Two Pilots & an LSW: Caught Up

Saturday, August 13, 2022

Caught Up

As I've said before, part of the problem of busy days is that you lose track of what you've done. Sometimes I lose track of what I did yesterday, or which day that was exactly. Like I had to concentrate to remember that today is Saturday! One of the side effects of having a job where other than Sunday, which I take off anyway, every day is the same and it doesn't matter. lol

I had a night flight with a guy, big bright full moon which was beautiful for sure, but this fellow is just really, really bad at this. At all of this. He's already done all his dual and solo cross countries, and now he just had the night one left to do with an instructor. He couldn't plan it to save his life, from step one with the plotter to get his course line, no idea that you had to know how fast you were going before you could know how long it would take you to get somewhere, didn't know how to read and set the altimeter when it wasn't already set correctly, didn't know how to read the DG either for tracking on the way there or for figuring out what runway he was looking at. I think he accomplished his cross countries because he had an iPad and would just follow the line, which I didn't let him do on the first leg of his night flight. He has over 70 hours and is absolutely clueless on about everything, and sketchy at best on the actual flying part too. Not everybody needs to be a pilot, you know. It's okay to take up a different pursuit. The problem is his grandpa has put out like $15,000 so far towards his Private and really wants him to get it done, and the kid claims he wants to be a professional pilot. He was talking to me about going to a cadet program. I let him know it's an accelerated program where if you don't keep up, you wash out. He said he gets nervous around new people and new instructors, and I told him airline pilots are always working with new crews, get checkrides every 6 months or so, and so now he's decided he wants to be a cargo pilot. I didn't tell him they still usually have crews and checkrides. I'm not sure he'll get beyond his Private, if his instructor can even get him through the Private to begin with. Good luck to the instructor. I don't want to do it.

Yesterday after a morning tailwheel flight towards an endorsement, I had Captain A out for the rest of the day to finish his C-45 checkout. I ended up needing to fly with him for about 8 hours total, and probably could have used another hour or so, but by the end there he was safe, just not always smooth. So we did his paperwork and sent it in to the CAF, and he'll be off on his own to build up some time and experience. He wears me out in multiple ways. I had fun flying with Glenn but he only needed like 3 hours of time. I didn't have fun flying with Alan and he needed 8 hours. Figures. ;)

Now scheduling becomes an issue. We've been getting insurance reminders on the Cheyenne for months now, and now it's past due and uninsured, and I need a checkout, and the company who has done it in the past, the head guy is having mental issues and not getting back to people or paying his instructors, and trying to get it done now at the last minute before Kevin has a trip has caused some issues. (This wasn't me btw). I'm gone from the afternoon of the 16th through to the 22nd which is when the trip is supposed to be. Monday is the 15th. So...

I've got today and tomorrow basically free. The C-45 needs to burn some gas off for an upcoming event, which is fun. Darn the luck, we need to burn some gas out of BOB. I think I can do that.

Kaylee's neurology appointment was fine. He looked at her MRI scans and said everything looks good. He was asking her questions about narcolepsy and restless leg syndrome and other things that could cause some of her symptoms. He scheduled more blood work for her to do, and wants to see her again in September to see how some of that ties in and how she's doing. He called in another script for her too, to see if it helps with the headaches. She still gets them every day. That's nuts...

One of my students wants to drop out of Purdue and come fly with us instead and is asking what I think. That's a big thing. She has less than a week to decide and is losing sleep, obviously. She's capable of the program but she hates it. She feels sick going to school, she hates it so much. But she only has one year left. Another option is to stay at Purdue and do the management program and take her flying with us. She'll miss out on some of the Purdue benefits. She says she doesn't care about the networking opportunities because she doesn't want to be airline anyway. Same with the sims for Airbus, Boeing and Hawker that she'd miss out on. Says she doesn't want to do that anyway. The quick scheduled completion time on an accelerated program. The restricted ATP possibility. She says she doesn't care about any of that. But it's a lot to lose if you some day wish you had it. But she's super unhappy there. So I don't know. Tough call on someone's future.