Texas

I’m gonna be brief.  I got on an airliner Thursday morning, got to Dallas Thursday afternoon. Spent the day with Ellie, went to dinner with her and her friends, and staying in her friend’s large house, sharing a bed with Ellie. Woke up the next day to nasty, nasty winds, huge gust factor, up to 30 knots, variable all over the place, and waited it out until Sweetwater calmed down and wasn’t so bad, and then I launched for Sweetwater. 1.7 hour flight in the T-6, hotter than hades, in the flight suit.  Landed uneventfully, in time for a formal cocktail dinner, and now I was dressed in jeans and a CAF shirt and disaster hair, and that’s how I went.  We had huge steak and potatoes and salad and veggies and rolls and cake.  And it was good.  

We went to the hotel she got which had one bed, and I pulled out the couch instead, and tomorrow we get up at the crack of dawn to start getting ready for doing rides. More wind tomorrow but hopefully a lot more doable than what we had today.  Then I fly Nella back to Dallas and get a car ride to DFW and hop on an airliner and get to Indy by midnight, and then home by 1:30 am.  Yawn.  ;)

Brr

Quickly, because I'm tired and still need to pack.

I was up at 6 am, drove to Frankfort (an hour), flew to Ohio State, picked up a guy, flew to Beaver County, PA, had a great breakfast, flew to Erie, PA, hung out a bit while two of the three guys had a meeting, flew back to Ohio State and dropped off the one guy, flew back to Frankfort with the other two.  Drove an hour home, got home around 7:45 pm.  Full day.  It was juicy and icy up in Erie, and the whole windshield ended up covered minus the one partial stripe.  It was also a gusty crosswind, with moderate turbulence at times.  It was a very rough time, with a couple of instrument approaches too.  Good practice.  

I got a text from the guy who was doing most of the rides at Sweetwater, and he asked if I'd be willing to take basically them all so he could go do something else, and I was good with that.  It's going to be hot and windy but hopefully good enough to get the job done.  I leave the house at 8 am tomorrow for an 11:45 am flight out of Indy to arrive in Dallas at 1:10 pm their time, and then we're off and running.  Fingers crossed that this will go well.  I don't have appropriate clothing for 95 degrees or for Texas or for a formal cocktail ball, but...I'm just going to do this anyway.

sleeping Roadie

On top, finally.

View out the front. Not much, can't see much.

Dreary

A better side view of the whole covered windshield and one open stripe.

Lake Erie

Such a nice view of the window

Nose

Better visibility of Lake Erie

Tuesday

Flying really picked up on students all of a sudden. Steve, Spencer, Cusick and Jerry are all busy.  I would be busy except I'm marked off so many days coming up that they're booking the other guys, which is fine for now.  I've got one student heading into checkride prep with her checkride scheduled for 2.5 weeks from now.  I've got a couple of guys trying to schedule me for pre-solo check flights. I tried to get them to fly with one of the others, because I'm so busy on other stuff, but they want to go with me, so...they're scheduled out into May. 

Tomorrow I fly to Ohio and Pennsylvania with Ethan in the 340, for an all-day event with 4 legs.  I don't mind that paycheck though.

This evening I went back to the airport to fly the T-6 at sunset. The winds were gusty and strong, and I kind of wanted that practice anyway.  But I waited about an hour, and then when I walked next door, it was cold, in the 30s to lower 40s, windy, gusting up into the 20+ knot range, crosswind somewhat for Runway 32, and when I got there, the cover was on the T-6.  The thought of pulling it out, taking off the cover, the cold, all of it, I was tired and I just lost my motivation. So I came back on home to get ready for tomorrow's trip, and then Thurs-Sun's trip.  I'll just have to fly the T-6 down there in the winds down there without additional practice.  It'll be fine.  I'm more bothered by the party Friday night. I'm bothered by the whole thing. I hope this is more enjoyable than I'm feeling right now.  ;)

Kaylee got a 100% on a paper she wrote as a final for one of her classes. She sent it to me to read, and I was really impressed. It sounded like a paper a professor wrote.  No lie.  I told her I couldn't find anything to change, not a single comma or word. She turned it in on Friday, and today got back the 100%. I wrote back "I told you it was good".  And it was.  I was proud.

She's probably going to live at home this summer instead of getting an apartment after all. We'll try to stay out of each other's way.  ;)

Briefly

We're starting to get busy on the flying now, which is good, but harder with Ann. Steve has been doing the morning, I've been doing the night, and whoever is free has been doing the afternoon. Now I've got trips and we've both got students. I did her dinner, then her bedtime, and I'll be doing her all day tomorrow, because Steve's got people, and then I'm gone all day Wednesday so he'll have her all day, and I leave Thursday for Texas for the weekend.  I do wish there was some help.  But so it goes.

