Heatwave

We go from wet cold windy spring to hot steamy muggy summer in one day flat.  Whew.

I steroided Roadie today. It's been awhile, but she is just so bony and she's not been eating nearly enough, nor is she moving around like she used to either.  I'm pretty sure her time is short now. If I thought she was in pain I'd take her in, but she doesn't SEEM to be. She just seems to be sluggish  But they say cats hide pain really well until it's too far to hide it.  I'm watching her now, she's not meowing as much, hasn't zoomied in a bit, moves slowly, even when picking her up, is so thin, just...definitely not the same.  But is she at "go ahead and kill her" not the same?  I dunno... *sigh*  Steve says not yet, and just now she was engaging with us, so probably not yet.

Today was the start of some airplane shuffling. I got out there at 8 am to fly the Aerostar over to Muncie. Chuck and Morgan took the Citabria over there. I'm getting an IFR certification check done on mine, Chuck's getting a VFR check done on his.  I was supposed to get over there around 9:30 in the T-6, Chuck and Morgan would be done by 9 and would fly home, Morgan would pick up the RG and come back to MIE and get me while I left mine there to be done.  Then I'd get a ride back this afternoon and pick it back up. Of course things don't ever go the way they were intended.  I was late, the T-6 was buried in the back, so I took the Aerostar over instead.  Citabria had an issue so they got delayed, so I had Spencer come get me in the RG after his lesson. I left the Aerostar there overnight so it would have a June sign-off on the certification instead of May. Gain a whole month in one day.  So tomorrow I have to be IN Muncie by 8 am, in the T-6. I will then pick up the Aerostar and bring it home. After lunch when they're done with the T-6, I will fly the 340 over there, and come home in the T-6.  Then I'll need a ride back over to pick up the 340.  See, lots of juggling.  I asked one person if they wanted to ride over in the T-6 in the morning, but they didn't want to get up early enough to be at Kokomo by 7:30.  They said they normally wake up at 7 and that's just too early for 'em.  I won't ask again...if someone doesn't want to get up an extra 30-40 minutes early to go, then they don't really care, and if they don't care, why should I waste the seat on them?  Someone would be happy to go.

This car pulled up next to me at a stop sign in Kokomo. I couldn't sneak a good shot of it, but it has two guns mounted on it, and I thought they were great.  I'd like more info on it, and I'd like guns mounted on the T-6 too.  Too much fun.

Not much else. Kaylee's been working, Ann is Ann, the cat is the cat, Steve and I are working.  The Twin Beech has been doing great on rides so far.  7, 8, 4, and 7 rides in the four rides days its had so far. We needed an average of 3.5 per stop to make money on it, and we need to make money on it to pay for all the maintenance expenses of getting it ready, of the expenses of the tour, etc.  So far so good but it's really early into the tour.  Two bad stops will wipe out two good stops in no time flat.  So fingers crossed that this trend continues.

Now, on to watching "Susi", a movie about a vengeful Finnish prospector who embarks on a bloody quest to retrieve his stolen gold from Nazi soldiers.  Look up what "Susi" means.  I like it.

Isabel and Morgan bissel scrubbing the seat Jamie sat in with poopy pants.
They don't get paid enough for that.

Gumby on the way to Muncie

Gun Car.  Isn't this thing weird?

Google translate says this means something like "In Vampires" or "Among Vampires" in some weird language I don't recognize.  Weird, man, I thought that was a piece of cheesecake or something, but it must be a stake.  Huh.

A Monday-like Tuesday

Having yesterday off was nice.  So today was more like Monday, but not in a bad way.

