change crap, confused his insurance company into believing something that isn't true, and now they've denied him.  There are only two main companies that will do our kind of insurance and he's just been turned down by one.  So now the plane we use down at Sheridan, with a lot of people who have paid money and are waiting to do training in it, have to sit there for the next however long it takes for him to get his act together and get his insurance picked up and fixed.  When we only have about a month left of decent weather, if we're lucky.

So we'll take one of our other 172s down there, right?

Well, one of them has some cylinders out and on the way to be inspected/repaired.

Fine, we'll do one of the other two.

Until this evening, when a guy started our busiest 172 with the heavy steel tow bar still attached to it.  Prop strike, engine strike, leading edge strike.

What makes me the maddest about that, is I have flown with him for over 150 hours.  Before EVERY flight, the last thing I do, after the preflight is done, after the plane is pulled out and we're about to get in it, is step back, point and say "Pitot tube is off, cowl plugs are out, tow bar is off, tires look good."  Step to the back of the plane, look up and say "Fuel caps are on".  and THEN we get in.  So he's off on a solo flight, pulls the plane out, doesn't do any of that, just gets in and fires it up.  He KNOWS better.  That's WHY we teach it that way.  He's like "So sorry, I'll pay for it, it didn't look like much damage at least."  He doesn't know yet that it's a mandatory engine tear-down, a mandatory prop inspection, that our plane will be down for awhile now, and what all this will cost.  And not just cost HIM.  So frustrating.  

There's more to this day, but hey.

We ended by going down to Breeze Inn for some good food and company before coming home to keep dealing with crap.  Happy Hump Day!  :p

Misery

That's an old and bad joke.  

Ethan (the guy whose 340 I fly out of Frankfort) went in his Cherokee Six to Kokomo and picked up Steve and Spencer and flew them back to Frankfort. Meanwhile, I drove to Frankfort.  Steve and Spencer took the Cherokee Six and flew it to Malden, Missouri.  Ethan and I took a guy named Kevin, who is the head manager of Indy's TRACON Airspace Air Traffic Control guys, and dropped him off at Henderson County Airport, by Indy, then went on to Malden, Missouri too.  We were dropping off his Cherokee for annual, and then bringing home the pilots.  We caught up to the Six, and ATC told us to slow down. It was a VFR day, and I wanted to cancel and beat them in anyway, but Ethan is too nice, so we didn't.  ;) 

Malden is a neat old airport, a former military base, a former WWII training base.  It still had the old bunkers and ancient hangars and all buildings were the old concrete military bunker style with narrow dark rooms and painted cinderblock walls.  Old piece of history there, for sure.

On the way down, we flew to Henderson County, where I texted Amy and said hi, and she was out there and came out and waved at us.  We flew right over the top of Lawrenceville, IL, where I learned to fly.  I waved.  We flew right next to where I had my first ever flight instructing job, which was a less than stellar experience on any level.  I did not wave.  We flew over the top of Terre Haute where friends are.  I waved. We flew right next to Cape Girardeau, where my Mom was, so I texted and waved there, too.  It was old home walk down memory lane day!

The flight home, Steve and Spencer sat in the back two seats while Ethan and I flew up front.  It was a quiet trip, we had music going, and we dropped them off at Kokomo before flying back to Frankfort.  I drove past "The Milky Way", an ice cream place, and had a taco and some tangerine ice cream for dinner.

Got back to Kokomo Airport, and pulled out the Champ to fly at sunset for just 20-30 minutes, until it became illegal since I don't have lights on the airplane.  Put that away, and talked to my last guy of the day, Cliff, who is a surgeon and helicopter pilot transitioning to a fixed wing private pilot.  We did our first 8 night full stop takeoffs and landings in the pattern. The usual no lights, no landing lights, no flaps, and a few normal ones too.  We had a good time, as usual, and then I got home late.

So I flew to Missouri in the C-340, flew tailwheel Champ at Kokomo, and did night flying with a student in the 172.  Not a bad day.

Mostly I took pictures in the Champ trying to get a good sunset one...

Tasty Tangerine Soft-Serve from "Milky Way"

Me in the blue plane catching 62T going into Walden

A couple of old metal biplanes outside the building at Walden

Doesn't look like an old military building at all, does it.  ;)

Me and Ethan up front with an AWAKE (gasp) Steve and a very comfy Spencer back there

Sunset in the Champ for the next several

Getting ready to go fly the C-172 at night

The 172 at night in front of the hangar.

Rainy

A cold, grey, dreary day.  No flying today, so I ordered a few things I needed off the internet.  And did house stuff.

I've sat here awhile trying to think of something else to say, but I'm finding myself completely out of anything interesting.  

So, we're here, we're working, one day at a time.