Nathan said Gumby will be ready to test fly by the end of the week, but unfortunately I'll be gone until next week.  I'll be so glad to have it back though!

I took up the T-6 for three takeoffs and landings this afternoon. It was sprinkling, and the winds were a 40 degree crosswind at 12-14 knots, not a lot for once, but enough to make me work for it, so that was good. I tried to take Spencer with me but he had a student, so I tried to take Dave Hughes with me, but he couldn't get in the back seat, so I took Isabel with me, and just kept it to three landings.  Two wheel and one three point.  The struts are up higher than they used to be and the sight picture is different, but I still made decent landings out of it, with the three-point being the least smooth.  But all acceptable crosswind landings. I did better in the Champ, but I just need more practice in the Six, for some currency.  I just wish fuel wasn't so blasted expensive right now.  Like $6.50/gallon!!  Ridiculous.

Steve and I drove to Marion to pick up Kaylee's dorm refrigerator and a few of her things as she is in her last week of the semester. A final tomorrow, two on Thursday, then done.  He carried it from the dorm to the car, and I carried it from the car to the house.  While we were in town, the three of us went to dinner at a place that ended up having a smoking and non-smoking section, which I'm pretty sure is illegal in Indiana now, and made me laugh all over again, because the non-smoking section was quite smoky because that's how it goes when you have an open building/room and only smoke on half of it.  lol  As soon as we got home, I immediately had to wash my pants, shirt, sweatshirt, even socks, and Steve's too.  They all smelled like smoke.  My hair does too, but I didn't shower.  It's been a long time since I was in a place that had smoking! It's been outlawed in Indiana for awhile.  The food was really good, though. Expensive, but good! Excellent fish, real chicken, super cheesy mozzarella sticks, really good chicken and wild rice soup.  Good stuff, even if you need a respirator to eat there.  :)

Well, my clothes are dry, so I'd better get them out and get the next thing in.

Blown Away

I started taking some of the soft-back books out of the guest bedroom closet shelves.  I had two boxes to put them in.  That took care of 1.5 shelves.  Those shelves are packed full of books, and I have more up top. That's a lot of books, just hidden away in that one spot!  I also took down some tubs of cards and letters, but I'm not so sure what to do there, so I put them back up. There's a lot of history in there.  I'll save those for now.  I brought more boxes home from the airport to pack up the additional books in there, but even that was tough.  You give a book worm a stack of books to look through and either I want to re-read my old favorites, or I want to re-read the ones I don't remember reading. Either way it's hard to give them away, harder than I expected.  But I'm workin' on it, I'm not going to re-read them, so...might as well get it cleared out and done.

This morning I went out to the airport and met Morgan who did an interview for a paper she's writing in one of her classes.  We talked for about an hour, and the winds were still just too nasty for me to take anything up.  I couldn't hardly walk from my car to the hangar. I need to do some practice with the T-6 in some winds, just not THIS much wind.

I stopped out at Glenndale to pick up two packages we had, and then went by Culvers to pick up my lunch, now that it's 2 pm.  I had food for Steve and an ice cream treat for Ann, and then I got a text from Ty that he was back from Florida and I could meet him back at Glenndale to pick up Steve's key lime pies. I dropped off the food, ran back to Chuck's house and picked up our key lime pies, and then got back in time to hit my laundry, dishes, and get ready for a possible trip tomorrow morning.  Ethan will use me if the weather is bad, won't if the weather is good enough for him to be comfortable going by himself. And I'm going to spend the rest of this week studying up a little on WASP history, hopefully getting some T-6 flying in to get current, if the weather will let me before I have to leave Thursday morning, and trying to pack and figure out what to wear especially for the "ball".  That'll keep me occupied Mon-Wed.  Then I'll have to ride on an airliner twice, meet people and socialize and share a hotel room and go to a cocktail party not dressed in cocktail party attire and fly riders in high winds in Texas and who knows what else.  Hopefully it's something I'm glad I did and not something I regret doing.  lol

My first box of soft cover books that all total was only one shelf.

One shelf down, three to go.

I kept trying to snap a shot when the wind sock would blow up so far it bent upwards, this and the last photo, but I kept missing the gusts. This is an almost direct crosswind for 14, the only open runway.

A series of wind in my hair photos.

Cousin It. I was trying to get the wind sock behind me too, and it wasn't working out well.