I had a lesson in the morning.  When I got done with the flight, I walked into the hangar and Dave leaned up and whispered in my ear that Jamie sitting there walked in with poop in his pants, or a big poop streak at minimum, and sat on our cloth seats.  Just...gross.  So he leaves, and I see it for myself, and I took some disinfectant to the seat, then Morgan and Isabel took a Bissel carpet cleaner attachment and completely cleaned it.  He had poop or giant poop stains visible at the Poker Run too, I heard.  It's not unusual.  He's smelled like poop before.  He ate 4 half-pound burgers, 4 brats, and all the sides and such on that day too.  You eat that much, where can it go?  The only appropriate thing I can think to say is... F'in nasty, man.  So if he comes in again with the poop thing, he will be told not to sit down on the furniture with shit in his pants, even if it's not an active pile but just unwashed old stuff or what-ever.  I don't know how someone can walk around smelling like poop, with poop in their pants, or with giant shit stains that cover a good portion of their butt, without knowing, or if they know, without caring or doing something about it.  That's a level I absolutely cannot comprehend.

My evening flight was with Morgan, putting her in the right seat to do takeoffs and landings, getting used to the instructor seat.  We had a good flight, no problems, onward.  I stopped at the drug store to pick up Ann's meds, and they were over $200 for meds that were previously pretty inexpensive.  It's not even the Xarelto, which is the painfully expensive one normally.  So that doesn't bode well.  Picked up some fried chicken on the way home to go with our cook-out sides, cole slaw, baked beans, etc., and then just catching up on stuff and getting ready for tomorrow.  

Kaylee has a girl in her home that is a problem. She gave a big grown man stitches when she threw a shovel at him. She has homicidal thoughts, and rage issues.  Some of the other teachers there are afraid of her and won't hold her to the standards. Kaylee does hold her to the standards and she has gotten really, really angry at Kaylee.  Last night the girl put a note under another girl's door that says she wants to kill someone, wants to beat them bloody.  I told her that girl needs to be removed from that program as she poses a direct threat to the safety of the employees And the other students there. If that's not enough of a threat, she's a lawsuit waiting to happen too.  And if that kid hurts MY kid, we're all going to be in more legal trouble because we will go bash in some 15 year old delinquent kids' head.  I may have to delete this later.  ;)

Memorial Day when I flew over Kaylee's school/house, she later told me that a couple of the people there thought they had a runner and that I was with the police searching for the runner.  That cracked me up.  Like...run and we'll sic a WWII warbird on you!  HAhaha.  Except that one girl.  SHE should be worried.  

Time to put Ann to bed.  Feed the cat again.  Keep trucking.

Day Continued

This morning Steve came out of the shower and said he'd like to take the Corvette out, run it around a bit, then take up the T-6 and do some fly-bys of some friends and family.  We invited 5 or 6 people over to eat at the house, fresh burgers, all the fixin's.  Four types of cheeses, lettuce, tomato, onion (yuck), coleslaw, baked beans, potato salad, chips and dip, and to top it off, AE made some homemade vanilla ice cream. He makes the richest, creamiest ice cream.  I hope the lactaid holds out.  ;)

We flew over Glenndale, where they were having a little party at Sam's house, flew over John R's house, went over and circled over Nathan, as he was out by the pool hanging out today (He said we stirred up the neighborhood and how good we sounded), flew over Kaylee and circled over her head and waved a bit.  At one point both Steve and I had texted her, and she answered me and said "HEY. You both can't be texting and flying at the same time!"  I'm like...sure I can.  I'm talented like that. ;) We went over Mark T's runway and house, and I tried to find Morgan's house, but not sure I succeeded there.  Came back in, landed, put everything everything away, came home, and hung out with Chuck, AE, Jeff, etc. and had some tasty burgers and stuff.  We sat outside around the firepit on a beautiful afternoon, had some cold beverages, and hung out and relaxed.  It was a good Memorial Day holiday.  It's also Richard and Ann's wedding anniversary. Steve told her this morning, and she didn't get sad, she just showed some pictures of Richard, and seemed to be okay...

Roadie chilling in the sunshine on the deck

AE's homemade ice cream with sprinkles on top

Memorial Day Weekend

We have decided to take this holiday and make it a holiday, for the most part.

