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.
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