Developments

This morning we canceled the Wisconsin T-6 rides. The winds are gusting up over 30 knots now, up to gusts over 35, and that's too rich for all our blood, including the riders. So I don't have to go to WI tomorrow after all, while still gaining brownie points for trying and losing the stress of trying to get it done.   Next stress--going to the WASP reunion in Texas, where I will have to socialize with people I mostly don't know and possibly do rides there too, and go to a ball where most people will be in cocktail attire.  *sigh* 

But.  This morning I got a private message from a Reno P-51 racer facebook friend of mine who asked if I would be interested in flying at a warbird museum in California once a month. I don't know which museum, I don't know what airplanes. I have a guess, so we'll see if I'm right.  Palm Springs Air Museum, or PSAM.  They have a Stearman, T-6, two P-51s, and several other things.  I'm guessing they'd start me in the T-6 as that's the only thing I'm qualified in that they have right now.  I'm wondering if I'd ever have a shot at the Mustangs.  The guy who contacted me would put in a good word for me, and I know another pilot who flies for them who also would put in a good word for me.  So...it would be possible, but potentially difficult on logistics.  I'd have to get tickets out to California. If I got them far enough in advance, they can be relatively inexpensive. That's a long way to go to do T-6 rides, but my chances of getting in a Mustang increase with my exposure in the warbird world and my ability to prove that I'm capable of it, and a team player.  I just got possibly invited to this one, so...I'm going to see where or if it goes.  It got my heart rate up when he asked if I wanted to fly for a warbird museum.  A little less so when I saw they had a T-6, even though it makes sense. I'd like to fly something new. A bomber, and of course a fighter.  Easier said than done, this next step, but...we'll see.  Just the possibility is a little exciting, and the Six opens the doors.

Steve and I went to dinner tonight with Ethan and his family (wife and three kids), and we all had a nice time.  Made it back in time for me to put Ann to bed, after a nice steak dinner and a bit of crème brulet.  Good stuff.  Catching up on "Blacklist", and I don't have to get up early in the morning.  It'll be too windy to fly tomorrow, so the next thing I have to focus on is getting ready for my airline flight to Texas. Packing, finding things to wear, flight suit, studying up on a couple things, and hoping for the best.  Another possibility here is with the Air History Power Tour, as they tour with the B-29, which one of the CAF guys suggested maybe I should get in with and fly.  Again. We shall see...

Champ

I haven't been doing much flying for awhile now, a lot less than is normal for me in the Spring, and I've finally started getting twitchy. I'd get one quick flight in here and there and it would hold me off.  Today when I still had no students, I wake up and it's IFR.  It stayed cloudy all the way past lunch, and then finally started breaking up.  Of course the winds kicked up, down Runway 23, which is closed through at least the first week of May.  I headed up in the Champ after lunch.  Winds were 250 at 17 gusting to 21, so down Runway 32, the only open one, it was a 16-19 knot direct crosswind, which isn't insignificant in the Champ.  It was bumpy and gusty, and I just stayed in the pattern.  I started with three point landings, which in those winds were really left main and tailwheel down and the right wing took awhile to come down.  Then I did some wheel landings, and they were actually a little trickier.  Couple of those, and then I did an engine out to a 3-point, then a couple more to end on, listened to music, and just took the work-out.  Partly it was therapy, but partly it was to practice, because Saturday I'm supposed to go to Wisconsin and do T-6 rides, and it's supposed to be windy on Saturday, and I haven't flown taildraggers let alone taildraggers in any kind of wind since last Fall, really.  So I wanted to make sure my feet were awake from the winter.  It was a good flight.  I kept it on the centerline and had a bunch of good landings in a row, cranked up the music, had the place to myself because of the crosswinds, and felt much better about life.  I needed that.

My muscles today are sore. My back, my arms. I couldn't figure out what the problem was. Then I remembered lifting up and moving over two large black trunks filled with things, then putting them back.  I couldn't just lift with my knees because of how they are positioned in there. So I worked muscles that hadn't been worked in a long time. They felt it today.  

Last weekend when I tried to take the T-6 up briefly and ended up aborting twice for maintenance, I also used muscles I hadn't used in awhile. See, it was really windy that day too.  As I was putting away the twins while the T-6 sat out, suddenly the wind pushed the tail of the T-6 and that big ole airplane started turning and rolling.  I dropped the tug I was on and flat-out sprinted for the T-6, to get to it before it ran a wingtip into a building.  By the time I got there, other people were running for it too, so I was able to go back to my own tug.  That's the first time I've gone from standing to flat-out sprinting in a very long time.  Will probably be the last for a very long time too.  The next day, my calves and legs hurt a little, and it wasn't even that far of a run.  But buddy I wasn't going to let that airplane go anywhere.