This morning Steve and I took the 172RG down to Sky King Airport by Terre Haute to support a fly-in brunch put on by the son of a friend. We wanted to go in something cool, but had problems because of the facility. It was too short for the Aerostar to get into.  (Well technically I could have landed, but I wouldn't have gotten back out without hitting trees, wires and a building or two, so...)  We could have taken a Citabria, but it is slow, and that is far away, and it would have taken forever to get there and back. Plus fuel only burns out of one tank and not the other, so we'd have had to top off down there.  They'd have loved it if I brought the T-6 in, but I was frankly not feeling macho enough.  It's a short strip, which wouldn't have been a problem, with a lot of obstacles all around it, which would have been okay, with the runway in front of the crowd right by the hangars, which means a close up audience, and...it's 50' wide.  On the 50' wide runways, in the 3-point attitude, I don't really have any visibility on the runway itself. My wingspan is 42'. There's no real margin for error, and it's been gusty and swirly, with the place surrounded by trees (more weird winds).  Could it be done? Yes. I landed at Oshkosh on the 50' wide taxiway with a 28 knot direct gusty crosswind in front of tens of thousands of pilots and cameras. Did I like it?  No. No I did not. I do not ever want to do that again.  The thought of coming into there today in the Six gave me indigestion. So we took the 172RG instead. It wasn't sexy, nobody took photos of it, but we supported our friend, got there in a timely manner, and didn't stress ourselves out in the process.  Win/win/win.  Getting out of the short field with obstacles, even the 172RG didn't exactly make it out with room to spare.

Steve and I went to dinner in Fairmount at Bad Dad's Brewery and Pizza (great cheesy bread and stone fired pizza) with AE, and then came home to watch John Wick 4, because we hadn't seen 400 people slaughtered in awhile. ;)

Kaylee is housesitting for her former professor, along with three dogs. She says she is quite outnumbered.  lol

Ethan's 340 mechanic has been working on the airplane, the gear, etc.  He told Ethan today that "he really doesn't see how it stayed up and didn't fold over on you when you landed."  I'll thank my tired Guardian Angel for that.  One leg out of three collapsing at over 100 mph wouldn't have been...great.  Instead it was a non-event.  Thank you...

Probably the last few photos from the TBM Avenger Gathering here.  I like these, the sunset one is cool, and it's a good formation shot as we do an element takeoff.  I am glad to have these memories and opportunities and abilities.

Hazy Spring Days

It's been a weird few wind days.  Gusty, dust devils all over, surface winds weren't that bad yesterday, today they were up to 30.  One was 8 knots gusting to 25.  That's a BIG gust factor.  Anyway, so of course I had flights all day, local students.  First up was someone doing holds. Second was someone transitioning to the right seat to get ready to be an instructor. Third was a cross country IFR to Danville, IL.  About 5 hours flying in total, bumped around the whole time.  Good thing bumps don't bother me. ;)  But it WAS really pretty rough.  Each of them was tired by the time their flight was done, and I went through three of 'em.  Good training for all of them though.

Steve is outside with the boys having a cigar and some bourbon. Kaylee is dog sitting at her professor's house. I am getting ready to put Ann to bed then figure out some dinner. Tomorrow I think we're going to go to a fly-in down in Terre Haute, and then we have the rest of the weekend 'off'.  Looking forward to it.  :)

The cat pooped and left a stinky mess, and then came inside, ate food, and vomited the food all over the place. Dark brown food vomit on our white carpet.  A lot of it.  In a big area.  Steve and I went out to 10 West for dinner tonight with a couple friends, and we had Stormy the caregiver over here to put Ann to bed.  When we got back home tonight, her door was open and her lights on.  Lately she's been getting back up after we put her to bed. I think the fact it's still light at 8:30-9 pm throws her off. We'll shut things down and leave and she'll doze and wake up and see it's light out and she'll get up.  

