Two Pilots & an LSW: Sweetwater Avenger Field

I gave rides to the daughters and sons and granddaughters of WASP pilots, in the WASP T-6 named "Nella". The winds started kicking up, and soon were gusting to 25 knots, but fortunately they were within 20 degrees of the runway, so other than the gust factor, it wasn't terrible. A little bumpy over the hot Texas terrain, and I only made a couple of actually good landings out of all of them, but...I got the job done. I woke up at 2 am, got sort of back to sleep, woke up at 6, and we were out at the airport by 7:20 am, for my first rider at 8 am. I gave rides non-stop most of the day. A quick break for a Subway sandwich for lunch, a walk up to hit the bathroom one time with a top-off for fuel, and other than that, 10 riders from 8 am to 3:30 pm. Photos with kids dressed up like WASP, talked to a couple of the pilots, talked to the family members of various WASP. One of the riders, his mom was a WASP who flew there at Sweetwater, and he had her logbook with him. He took the logbook up on the flight with us, so a part of his mom could go along on the flight, at Avenger Field, in a WASP T-6. I mean...how cool is that? I had three people ask me for my autograph, and I managed not to blink or look too awkward this time. ;)

It was hot, I was wearing a shapewear tank top under my t-shirt under my flightsuit, and we were busy. So I didn't get any water or anything for quite awhile, and finally I asked for a bottle, and they hunted one down for me. I ended up only getting two bottles all day, which wasn't enough. My lips were chapped badly from the wind and the heat and the dehydration, and I'd left my chapstick behind. By the end of the day, my lips were so dehydrated and chapped that they burned, badly, and it didn't matter how much water I have drank or how much lip stuff I've put on since, they're still not recovered. I couldn't finish my food at the airport that night because it had spice on it, and it burned my lips so badly. And it was good food, too! Grilled shrimp, scallops and salmon!

Masks were not required any more, and I saw maybe 3 people wearing them in the entire airport on the way home. We all have the choice, so that should tell you what the choice most people really want is, no matter what main stream media tells you we all think and feel.

On the way home, on the flight, the captain came on and told us the weather was bad in Indy, and we were going to have to see if we could get in or not. Then he said it would be bumpy and we may have to hold, and if we had to hold more than 20 minutes, we'd have to go somewhere else. Then he said we may have to go to Chicago. That got my attention. It was midnight. I do NOT want to end up in Chicago at midnight waiting to get back to Indy. I pull up the weather, and it looks way more benign than most of the stuff I fly around on a regular summer trip. Like...do you guys not see the spaces and routes to deviate around that stuff? 'Cause I do. Then he came on and said we were going to take a look. People were scared, a kid behind me starts crying. His constant updates, if they were supposed to be reassuring, were really just bringing it up over and over and scaring people. I did get a light show for a little while out the left side. The buildups weren't that tall, we were only around 15-18000', but they were full of electricity. When I landed at midnight, got to my car, I was exhausted, dehydrated, and everything was closed. I couldn't get so much as a bottle of water in the airport, and when I left, all the fast food places were closed too. My mouth was so dry that I couldn't hardly get enough moisture to swallow. I can't believe I didn't end up with a migraine after that, but somehow I didn't. I didn't get home until 2 am, and then I woke back up at 6 am. I am glad to be home.

When we got the plane back to Dallas, Bob and I had to put it away. He'd never tugged T-6s before, so I got the doors open, hooked up the tug, and pushed it right into its little slot in the hangar. Their tug had bad brakes, but it was a lot like ours otherwise, so I had no trouble putting it in its spot. But they didn't know me from Adam, and they left it up to me to tug an airplane into a small slot in between three other airplanes expensive and special airplanes. Gutsy. But of course I'm good at that, so it was no problem, but they couldn't know that ahead of time. Anyway, I felt good about everything except my landings this weekend. ;)

I also met Jan, a lady taildragger pilot, and Theresa Claiborne, the keynote speaker at the event, who was the first female African American airline captain, and she wants to learn to fly a T-6, so we chatted briefly. They had an auction and a fundraiser that night, and they started off asking if anyone was willing to donate $25,000. My eyes got big, but they were serious. The next was $20,000, and someone did it. Then they went down from there, 15, 10, 5, 2500, 1000, 500, 250, 100. And there were a bunch of people who donated all of those amounts. They raised a ton of money just like that. I met some good people, I got to help out and give the WASP Wing a good chunk of donation money from $4000 worth of rides, and I got to get current in the winds in a T-6 on someone else's gas money, so all in all, it was quite successful.