I feel kind of glad that I've been doing a fair amount of exercising for the last 10 days.  It made that sprint I did actually easier.  I'd been getting out of breath just walking down to the hangar, but even just a week of doing more exercise and I was starting to get back in better shape.  Well, not visibly, of course, lol, but I could walk or jump or do that sprint and not have my heartrate skyrocket and my breathing get quick.  I have been doing pushups too, and went from 5 to 15 in just 10 days, so that's better too.  In other words, I hadn't lost it, but if I kept doing nothing, I WOULD have.   Today in line at the pharmacy in CVS, the woman next to me was an "old" lady, short, stout, grey, glasses, hunched over, difficulty moving or walking, had a cane. The lady asked for her birthday for meds, and she said "x/x/69".  She was only 3 years older than I am!  And yes the meds were for her, not someone else she was picking up for.  I am afraid I gaped at her for a second, in shock.  And that reinvigorated me on continuing to keep taking small steps to keep up on exercise again too. She was way too young to be that old.  I have too much to do still to go downhill that fast.  I may never be skinny Laura again, as if I ever really was, but I don't have to be broke down Laura, at least. ;)

For today, I was light-on-my-feet=and-hands Laura, and that's good enough for today.  ;)

Fired up and ready to go

Downwind Runway 32, little ants of trucks on the end of 23.

Not quite straight but not landing, either, buzzing down the runway a few feet off the ground to take the next two photos with my right hand while I flew with my left.  Because.

Construction workers as I flew by just barely over the ground

Hi guys.

Toss It

I got ambitious on this day off.  I've been doing chunks here and there with breaks in between, and today I did a big one, and you can't even tell. I pulled my two big black trunks out of a closet, and went through them both, tossing things I didn't need or want or that I didn't want anyone else to deal with, and keeping other memories that mean something to me, or may or may not mean something to Kaylee or Steve down the road or if/when I'm gone.  I kept old work badges with my photo on them, a couple of diaries from when I was young and the ones from when I was pregnant. Photos, of course. Birth/wedding/funeral announcements of a few.  I threw away projects I'd done in college, notebooks of notes from science class and stuff like that.  I threw away two diaries I'd had when I was 20-21. There was nothing of value in there, nothing good to save, and nothing I need Kaylee or any grandkids I may or may not have some day to read about me.  *I* didn't even enjoy reading them.  So they're gone for good.  I did find my first logbook in there, in the bottom trunk where I haven't been in years.  I don't know why it was in that one, but now I finally found it and some day I'll be able to prove when it's been 50 years of flying.  I now know that I soloed on Nov. 4th, 1991, with around 15 hours, which was a lot back then. That first logbooks has all my sign-offs and checkrides for everything except multi and MEI, so again, glad to have found it.  And the plane I soloed in is now in private ownership in S. Carolina.  Kinda funny.   I found an envelope Grandma Snider had sent me with photos and a letter, which yes, I kept, and funny notes from friends in college that I didn't keep any more because even I didn't remember what the joke was any more.  All in all I threw away two trashbags full of papers and junk.  What's left in there, some of it will get thrown out too when I die, but at least it's contained, controlled, and possibly mildly interesting to family, anyway.  So two large trashbags went out, but nobody will ever see the difference in the house, because the trunks look the same on the outside.  I still feel better about it though.  :)

It was a little bit of an emotional journey though. I laughed, I got mad, I cried, it was like watching a bad home movie.  ;)  

I do have a bunch of extra professional photos of Kaylee and Devon that are duplicates that I just decided to leave alone for now. I also left alone a lot of the old motivational posters and post cards and book marks I used to tape up on my walls. They're in good shape, and they remind me of when I used those sayings to try to make myself be strong enough to do what I needed to do to keep going.  People tattoo themselves with "warrior" to try to become one because they actually aren't.  People tattoo themselves with "I am enough" because they don't feel like they are, and they use that as a way to try to remind themselves to feel that way. I used "courage" and "fight" posters because I didn't feel like I had enough. But in the end, I did.  Thank goodness.

I found a check Dad had written me about a year into flight school for $100 that I refused to cash because he'd said I'd never be able to make it, especially without his money, so when he sent money, I refused to accept it.  I still have that check, it didn't go in the 'burn' pile.  Why?  Because. I'd have starved to death before cashing that check.  That isn't courage, by the way, that's just freaking stubborn.  Maybe sometimes they're the same thing, I don't know...

I found an old IQ test and report that I did and printed out that highlighted my strengths (English and reading, big shock) and my weakness (math and logic, big shock).  My logic and math skills have both increased a lot since back then, too, but now I'm too old and slow to get a good score on the test if I took it, I think.  lol  Poems and stories I wrote or liked, and yes, I saved all those, even the bad ones. Maybe they're all bad, I was pretty young.  :D

So many interesting pieces of history in there, at least to me, but like I said, it was an emotional journey of a day. I was glad I was home alone, and that I had the whole day to myself, to go through it all. 