Steve and I unexpectedly had today off.  I was supposed to fly Andy to Tennessee, but that was canceled. So instead I had one flight review to do at 9 am, and the rest of the day off.  The flight review, he's been working on his Instrument Rating for awhile with me, and was never a great stick and rudder flying guy.  So normal VFR skills have atrophied, so we went up and I had him do steep turns, slow flight, stalls, and then we did emergencies.  An emergency steep spiral descent, engine out at altitude, I pulled his engine 400' above the ground after takeoff, and engine out all the way to landing. We had gusty crosswinds too, so all in all it was a good work-out day for him, and kinda fun for me.

Since Stormy was coming, we had the day off, so Steve and I drove up to Wabash and met up with Kaylee for lunch. There's a little cafe right where she works, and we picked up a gluten free bread turkey sandwich for her, and ate with her outside of her work area, chatted for an hour, went for a little walk with her and the dog Ruby she was keeping for awhile today, before sending her back to work (a 16 hour shift from 7 am to 10 pm) and going on our own way.

Later tonight we drove down to 10 West and enjoyed some food and drinks.  Good stuff, good company. It's nice to get out with friends now and then.  

Yesterday I just had one flight, but it lasted for 2.5 hours and it was ROUGH up there. My poor instrument student got tossed around so much I let her put the autopilot on on the way home to give her a break.  I never let them use the autopilot at this point in training.  ;)  

There's a guy who wants to be an instructor in the BT-13, and the Wing officers emailed me to ask my opinion. I said I'd never flown with him and suggested they have Mark N. do it, who did my checkout. Mark said he'd rather I fly with this fellow first and give my input on it.  So...that's nice.  The main CAF people including the head of the main ops place have told me several times they really appreciate the work I'm out here doing training CAF pilots.  Like I said, that's nice.  I don't like signing off my own people as instructors though, because they are peers, and it's harder to be an instructor to another instructor who is also a friend. It makes it awkward when you see a sloppy habit or something that needs tweaking, but this isn't a new to them airplane or something, so they're not expecting to actually be instructed. But it's my duty to make sure they're going to be a good instructor and put out safe and decent pilots, so...awkward.  We all need instructed sometimes. I actually already know I have two habits that I will fall back on if I'm not paying attention that aren't good technique. I'm not going to tell you what they are, but I first learned about one of them from the back seat of the T-6, and the other I recognized on my own. I've always tried to be pretty self-aware on most things. Over the years I've worked on most of my weaknesses, and I always will.  I guess the day you quit trying to be better, you ought to just quit.

Some photos...

At the Avenger Gathering

The story here is the plate.  I had a donut on that plate all day. Through a bunch of rides and an airshow formation flight with aggressive maneuvering all around. And that donut stayed put the entire time. When I opened the baggage door and the donut was still sitting there, I told them that that's proof that I stayed pretty coordinated and I was kinda proud of that.  Then I finally ate that donut.  ;)

I don't know if I posted this or not, but I like it. #4 there wasn't supposed to be in formation and it sure looks like he is from here.

Nice.

Some airshow shots

The BOB crew. Glenn, Spencer, Morgan, Shelbe, Jon, Steve T.

Our current batch of instructors at Kokomo.  Steve C., Shelbe J., Me, Steve, Spencer J, Jerry Keller, Cameron W., Nick B.  Cameron has been an instructor for about 3 days, and Jerry has been an instructor for over 50 years.  Newest to longest time as instructor it goes: Cameron, Spencer, Shelbe, Steve C, Nick B, Me, Steve, Jerry.  When it comes to total flight time, Steve has the most, I'm a close second.  I'll pass him one of these days. ;) 

