Monday's trip to Chattanooga went fine. It was at sunrise, at the buttcrack of dawn, and one of the guys who comes along now and then asks non-stop, toddler-like questions. I mean, non. stop. And they're irritating questions because he fires them off one after the other without even thinking first, and half of what he asks is just dumb and makes no sense. Like a toddler who is just asking questions to engage someone and force them to talk to them. At 6:30 am he's doing this in the hangar while the head guy is running late, so for about 45 minutes on the ground. Then in the air. I'm tired within a few minutes of that kind of thing. But the flight itself was good and uneventful. I shot an ILS into TN, not that low, I got a courtesy car and ran into downtown to a cool place with neat food and ambiance and had a brunch that included peaches and cream pancakes (yeah, they were tasty). And I was home before too late but still got paid for a full day. Because it started so early.
Then came this morning. I had a C-45 checkout to do, but he's not from California, he's from Texas. I keep getting that wrong. He DROVE here from Houston, a very far trek, and got into Indy last night, and wanted to meet at 7:30 am this morning. That's early for me for something like this, but we'd been taken from three days down to one day of flying, so I met him as early as he wanted. And he wanted to meet at dawn. It was IFR but he still wanted to meet and go over ground. I said it wouldn't burn off for 4-5 hours and surely we didn't have that much to do considering he'd already been through the ground school. I was wrong. He too is a non-stop question asker. One after the other, and he's super literal and engineer brained. He went through the ground school line by line, and the quiz he wrote pages of notes on things he wanted clarified or that bothered him or that he thought was wrong. Performance chart questions, why the placard on the dash said KCAS when we're using KIAS, why the fuel tanks are "mains" up front and "aux" behind them, but the fuel selector inside has the aux tanks on top of the selector and the mains behind them. I don't know, man, they made it that way in 1943, just read which tank you're putting it on and it'll be okay. Then the preflight took over an hour. What is that hole over there hidden under the thing? I was so tired by lunchtime, and it was still IFR.
We broke for lunch, and then I drove home to brush my teeth and go to the dentist. Clean bill of health there, so I went back out to the airport at 3 pm, where it was STILL low clouds. We pulled everything out, and at some point here I butt dialed John G, a friend out in California, who heard me discussing preflight items on the plane. Then we said we'd fire up and practice the start up, taxi, run-up, etc., and we got that done and he was doing pretty well. Another example of his literal thinking. He'd heard you use differential power while taxiing, so he was boosting one engine way up, then the other, etc. He couldn't understand what I was saying, so I took the controls and taxiied for him, showing him to leave the power low, taxi with your rudders, and use brake and differential power smoothly and as needed. He'd not been using the rudders, only the power, because he'd read "use differential power when taxiing" so obviously that must mean ONLY use differential power, not rudder. Not sure how that would work--actually I am. Not well at all. But that's what everything was like. Super literal, super picky. Super nice guy, he's not like the Captain who irritates me, he's a nice guy, his brain just works in a way mine doesn't want to, and it is exhausting, especially on top of a day full of another guy doing the same thing the day before only with dumber stuff. I was with this fellow for over 10 hours of non-stop rapid-fire detailed questions that mostly weren't even important, but he just wanted to know. I wasn't able to answer them all, but...I got most of them. I was exhausted. I AM exhausted.
But he was supposed to be here tomorrow too, and won't be now, as he has to head home. So I now just have a T-6 ride in the morning (pushed back because it's supposed to be IFR again), and an evening flight for currency in a 172 with a former student, and that's it. The T-6 guy is over 300 lbs so we'll have to see if he can fit, and the buckles, and I'll take stuff out of the rear baggage compartment because I'll be well aft CG, and I won't be doing any aerobatics like that either. He's driving 7 hours round trip to make this T-6 flight happen, though, so I will do my best to take care of him and be careful too.
Ann hid her underwear behind her pillow on her "bed" chair. Not sure why, but I found it and put it back. Her physical health is fine, still. Kaylee is doing fine at school, says she doesn't have a bunch of work or anything yet. She texts me some of her writing assignments sometimes to see if I think they sound good or offer any edits. My edits are getting more and more rare. She does an excellent job. The last paper of hers I read, I was danged impressed. It read like something from a health journal that was published by a professional. You go, kid. Steve turns 63 in a couple days. He's too busy with airshow stuff to be able to plan or want to do much of anything, but right after the show we go to Vegas, so he's thinking he'll celebrate there. ;)
The "le sigh" comes because I just learned that SMA Support has been added to the lawsuit now. So we get to pay the lawyer some more out of our pockets to defend a charity organization that had nothing to do with the accident. I wonder if it'll make them feel better to bankrupt the organization that helped their sons follow their dreams, and another charity organization that helps terminally ill children's families. Yep, super 'great' of you. Solve all your problems? You won't get money out of them, you scuzzy sad excuses for skin. You'll just make them lose what they have defending themselves against an untrue claim. You disgust me, and I am irritated that you would try to destroy people in your sons' names. How sad for them, for their legacy to be one of lawsuits and loss and destruction? I'd like to let everyone out there who thinks they're such awesome people know what exactly they're doing to other innocent people. And thus, le sigh. So it continues.
I'm tired, and I think I'll call it off early. I've been waking up in the middle of the night and unable to get back to sleep again lately, which makes me tired by 9 pm like an old lady, man...
On the way to Chattanooga
Kudzu vines over a tunnel.
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