Tomorrow is trash day, so I hauled everything out to the trash, then hauled the trash out to the curb.  So long, old clutter.  There's more to go, but this was a good bite.  Kaylee's room is going to be a really big one.  We're going to redo her whole room and turn it into an office, exercise room, with a daybed in it for her or company, repaint it, the whole ball of wax.  She's got a LOT of stuff in there to deal with.  And then all my paperback books in the closet in the guest bedroom.  Those I just need to pack up and take somewhere to donate.  There are too many for one place to want, I'm sure, so I'll need to divide it up.  Too bad I can't sell them, but old paperbooks don't bring in a lot.  ;)

Guess that's it. Tomorrow is another day where I don't have any flights scheduled.  Will see what I can get done then.  If nothing else, I've gotten my exercise in these days.  I've been doing more strength building stuff like push-ups too, having lost some muscle mass, and the walking to get my heart rate and movement up.  It's better than nothing...

Tonight I'm watching Chicago Med, and one of the storylines is about a baby with SMA with parents from Indiana. One of my imaginary pilot friends sent me a Private Message on FB telling me it was on, to give me a heads-up, but I was already watching.  Kind of him to do that, by the way, to think of me, to remember SMA and that it exists.  So I'm watching these parents the day I go through a bunch of old things including birth announcements and photos and diaries of hope and loss.  Man, raw day.  One thing that helps, is that swelling in utero has nothing to do with SMA, and they can't tell by looking at the baby that it's "fine" after all, like they're claiming, when a genetic test came back positive for SMA.  So inaccuracies like that make it a little more palatable.  ;)

Tuesday

Since the airport is closed Mon-Wed, I have no students, and no trips, so I exercised and did everything else I could today.  Nothing of note until this evening, when I drove down to Indy Metro to go to the CAF meeting tonight. This picture is from their parking lot, a picture I title: "Spring in Indiana".  Flowering tree, construction barrels, and cold air.  

Steve went over tonight to put Ann to bed, and found she had written notes and put them on her table. She was proud to show him the notes she made, and had six more blank 'notes' on the table waiting to be written upon.

She's apparently forgotten what these are for, so I guess I'll make up a note to put on the box to remind her what to do with them.  We told Cathy and Lon about it, and Lon called them "Post-it Pads" or "Sticky Notes".   We all laughed.  It is kind of funny and kind of not funny...

Quiet Mondays

We woke up to snow all over the ground, and IFR most of the day. It spit rain, snow, and sleet, back to rain, all day.  It was a good day to not have a T-6 checkout, I can tell you that much!

Kaylee and I hung out most of the day. She ran down to Fishers over lunch, and then we spent the rest of the day together.  I went with her to get her identity verified at the bank for her upcoming job, we fed the cat some more ham, and she loved that again, licking her plate as clean as it would get.  I caught up on laundry and dishes and did some exercise.

All in all a rainy, quiet, dreary, but good day.  Kaylee has headed back to school, the cat is sitting next to Steve, and I'm planning my next adventure, doing T-6 rides up in Michigan this Saturday. Then Texas, which I'm more worried about. But one thing at a time.

Supposedly the mask mandate is gone from airline travel, which would be lovely if it holds up by my flight the end of the month.  I'd love to not have to deal with that at least.

Happy Easter

I wanted to make my post title "It is Risen" because I flew the T-6 today, but that seemed too sacrilegious even for me.  

First, Happy Easter. 

This morning when I woke up, I put Kaylee's Easter basket by her where she was sleeping.  She had hinted that she'd like one this year even though she hasn't had one in years.  So we did egg dyeing and an Easter basket like when she was little, and it made her smile.  That's good enough for me. 

We had eggs for breakfast and kind of slowly wandered around, then I decided to deal with the T-6 thing. The three of us went out to the airport, and I flew the T-6. The tailwheel shimmy was gone, and the right wing strut still dropped, but not as bad as it did yesterday.  I did four landings to try to get back in the groove in the airplane, ended not too bad.  

Then Steve, Kaylee and I drove around Kokomo looking at the apartments.  Kaylee is looking to rent a small furnished apartment for just 3 months while she works this summer at the internship, a decent amount of which will be remote/at home.  She'll be earning enough with the job that she can save some money and try out the apartment thing both. She'd be money ahead to live with us, but she'd like to have her own space, which I get, believe me.  lol

I started dealing with my T-6 guy. So everything is wrong. The plane is at Kokomo which is now closed. The weather for the upcoming three days is now winds gusting to 25 knots at a significant crosswind every day.  More than I am interested in instructing in for someone's first T-6 flights.  It's going to rain/snow late tonight and into tomorrow morning. He's coming up from Louisiana or somewhere like that.  So together we made the decision to abort. He's leaving the country though until later this summer, so we'll have to wait awhile to get that checkout done.  But so be it. It was piling up to be a mess of a time and I was not comfortable or looking forward to it.  Mother Nature just finished us off.