Local

All my local students hit me up today, so I flew from 9 am until 6 pm today, and just ate a cheeseburger out at the airport that was leftover from the weekend Poker Run.  9-11 was in the RG doing Instrument training with E, the ILS 23 hand flying and autopilot both.  Got on the ground, ate my burger, went up with Nick in the PT-26 where we both flew the airplane and did a checkout. I did him, he did me, we did air work and takeoffs and landings.  I haven't flown that in like a year.  Next up was Dan in the 172. He wanted to fly over Grissom, do some air work, some "Aggressive Eights" (instead of Lazy 8s), wingovers, etc.  So we did that.  Last flight of the day was back in the RG with Isabel doing holds and hold entries.  I got done around 6, and drove home and took care of Ann, then Steve and I went to Grindestone's for dinner, before coming home and trying to catch up.  I've got a bunch of stuff to do and haven't had any time to catch up, but I think tomorrow I will have time. I'm going to try to fly the Husky, going to send in receipts for MBros and Ethan both, going to get some food for the cat and the rest of us, going to try to settle up with the Avenger Gathering people, and tomorrow is the only real day, as Thurs-Sat I may be going back and forth to Michigan each day.   All good.

I'm tired, I'll try to be more interesting tomorrow.  lol

Obviously

I have been hopping so much I haven't had time to write.  Finally here I am when I don't have to get up at 6 am tomorrow, and I'm home before 11 pm, so...I finally have a chance to catch up or at least say I'm still alive.

But man, where to start.

Okay.  So I left off Thursday.  Friday morning it was a little rainy first thing in the morning, but then it cleared up, and we were off and running.  I attended the airshow briefing at 11 am, and we had Spencer be a spotter with Glenn in the C-45, as Glenn was Lead for our three-ship during the airshow.  Glenn was Lead in BOB, I was #2, Rick Sig. was #3.  I haven't flown formation since (I just looked it up) 7/31/22 coming back from Oshkosh, at least that I listed as such.  That's 10 months.  So the flight on Thursday was my first one, and my next one was going to be in front of the crowd, photogs, other warbird pilots I know, and one of the things they planned for us to do is a "pitch out and rejoin" in front of the crowd.  I hadn't practiced those Thursday, so I hadn't done them in almost a year, and now I'm doing the first one, one of the tricker parts of formation, in front of everyone.  We were one of the first acts of the show.  My #3 was a former head of Warbirds of America. A famous and well-known T-6 and airshow pilot.  I asked in the brief if he wanted the standard NATA (wider/looser) 45 degree formation, or the tighter, more acute 30 degree formation. He scoffed and said he wanted the acute, and that I should go in tighter and do what I can and he'll match me. A little condescendingly, to be honest.  So I By George decided to be as tight and close as I could get, and I did.  And for the entire flight, he was out of position back there.  He had com issues and kept messing with the radio and stayed back, and mostly I was just glad it wasn't me out of position.  Saturday we had another airshow and flight.  It went better, but again...I was the one in place more often.  Afterwards he barked at me. He pointed at me and said "YOU slowed way down on final. Stacked us up back there. Had to be 4000' of space between you and Lead."  He was right, I always default to landing with too much spacing on formation flights because the thought of landing RIGHT behind another airplane that is already down and slow while I am still doing 100 mph, always still makes me nervous on whether I'll get it right, or end up running up their backside.  But he could have said it as a point of learning, and instead his voice made it sound like he was yelling at me, and sneer-ish.  I really don't react well to that, so I don't know that I handled the critique as well as I should have to start with. But I ended up saying "you're right, sorry about that", because he was right in the critique, just the tone sucked. And then I saw some photos of our formation, and on both days, he was the one who was out of position more often than not.  Sometimes grossly. So my guess? He was frustrated and bothered by his own performance and he lashed out at me for my one error to try to save face himself.  He told me in a fairly condescending manner to go in to 'wherever I was comfortable' and he'd match me, and he was unable.  So...I find some satisfaction in that.  Not a ton, because I'm no formation guru and he was.  And I have embarrassed myself several times.  But this time. This event. This set up...I was pretty tight and in place, it was his job to match me, not mine to match him, and he flubbed, and the only reason I feel a little satisfaction from it is two fold. I feel like I did a decent job after being out of it for a LONG time, and under pressure, and I feel like he was too smug and condescending to me to then do the kind of job he did on it himself.  It's the same guy who didn't want to give me a challenge coin after my first mass formation flight at Oshkosh because he assumed I was a back-seater and not a pilot. I gave him a break because to be fair, as far as I know, I'm the first woman to do it there. Then on this trip, he came up to me after Saturday's airshow, where I had Morgan be the spotter with Glenn in the C-45, and he asked me if she was actually a pilot, or basically was she just a lookie-loo up there.  I said yes, she's an Instrument rated Private Pilot taking her Commercial Pilot checkride in two days, and a tailwheel pilot, and she's pretty good.  He said "Oh good, I figured, but I wanted to ask after the fact and not make a problem ahead of time just in case."  Funny--he didn't ask if Spencer was actually a pilot when Spencer, who is about the same age as Morgan, was the spotter the day before.  Steve says the guy respects me...I don't feel that vibe off of him, but regardless he has enough things he's now said and done around me or to me that I'm pretty sure we're not going to ever be as good of buds as would probably be "politically" expedient of me to be.  On the other hand, like a couple of the other old-timers who were a problem, he is going to age out of relevancy soon enough too, and guess what? I'll outlast him too if I have to.

