Can't Keep Up

Friday I don't even remember what I did other than picking up Bob's T-6 from Marion and flying it back to Fort Wayne. I had Morgan M. take me over in the 172RG, and did a test run of the T-6 right out of annual. Everything looked good. Eric (mechanic) said he wanted to check the prop governor and to put it in a dive, so of course I had to crank around and give him a diving fly-by.  Everything held and did great. I took off, then Morgan did. Right as we were getting close to Ft. Wayne, "Be Real" went off. Well, what better "Be Real" than doing a formation selfie?!  So I texted her to turn so I could join up on her, but then she called Ft. Wayne, and we ended up having to go in.  It would have been an epic one, but alas, instead I just did one from the T-6, which is cool too.  ;)  But Ft. Wayne was ALL goofed up. Because we were close-ish to each other, when she called in, they saw me on ADS-B apparently, and kept calling her my N# even though she was using her own. They assigned us as a "Flight" even though we didn't ask for it, so they were confused and they confused us. They only gave her a squawk, but told me to prepare for a right base, didn't clear her, and finally I figured it out and when we went to tower, told them we weren't a formation flight. They made her do a 360 turn on short final at 70 knots just a few hundred feet above the ground for more spacing, but then all was well. She'd never been into a Class C airport before and I told her it was no big deal and then they went and got all confusing on it.  Lol!  She was fine though.  It was fun.

Today.  I wonder if I have a sinus infection, because I've had headaches for a lot of days, and a lot of nasal blockage and thick...stuff.  Or if the nasal restriction is giving me headaches. Or if the weather is doing it.  Something is doing it.  :sigh:  Anyway.  I woke up today with another one, got rid of it as quickly as I could, met up with Steve and Nathan and Chuck to eat Mexican food for lunch, then headed to the airport to meet up with Neil, an American Airlines check pilot who is doing a T-6 transition training checkout.  The problem is, I was a little tense about the whole thing today, because a lot of factors were lining up.  I've had one flight in it in the last 2 months as it just got up from annual, I haven't flown in the back seat since last year, almost 7 months ago.  The winds were bad; gusting up around 25 knots, and of course at the worst possible angle of West-ish, where there's a 40-50 degree crosswind no matter which runway you use.  This airplane is no joke let alone in high winds. So I wanted to get a feel for him, and found out his background a little more. He grew up a glider pilot and tailwheel pilot from youth on, flew helicopters for the military, and has his own Stearman that he's put 350 hours on.  Now I'm feeling better about taking a chance with him in tricky conditions.  We went over everything on the ground, while the winds were up around 30 knots, which was a clear no-go for me.  Finally it settled back down to 21-25 knots, and we left. It was really cold. The plane didn't want to start or stay running. I could see my breath. And I was actually shaking, I was so cold. I should've been wearing a coat or something. But I was a little nervous, because in winds like that, you need to be on your game, and if someone else botches it, you don't have much time to fix it, so I was hoping he wouldn't botch it too badly there. Fortunately he did not. He botched it a little, but he could fix it without me having to grab it, so that's good.  And he picked it up very quickly.  I took him to Frankfort, which has a Runway 27, which was almost right into the wind. So he could figure out his landings there before we got back to the crosswinds at Kokomo.  He told me that everything I'd been telling him had been spot on, so that was nice.  We worked well together as he fine-tuned everything. He's a quick study which makes my life easier.  We got 2.2 hours in, which is a lot. He said he had "jelly legs" getting out, and I said I bet, because two hours of landings in there is a lot of physical and mental work both.  It felt good to get that in today, and I felt like I was a little back in the game.  Tomorrow I'm hoping the winds are less, as I'm not as confident of the second fellow, Matt, who is coming to get a checkout. He said it took him like 20 hours to check out in a Stearman, that he had trouble with the sight picture, and that's less complex than the Six, though we have better visibility.  

So tonight I'm kind of wiped out, and tomorrow starts early. I'll have Neil to continue checking out, Matt to start checking out, and a 40 minute T-6 ride from a lady who bought it last year before the weather tanked for the season. So it's going to be a long day for me. So hoping for decent winds and weather and a safe day.

Kaylee did graduation photos today with her friends. She sent them to me and I need to download them so I can upload them here.  But tonight I'm yawning and wiped, and I'm probably going to be running for a couple days, but I will get to them as fast as I can.  Tomorrow I have training flight from 9-11, then a ride to give at 11:30, then training with two guys until dark or bad weather or exhaustion stop us all. It gets dark at 8:30. So that's a long day.  :)

I know, I have airplane pictures and not Kaylee pictures.  Soon.  ;)