When we got back, I made dinner.  Ham, au gratin potatoes, rolls, and corn, and actually, it was all good.  We gave Roadie a plate of ham cut up in tiny bites, and she ate it all and licked that plate clean to boot.  Large quantities of ham have a lot of salt and fat in them and probably aren't good for a tiny cat, but she's lost a lot of weight even though she eats a lot, and she's old, and she loves it, so, well...

Ann loved it too, by the way.  I have enough leftovers for us for a few days.

In the middle of the afternoon, I got an email, and I am being added to the Air Power History Tour with the CAF. https://www.airpowersquadron.org/.  That's Fifi (B-29), Diamond Lil (B-24), Nella (WASP T-6), possibly Gunfighter (P-51).  I'll be flying Nella, of course.  I'm doing rides from June 30-July 11th, unfortunately, but it's still pretty cool to be added to the tour, no muss, no fuss, and who knows, it may lead to other planes, too.

Finishing up the evening, I cleaned up, and we're hanging out not doing much of anything, in peace. 

All in all, makes for a good day for me.

Sleeping Kaylee with Easter Basket

I forgot to take flying pics so here's a non-flying one. lol

One of my takeoffs, taken by one of my students, Cameron, who was taxiing out

Kaylee and Roadie

Uphill Boulders

This whole day was a pushing-the-boulder-uphill day.  

We have to get the T-6 to Marion today because the airport will be closed Monday-Wednesday and I have a guy coming from out of town to do T-6 training Monday-Wednesday.  I can't take it tomorrow when the weather is nicer because it's Easter Sunday and nobody will be at Marion to put it into a hangar. I can't put it into the hangar myself.  I can't leave it sitting on the ramp because it's going to rain Sunday night. If I wait till Monday the airport is closed. 

Today the winds are nasty-ish, gusty, and getting worse, and turned into a 50-60° crosswind gusting to 27 knots over there over the trees on a shorter more narrow runway.  Not TOO short or narrow, just shortER, but that runway is always a rodeo if the winds are over about 10 knots because of those trees.

I haven't flown the T-6 in 3 months. I haven't flown any taildragger hardly at all this year. Just the Champ once, I believe.  

The guys take awhile to get everything put back together, we run into a few issues, and Chuck has driven right from lunch over to Marion to pick me up and is sitting in the office waiting.  We get in the plane and the one thing I hadn't done on the preflight is check fuel. Well, we had 10 gallons a side, and no, that's not enough. Call the fuel truck. We're topped off. I start up, taxi down, notice a slight vibration here and there but ignore it.  Run up is good, go to take off, and the right strut goes down so far that the wing is dropping pretty low. I have almost full left aileron in to counteract that and it's still going down and not coming up, and I abort the takeoff.  Taxi back up, they look at the struts, they seem okay, no fluid leaking, so I taxi back to try it again.  Big vibrations this time on the tailwheel. I've never had a tailwheel shimmy in any T-6, let alone this one.  We come back again, they tear into it, and for the next two hours try to figure it out. Spencer and I pulled out the Cheyenne and 340, and T-6.  Put back in the Cheyenne and 340 to leave.  Had to pull everything back out to put in the T-6 to fix it, then put everything back in.  Finally we tell Chuck to leave and we call it, which is a problem for getting the plane to Marion now.  We're not sure it's fixed yet, but we're going to try it again maybe tomorrow.  Maybe. Then I have to deal with the guy coming up to Kokomo to do training in it in an airplane we haven't gotten out of there yet that I haven't flown in months in winds that are going to be higher and we have one nice looking day to do it in. Tuesday. If I can get there.

We finally give up on the T-6 and I had a 6 pm student. I started working on something and ran 30 minutes late for the 6 pm. Cut it short with her to finish up other thing. Other thing didn't go right either. The username wasn't correct and the ID# was one digit off too, so that took some searching.  I finally get that done and get home at 8:30 pm after an entire day of nothing going right, including a bunch of stuff I'm short-cutting because I'm tired and just want to go to bed.  

Kaylee and I dyed Easter eggs tonight. She hard boiled them while I was gone, and then wanted to try a new method. Shaving cream mixed with food coloring, drop the egg into the cream, let it sit for 20 minutes, then wipe it off with a paper towel and you get a marbeling effect. It worked out pretty well, though the photos don't really do it justice.  I did an old-fashioned green one just for grins.

Kaylee and the cat hung out a lot today, Steve was out the airport till 6 then came back to hang with his buds.  I went on an Easter egg hunt looking for Ann's cellphone around lunch time. She'd put it into her bathroom drawer, in the back, face down. I found it by calling it and walking around the house and hoping to hear it, which I eventually did.

Bedtime. I'm wiped.  Talk at you tomorrow.

