Two Pilots & an LSW: BT-ing

Wednesday, March 02, 2022

BT-ing

It was a non-stop day until about 8 pm, and honestly I was okay with that, even though I'm tired. I woke up early, had to be up by 7:30 and I woke up at 5:30. Part of it is the daylight coming in the window earlier now is waking me up earlier. I really wanna get some black out shades or something. I just got up at 6:50 or so and started the day early.

I made it out to Kokomo by 8:50, and then Dennis picked me up in his RV7A, which I'll just say here would be a lot sexier if it was the RV7, which is a taildragger, instead of the 7A, which is a nosedragger. But hey. We flew to Terre Haute, where I was going to give him his initial checkout in the BT-13 (The CAF's newest addition). I want to pause here, to mention that I have only flown the BT-13 really once before, broken into two flights, one of an hour from the front seat, one for .5 in the back seat, same day. I was now an instructor in it. I haven't flown the airplane since that one day...Sept. 5th. Which is six months ago. I have a whopping 1.5 hours in the plane 6 months ago and I'm the teacher. Fortunately for both of us, a quick scan through the manual, a little ground time to remind me of the particularities of this airplane, and the actual FLYING isn't hard. It's remembering little things like how to break the tailwheel loose properly, which is weird in this one. lol

When we got down there, we noted the airplane had three flat tires. Gah. Dennis found a hose and air, and filled up the two mains. They were down to 10 lbs, and needed to be up to about 30. The tailwheel was messed up and flat, so I called in Jordan Ray, and he came out, jacked up the tail, took off the tailwheel, split the tailwheel open, fixed the tube and stem, put it back together, and we were up and running in less than an hour.

Dennis and I went up and did steep turns, slow flight, power off and on stalls, all good. Came in and did wheel landings with 40° flaps, no flap wheel landings, 3-point landings, go-arounds, etc. After 1.8, we were done, he was checked out and doing great, and we headed back to Kokomo in his RV. It was so nice to get up, and the BT is so much more relaxing to instruct in than the T-6 but it still looks cool. SO much easier! I enjoyed myself today, it gave me a boost of Vitamin D that I really needed. :)

After I got back to Kokomo, I had just enough time to get to the dentist for my 6 month cleaning. I hadn't eaten today, we didn't have time with all the maintenance issues and me needing to get back for the dentist, so I decided I better wait until after the dentist to eat--he might appreciate that. Nothing wrong with my teeth, so that helps, even if I hate sitting there getting my teeth scraped and polished.

Steve and I hit dinner, and then I made it back at 6:30 for a CAF Zoom meeting talking about our groundschools coming up. We got done close to 8, and finally for the first time today, I was done. Like I said, a long, busy, but decent day, though it started and ended better than the middle with the dentist and the meeting. ;)