Getting Around for the Weekend

My cousin Kevin passed away last night, from Covid.  He has kids.  My poor uncle is trying to deal with the loss of his youngest son while his wife is down the rabbit hole with dementia and doesn't really get what's going on, which is probably a blessing for her, but not for him, having to go through this alone.  My Aunt Peggy is currently in the hospital with it, with one lung white with pneumonia.  She's a stubborn ole lady, stayed home sick for 11 days without telling anyone before she got so bad she knew she had to call an ambulance to take her in.  I was that stubborn when I was about 19-21. In fact I had to be carried into an ER when I was 20 because I refused to go on my own, and when I got too weak to fight him, my friend physically picked me up and took me in his car.  I had a raging fever, severe abdominal pain, couldn't move.  I ended up dehydrated, with a UTI, a severe kidney infection, in fact the doctor said "Everything that can be infected up there is, young lady!  You could have given yourself permanent damage--in fact, you could have died!" Man that was a seriously painful one.  Anyway, so yes, I was that stubborn as a young person. I wouldn't be at 49, I promise.  

Cathy and Lon were here to visit his mom, also with dementia, in a nursing home. While here, they stayed with Ann, so we had all of Saturday to ourselves.  We went over Friday morning and Sunday afternoon and evening, but had Saturday.  So what we did Saturday was...my flights canceled, so Steve, me, Nathan, Chuck and AE went to Greencastle, IN in the Aerostar to get lunch at the restaurant on field. It was really good food, a nice 20 minute flight with good company.  When we got back, I ran home and read a Stephen King book, before meeting with Nathan, Steve and AE at Marble Steakhouse for a really smooth Malbec, excellent salmon, and creamy crème brulet.  Mmmmm

Instead of my day off, I became Plan C on a rescue flight.  A pilot named B wanted to fly the RG down to Lonesome Pine, Virginia for a camping weekend with his son.  The weather didn't look good enough for his comfort level, so he hired Spencer to go with him, and fly the plane home afterwards.  Spencer was supposed to go back and get him today, but the weather didn't look good enough for HIS comfort level today, so I got called in.  With four of us plus camping gear, we needed a bigger plane than the RG.  The Aerostar has poor on board weather, and I had a *lot* of weather.  So I took the 340, which is fully equipped to handle about anything.  The trip down, I let Spencer fly it, and we beat the worst of the weather.  We left earlier than originally planned, and stayed east of the line, and had a nice, clear shot down.  I got gas, and then we took off as quickly as possible to beat the worst of the weather home.

This was a little trickier.  The wad had moved in the way. Originally I was going to come in behind it, and shoot a gap back into Kokomo.  Just before I left, I took another look, and what was behind was building and becoming heavy and convective, while what was out front was milder.  I still had a lot of reds and yellows in the way.  So I picked Dayton as a waypoint to get around the worst of it, than came in on top of it to head back towards Kokomo.  I picked up ice, I got some turbulence, and some rain, but all in all it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.  Heading into Kokomo, there was a bunch of red crap off the end of Runway 5 for quite a few miles, and it was aimed for the airport.  I left the power in and raced the weather to Kokomo.  The winds were down Runway 5, and it was IMC, so I had to shoot an approach, but I didn't HAVE a clear approach for Runway 5, so I took the tailwind and did vectors for the ILS 23.  I didn't even want to do the RNAV, because it would take me too far out.  So they gave me vectors and I came smoking down the approach until the very end.  Slowed down after the Final Approach Fix, broke out, landed with the 9 knot tailwind, and was down and slow in the first half.  Gotta like smaller twins on longer runways.  :)  It was raining pretty good.  We pushed the plane in, I let Spencer do it so I didn't get wet.  Because that's important to a princess like me.  ;)  Spencer enjoyed the trip, I think he learned a lot, and it was a good experience.

Kaylee came home tonight for awhile. She hung out, seemed okay, petted the cat, ate a pumpkin roll with us.  After she left, about an hour later, she called me saying she wasn't feeling good, and was having trouble. I tried to talk to her for awhile, but when I hung up she wasn't feeling much better.  She was supposed to go watch "Hunger Games" with her friends and didn't feel like it, didn't feel like not doing it, didn't feel like coming back home, just doesn't feel good.

I went over to Ann's at 7:15 because it was so dark outside, and she was already in 'bed', which for her is in her lazy boy in her living room.  She'd taken out her partial at least, but I don't think she had pajamas on because her shoes were still on.  I got her to take her last pill ("I already had that one earlier"), and then just shut the rest of the lights off and let her go to bed early.  She'll probably wake up at 7 am after going this early.  :)

I felt pretty good about today's successful flight.  Other than the ending, it was a good day.  So I'm going to go watch a little "Equalizer" and chill for a bit.

The nice weather on the way down to Lonesome Pine

The runway is off in the distance there. 

Rolling hills, trees just starting to change colors

Big ravines.  Bad place to fly single engine

But still very pretty

Now you can see the runway better.  I didn't take photos of the trip home because it was ice, grey, wind, rain, and clouds.  Not so pretty.

