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.