Now, on to other things.  I have a couple of super fans.  ;)  One is named Michael, he goes to a lot of the events and dresses up as a reenactor.  He follows me on Facebook and sends me clips and stuff now and then. Always comes up and talks to me when we're at the same show.  Well, this time he hung around a LOT.  But Friday was chilly, and windy.  Lots of gusty crosswind, up around 20 knots, and it was overcast, so it was damp and cold with that wind.  I was just wearing a t-shirt for most of the day, because I was doing T-6 rides, and I was hot enough in the cockpit. But as the sun went down it got colder, and he came up to me and said "You're only in a t-shirt. Why don't you borrow this?" and he had an extra leather jacket with him.  I WAS getting cold and I'd left my sweatshirt in the hotel. I did have a flightsuit I could have put on, but I hate wearing them. I had a light jacket, but I'd given it to Morgan because she was freezing.  So I took his jacket and I wore it all day, kept it overnight, and gave it back to him the next afternoon. It was nice of him, and having a fan helped me out too, even if he did spend a lot of time coming around and talking.  ;)  My other fan is a young lady named Vicky.  I flew with her for the first time last year, and she promptly stalked me (her words) on social media and the internet.  She saved up her money and went for another flight this year.  She had her photo taken with me, had me sign a certificate and her logbook (that just had last flight and this one in it), and said I was basically her favorite person in the whole world.  So...two people out there think I'm cool.  ;)

We brought along our new instructor, Shelbe, and Morgan, Spencer, Jon, me, Steve T., and Glenn.  It was really kind of fun, and our group did a good job.  I coordinated with the event, did rides during the airshow (that was tricky and took too long to get in and out to be worth it, but it's a cool view).  The ramp crew was bad, so I ended up using my own crew for it after they marshalled me into a bad position twice, risking the plane. This was supposed to be an Oshkosh Warbird ground crew, but man, I'm guessing they were the crew who just waved batons around and told people to keep moving, not the crew who marshalled warbirds into tight spaces.  So I quit looking at them, and I followed Spencer, Jon, or Steve T, all three of whom I trust with myself and my plane.  I had to have a tug move me from one place they marshalled me into.  It was bad.   Anyway, our crew had fun. We watched the night airshow, we loaded rides, we ate food at the performer's hangar, we enjoyed our time there.