Tax Day

I've been doing a lot of organizing and decluttering lately, especially of my email. I still had some saved emails from 2004, and emails from people who have passed away now, just various things I really didn't need to save anymore. So I deleted a lot of stuff, SMA website info, stuff I'll never need again.  I found a lot of interesting rabbit holes to fall down into too.  Gone for good, now.  I'm going to be going through my trunk too, throw away the stuff nobody cares about.  I know I have pictures of my high school senior classmates. They weren't even friends, so...why do I need to save those?  Somehow I'm quite confident they didn't save a photo of me. ;)

Kaylee is here for the weekend, Easter break.  She hinted that she'd like an Easter basket, and I laughed, but I got her an inexpensive basket and put little Easter toys with a couple Easter chocolate things in there just to make her laugh, probably give it to her Sunday.  She's had some troubles with two of her roommates and is a little bummed out, but she'll be all right, I'm sure.

I took the Cheyenne up on a quick test flight today. The winds were up over 30 knots and it was rough, but I was testing the brakes that the guys had fixed, did a "maximum performance takeoff", stayed in the pattern, and came right back in to land.  Quick and dirty but the brakes worked and the winds were fun.

That's about it. Ann has forgotten how to put in her hearing aids, and doesn't know what pajamas are now, and today she was short-tempered with Steve, which she never is. I'm going over in a few minutes to put her to bed, and we'll see how she does with me.

Not much else going on, I've been catching up on a lot of stuff and am going to keep going on that before I get busy again with the whole next on the list stuff.  1) T-6 checkout Mon-Wed, 2) Flight to WI to give T-6 rides up there for the WI Wing, then 3) airline flight to TX to do the WASP thing, and I need to find something to wear there too.  *sigh*

That's about it for today...

Indy Aero Club Presentation

I have been stressing hard over this presentation. We stayed so busy at Sun-n-Fun that I didn't even have time to practice it. I had one day before we left and I wrote and re-wrote. Tried to find pictures for some of the slides. When we got back from Sun-n-Fun, I had one full day, Monday, to go buy something to wear and to finish this presentation.  I worked on it non-stop. I added some photos, and cut out a lot of text.  Kaylee came over at 3 pm and we went to Kohl's, where she helped me find some black pants, a black tank, and a peach-ish blazer, and some black boots.  Originally I was looking for a black blazer with a colored blouse, but there were no black blazers available in the whole store, for whatever reason, and the peach or mauve or whatever you want to call it ended up being nice, so we went with it.

Tuesday morning when I got up, I changed up my presentation again, added in a slide, removed a slide, and cut out a chunk of my speech. I had gone from 53 minutes which was too long, to about 35 minutes, which is ten minutes shorter than they told me, but felt more right, but I hadn't had enough time to run through it, especially the new version.  Steve was home too much too on Monday and Tuesday morning, so I had to go up front into the guest bedroom and shut the doors and turn on the bathroom fan and try to run through it without stumbling on my words or having to read right off the paper.  Finally I got two run-throughs in a row with minimal stumbling, re-wrote my into and my conclusion, got the intro down, halfway got the conclusion down.

Tuesday I left at 4:20 to get down there by 5:30.  Except I got 5 minutes away and had forgotten my sheet where I had when to move slides and remind me of what to say when. I turned around like I was in the Indy 500, raced home, grabbed it, and headed back out.  Promptly got stuck in traffic, and 465 shut down for 10 minutes. I was supposed to be there between 5:30-5:45, and it started at 6. I was trying not to stress out but I hate to be late and I'm supposed to be the keynote speaker.  I pulled in at 5:50, and had my second moment of brief panic. I'm dressed up, and everyone around me is in shorts, jeans, and shirts.  I'm like....I'm at a country club in Indy. Of course it's also a golf course and the people I saw weren't all there for my meeting. I decided that even if everyone else there was dressed down, I'm supposed to be the professional presenter, so I should look the part.  Then I texted Steve and he told me the same thing.  :D

As I'm walking in, I see a familiar face--Morgan, my student is there. She knew I was doing this, and surprised me by not telling me she was coming with the Purdue race team. Then another familiar face-Jim Z came up from N. Carolina when he heard I'd be speaking tonight, and he came up to visit family too.  It was a little intimidating doing this in front of people I knew, but it was intimidating anyway.  lol

Because of the stoppage of the interstate, several people ran late, so they started the meeting late, which later on meant it was a good thing I cut my presentation shorter than they'd originally told me to. They started with a safe pilot 50 year award for one guy, then did the Air Race Classic sponsorship presentations, and then we had dinner and dessert, and then announcements, and THEN it was my turn. I was really nervous that I'd get up there and go blank. I had rehearsed my opening line a bunch of times so that it would come as naturally as possible and hope that it would flow from there.