Brakes

I was feeling so out of sorts yesterday, and I had nothing on my schedule for this morning, so I took a sleep aid and went to bed, promptly fell asleep, and didn't wake up until 9:30 this morning.  It was divine.  A good night's sleep makes everything better.

I am sitting here in comfy pants ordering Japanese to be delivered while reading the newest Stephen King book on my iPad, with the TV off and nobody home, listening to the sound of the washing machine beating the dust out of the curtains in our guest room and the wind rattling the leaves in the trees outside.  It's nice.

And tomorrow is always another day.

Iowa

Out the door before the sun was up this morning.  In fact, off the ground before the sun was up this morning.  One of the guys that went sat up front. He'd been up there before and talked non-stop the entire time, asked tons of questions, etc.  This morning I wasn't up for that.  So I didn't talk, we didn't talk. He ended up napping in the right seat while the boss slept in the back.  

It was windy, bumpy, IFR, and spitting icy cold precip.  I had to shoot the RNAV approach into Fort Dodge, Iowa, and I broke out about 150' above minimums, landing with a 25 knot gusty crosswind.  A good practice instrument run.  The guy in the front seat said "I don't like the clouds". I said "why not?" He said "You can't SEE anything. There could be a wall out there right in front of you.  You can't see the ground until it's RIGHT THERE.  That's...unnerving."  

I ran into town and got a good breakfast, and bought a pumpkin pie that I brought home for Steve.  When we landed, I stopped at Meijer to pick up some cool whip to go with the pie.  He was excited when he saw it, and had a piece, but I can't tell if it was actually good or not.  I'll have a piece tomorrow and see for myself.  lol

We're all a little stressed. The cat needs fed multiple times a day now because she won't or can't eat the crunchies any more.  She's got some other issues.  Ann is a lot of work.  Tonight I had to convince her to take her bedtime pill because like every night she argues that she's already had her meds when those were her dinner meds, but this time it took longer to convince her to take it.  I also had to help her remove her partial and brush it and soak it and she couldn't remember where her toothbrush was and kept looking in the kitchen silverware drawers while I went back and forth between the two bathrooms looking for it.  Then she doesn't ever want you to leave, so it can be tough to exit gracefully.  Kaylee is having difficulties. When she calls, I'm worried when I answer the phone as to which Kaylee is calling, where I am and what I can or can't do on the phone for the next 45 minutes.  The higher end CAF stuff is stressing me out, as October ends and the C-45 stuff isn't done and I don't feel prepared for it anymore now that it's been so long since I flew the thing.  I hate checkrides.  Our first hearing on the lawsuit is coming up in the next week or so too, though it should be a minor one.  Winter's coming, and we have some big financial hits coming up that I can't really talk about either.  So all in all, meh. Most of this stuff isn't going to get better. The cat isn't going to get better. Ann isn't going to get better. Kaylee...probably going to take some time to get better. Yadda yadda.  The CAF stuff will get better, it'll finish up one way or the other at least!  I'm grateful for the days I'm busy with flying too, because it keeps my mind engaged on more pleasant things. A little air therapy is a good thing.  :)

Oh, today at the FBO, they gave me a rental car, and then as I was leaving, said "Oh, and please go the speed limit.  They have traps and will take photos of the car and I'll get a $75 bill in the mail."  I thought, wow, you don't even know me, and yet you know me.  ;)

Such a pretty moon

This is how close I got to "Third Thursday", a fly-in event with Doug R. and Kim P.

Just a picture of a dreary day

Ft. Dodge Iowa

Blue Skies

My disappointed in my lack of talking, passed out passenger

Yeah.

Champing

It was windy and gusty, but only around 20 knots at least.  I took our Champ up and flew it to Wabash, where I was a little early, so I did some takeoffs and landings in the gusty crosswinds on Runway 27. It was actually really rough, and I had a pot-stirring landing, a couple of them in a row.  I was going to cancel Mo because it wasn't a good training day, but instead did some takeoffs and landings with Runway 18 too, and that was a little better.  So I took her to Marion, which was fairly close into the wind, and did several there, before going back to Wabash to do a couple more.  We ended the day with a bit of a rodeo, but it was fun.  Then I flew back to Kokomo, and Runway 14 was newly opened.  So I landed on it, even with a bigger crosswind, because I could.  When I got gas, Ralph said "Congratulations!  You're the first person to land on the new runway!"  I won!  :D

Steve and I went down to Breeze Inn tonight for dinner, Ann's caregiver Patsy was here tonight, Kaylee called, she hadn't been able to sleep last night and was wired up and feeling weird.  And tomorrow I fly to Ft. Dodge, Iowa for MBros, in the rain/IFR probably.

I didn't get a good shot, but the Champ looked good out there. Tail in the grass since I didn't have chocks and it was breezy.

I need to come back when the leaves change.

Runway 14 open for the first time in months, brand new surface, never been landed on...

Until now.

Our takeoff--you can't even tell it's gusty. She did a good job .  :)