I could have stayed by myself and done more rides, though selling them without the crew would have been hard.  I had more people wanting rides, but I was ready to come home Saturday with the rest of my crew instead, and Sunday I needed to do C-45 transition training with Dave R. first thing.  So we packed up. I put Shelbe with me, since she'd worked really hard in the hangar selling rides, getting riders to the planes and back, printing certificates, etc. and she'd never been in the plane, of course, so she went with me and everyone else went in BOB. We took off and went home mostly together, after I caught up to them because they were heavy and gear down for awhile there.  We went in formation, and she says that was the coolest flying she's done to date.  We got home after sunset but it was still light enough to not be pitch black. I put my gear down a little early so I could verify the pins were in and the gear was locked (no gear down lights in this one), and I did end up flaring a little high and thunking my first landing of the weekend, but if I'm going to thunk one, at least it was at home in the dark and not in front of all the cameras out there.  :D 

Every takeoff and landing there was a line-up of photographers and attendees watching, videoing, etc. There was a 20 knot 60-70 degree crosswind the first day and a 15-17 knot one the second day.  Nothing like having everybody watch, especially when you have a reputation and people are watching you, some to critique, some to cheer, but everyone is watching.  I was so glad I didn't have anything exciting to give them. I just landed, pretty nicely, and was done. Last year they had over 10,000 people there and it rained. This year the weather was nice, so we'll see what they had, I guess!

Sunday I did C-45 training with Dave. We flew 1.7 and he did much better than the first time. He's going to be a rides pilot for the Air Power History Tour on BOB.

BOB is having a bunch of maintenance issues. It was supposed to leave today, but instead isn't leaving until tomorrow, we HOPE.  It still has a lot of work that needs to be done on it, but we're out of time, so getting the big ticket items and sending it on down. Today fixing a leak in a generator seal required a new generator which had to be ordered and overnighted.

All our planes have issues. The Aerostar, the Cheyenne, the 340, BOB, two 172s, now maybe the RG. Ethan's three planes are all down for maintenance.  Whatever is in the water, it's not good!  Make it stop!

Today I had a huge round of flights that took from 7:40 am until 5:30 pm.  I flew the Aerostar from Kokomo to Frankfort, picked up Nick, took him to Greencastle, waited there for 2 hours, ate a great breakfast at a nearby place that I walked home from. It was only .7 mile, and they were going to come get me, but I walked it. It was a pretty morning.  Anyway, from Greencastle went back to Frankfort and Nick and I picked up Ethan.  Flew from Frankfort to Mansfield, Ohio, and left Nick there. The line guy who came out and chocked my plane remembered me and the plane and said I came there to drop my daughter off for camp. You know how many years ago that was??  What a memory!  Apparently me and Gumby were memorable.  :o  I left Mansfield and flew Ethan to Williams County Airport and dropped him off so he could pick up his Cherokee with a brake problem.  Flew back to Mansfield and picked up Nick.  Flew Nick back to Frankfort. Flew myself back to Kokomo.  Eight legs of flights, about 6 hours of flight time, and about 10 hours start to finish including ground time.  Busy day!

I'll post some photos from the weekend, that are all of course out of order, and then go to bed for a full day of flying tomorrow.

Me & BOB

Tim G is Lead, then me, at sunset

Steve T took this on the way home

Me with a line of people waiting to climb on the plane and check it out. I'm wearing the leather jacket I borrowed

Shelbe took this of the back of my head

Me with a little girl in the plane

Sunset shot of BOB and Checkertail

Stillshot from a video of our takeoff.

Getting ready to launch for the airshow. TBM on final, BOB is lead.

Checkertail at Sunset before the night show

Cold Shelbe & Morgan in my flight suit.  lol

Morgan doing a "Be Real" right then

Jon & Spencer on BOB watching the night show

Wall of fire in front of the TBMs

I'm #2. R is #3, and farther back.

Jon & Spencer on the T_6

Selfie with me and Shelbe on the way home

I'm giving a big thumbs-up to the crowd/photogs

Glenn #1, Me #2, R #3, and Mike #4. Mike is a whole other story. Maybe for tomorrow. This is a cool shot, though. But Mike wasn't supposed to be up there, if he really was where it looks like he is.

Jon took this out the window on the way home.

Checkertail and BOB during the show

The one photo I saved from the formation flights that didn't look good.  I'm the one to the left of BOB. Mr. Sir is the one pretty far back. And Mike is "tail end Charlie" back there.