The actual speech went well. They didn't have a microphone like they said they would, so I had to really project to get to the back of the room full of older people, but I think I did pretty well with that.  I got some laughs, had some interactions with the audience, showed a lot of photos, and told my story.  I started with background and ended with a lot of the fun stuff I've gotten to do, airshows and air-to-air photo shoots and some of the veterans I've met, and some of their stories, and the WASP filming, and stuff.  I talked about the people who didn't support me and the people who did and what a difference a little support can make in someone's life. At the end of it I asked if anyone had any questions, and nobody did, but Jim Z stood up and said he had a statement, and said that he'd been a T-6 instructor for a long time and done a lot of checkouts, and that I was the best student he'd ever had. Wow.  They presented me with a wall hanging of instruments, might be a clock, I'm not sure, I haven't looked yet.  Then when I ended, THAT'S when people came up and started talking to me.  Quite a few did.  They said it was a great presentation (I'm not sure what else you'd say..."That was average, thanks for coming"?), but still.  Some of the ladies from the air race said that it was inspirational, and one said she teared up. I'm not sure at what part, but I appreciate that it meant something to her. A couple people used the word inspirational, actually.  One lady brought her young son up. He's grounded for medical reasons and they asked for some ideas on how to deal with the grounding while they wait, stay motivated, etc. I talked to them for about 15 minutes and I think I helped. I had quite a few other people come up to me and ask some questions, and everyone was complimentary.

One moment of panic I had was when he started reading my bio before introducing me, and what he covered was basically the first part of my presentation. But I went into more detail than that, so I just took a breath and jumped in and did it anyway.

Kaylee, Steve, and Ethan were all texting me, telling me I had this.  One of my opening lines was that I was a better pilot than I was a public speaker, and one of the guys came up to me afterwards and said that he thought if that was a bad public speaker, he wouldn't have a chance himself, said I did great.  I didn't stutter, mumble, or pass out, so all in all I think it was a success. And I really don't want to do it again.

I'm going to say, the area where I feel the weakest is my physical appearance. I hate the photos of me. I hate how I look, and I've just tried not to project that or let people know.  But I hate it, and it hits my confidence going even down to Texas for the WASP stuff coming up.  I'm not going to back out now just because of how I look, but do you know for the last two months I've increased water, exercise, and decreased food amounts, and it hasn't changed a thing? I can neither come to terms with my current situation, nor seem to fix it unless I do something drastic, which I'm trying to avoid, for both my own sake, and Kaylee's.  Anyway.

Have you ever heard of Imposter Syndrome?  I hadn't until a few years ago. It's pretty interesting. It came up again because another pilot did a survey on it yesterday.  

Well, I've been staring at this for awhile, I'm so tired!  So I'll just post the photos and go to bed.  :)  Will see if anything else comes to mind tomorrow after I get some sleep.  In the meantime, the next post down is about our trip to Sun-n-Fun and has a pic of Kaylee too.  ;)

Sun-n-Fun

So much time has already gone by since we went to Sun-n-Fun. I couldn't really write while I was done there, and then I had the presentation to worry about, so I just got overwhelmed on trying to keep up with anything but that. It's all over now, so I'm going to catch up the blog on those two big events, and THEN I should be able to do a better job keeping up again.

I'm going to mostly tell the stories on each photo and save the writing for the next post. ;)  But it was a very good trip, I got some sun, got a lot of walking in, saw warbirds and things I like, was pretty comfortable most of the time, got to say hi to several friends like Jordan B., got over 10.4 hours of flight time in, and all in all, it was a successful weekend--especially since we just had to cover our own food and the rest was taken care of.  It was a great little get-away...

Our weather going down wasn't the best. We had a few lines to get through.

This was our little gap of goodness to get into BOW. I timed that pretty well, if I may say so myself. ;)

This was the Mustang they gave us for a rental car for four not-small adults and baggage for 3 days.  ;)

This Mustang lights up on the ground at night. Kinda cool, man.

Long lenses swinging to capture whomever is up flying.

P-51, had to.

Maybe he just took antibiotics. Maybe he has skin cancer issues. Maybe he's a serial killer from the 80s like he looks. Who is to really say?

We were in "Preferred Seating", which had chairs, free water, a charging station for phones, food and beer available right there, a place to store your bags, and this, a massage station.  Yep, a massage station.

The T-birds

We went to dinner at this place and had some fantastic seafood.

Naturally.

Sun-n-Fun's smiley face seems more smirky than Oshkosh's smiley face.

Sun going down as we prepare for the night show Saturday night.

Aeroshell team at sunset.

The view from my seat of the building we were behind

The drones went up and formed up as different airplanes.

And a flag

Fireworks, as always, are great.

Fireball!

Just a little bit of traffic coming out of Sun-n-Fun

When we got home we had a little tangerine soft serve from the Milky Way in Frankfort and it was great.

Me and Kaylee

Ethan, Amber, me and Steve in front of Ethan's plane after we got back home.