Two Pilots & an LSW: Ohio

Tuesday, January 31, 2023

Ohio

Yesterday was grey and cloudy. I actually don't remember much of what I did yesterday, other than doing IFR groundschool with Morgan. Ann had a really confused day. She wasn't sure of much of anything, and didn't make any sense, and definitely thought she was being told things to do by other people in the house that aren't there. Today was better.

This morning it was frigid, like 7° for awhile. By the time I got out to Kokomo, it was almost up to 10° at least. I broke out my long coat and my thick gloves. I took Nick to Akron, Ohio. The forecast was for IFR, for runway conditions of braking action 3/3/3 (not great, when "10" is the best). There's only one runway with approaches into there and of course it's the wrong way (winds are down 7, approach is down 25), and I'm not landing with a tailwind on a slick runway. So I shot the approach for 25 circle to land runway 7. Except I broke out way higher than expected, made a normal approach in, and the runway was fine. So, bonus bonus bonus. ;)

I took their courtesy car into town for brunch, and decided it was breakfast I wanted. I ate at this place called the "Boathouse Cafe", and they had some really good food. I decided to get a blueberry crepe, thinking it would be normal. It was huge. Fortunately it was thin and filled with blueberries, not cream cheese or whatever. But it was really good! That and some overly thin bacon, and coffee, and I was in good shape. I took a few photos, saw the big Goodyear Blimp hangar.

I left there around 2:30, and made it back to Kokomo by 4, where I flew with Ana in the 172RG doing pattern work and such to get her used to the plane. Finished that by 6, tugged the 340 back into the hangar, and headed home, with a stop at Steak n Shake for dinner.

The planning goes like this.

I was supposed to originally fly 10-12 with Eric, then 2-4 with Ana and 4-6 with Isabel. Then Ethan called, and I moved the 10-12 to 8-10, then would fly 10-2:30 with Ethan's guy, then bump Ana to 4, and and Isabel would have to be rescheduled. Eric said 8 was too early so he went on his own. That was today.

Now. Thursday I was off. So I was going to fly Jerry to Wisconsin to pick up an airplane. Then I got another call about a trip to Illinois. I say I can get the guy to IL and back before noon and then do the WI trip after noon. But now IL guy needs to be there longer than that. So we're talking about me dropping him off in IL, going back to Kokomo, picking up Jerry, flying him to WI. When we're done, flying back to Kokomo then running down to IL to pick up other guy and bring him back. But that might leave him down there too long and I don't know how long I'll be in WI. So...waiting to find out that, if possible, and deciding how Thursday will go. And that, my friends, is life in aviation. ;)

Steve went to finish up the accident stuff. He found it, got Kaylee's car charger out of it, and settled with the tow truck and storage/salvage company. He said it looked amazingly bad. The salvage place asked him how his daughter was, and when he said she walked away without a scratch, they were amazed. It looked so bad. Steve said it was the worst looking car in the entire lot. It's bad when the firefighters and EMTs and scrap yard places who see wrecks all the time are amazed that nobody was hurt in that accident. Steve said there wasn't hardly any room inside the car in the driver's seat where she was. He patted the Explorer and said out loud that it did a good job protecting our girl. When it rolled, it hit on her side. He said he took some more photos but I haven't seen them yet. We're all just very glad she's okay.