Two Pilots & an LSW: Thursday and Friday

Yesterday I got Ann's breakfast, and when I left her around 10 pm, she was doing fine. The caregiver (S), came over at 11, and left us a note that Ann met her at the door wearing her underwear on the outside of her pants. I mean, I promise they weren't like that an hour earlier. We kind of laughed about it, because, I mean, what are you going to do? Get upset or find the humor? So we found the humor. Today's was a little harder to find funny. Steve went over to get her breakfast, and did his usual routine. He put her hearing aids on either side of the table, she usually puts them in. He gave her her meds and some milk, and turned around to get her eggs. When he turned back around, one hearing aid was on the table and the other was gone. He looked for it in her ear, expecting she had it in, but it wasn't there. He then saw it in her mouth. She was chewing on her meds and her hearing aid all at the same time. He got it out of her mouth, and had to clean chewed up bits of medicine out of it. It had a battery in it too, but fortunately she didn't swallow that. The hearing aid, which was thousands of dollars, doesn't work now, and it was for the one ear she can sort of hear out of. If it was the other ear, we'd just let it go as she's deaf in that ear hearing aid or not. She's only mostly deaf in this ear, with the hearing aid, it's the only way we can communicate at all. *sigh* That's just so weird. Trying to eat your hearing aid... Then Steve had Michelle over to clean Ann's house this morning. We left for lunch and Michelle called and said Ann was calling for help. She basically had the runs and didn't know where the bathroom was or how to pull her pants down. Michelle had to help her to the bathroom. Which she did not sign up for. We left lunch as fast as we could and headed home, and Ann was confused and sleepy but okay. Had to go to work, did that, came back shortly, wondering if we'd find a mess or a problem, but she was just fine, ready for dinner, in a good mood, clean, said she loved me, no hint of the confusion and stomach ache. Haven't really found the humor in this one yet though.

After lunch I went out to Kokomo, as I was to meet up with a fellow named Mark who was bringing his 1949 C-170A up for me to get familiar with and fly, so I could check his daughter out in it, so she can fly it and build time in it as she works towards her Instrument and Commercial. I've never flown a 170 before, so I was both looking forward to being able to check it out, and hoping I didn't flub it up. I feel self-induced pressure to just pick up something right away. So I was a little nervous about flying Mark's airplane with him and me bouncing the landing or something, feeling embarrassed. (Yes, I realize I shouldn't. Yes, I know nobody's perfect and that's what I tell everyone else. Yes, I still want to be perfect.) Instead, he told me the gotchas on the airplane and then said he'd be just fine if I went up by myself and figured it out. That takes the pressure off, so I was glad to do that. I went up and started off with power off stalls clean and dirty, power on stall, then did an accelerated stall with power to see what it would do. End result? It flies like a Cessna. Because it is a Cessna. Easy enough. So I came in to do the hard part, land. My first three landings were okay but it feels a little sloppy on the rudders, and if you have a little speed, even with the yoke all the way back it'll want to fly and bobble around. After the third landing, I had it down pretty well and got some greasers. The wheel landings were easier. The 170 sits up so high it's like sitting in a 172, not a taildragger, so it actually made 3-points harder to me. lol I did the crosswind from the left (about 30 degrees off, 14-15 knots), then switched runways and did it from the right, about 50 degrees off. I did partial flaps, full flaps, and the last one I did was an engine out to landing. Everything felt pretty good. I could use a little more time to fine tune consistency, but it wasn't a difficult airplane, that's for sure. And I got to fly something new to me, which I like a lot, no matter if it's big or small. :)

After that flight, I needed to take the T-6 back up to test fly it, because we couldn't get the fuel pressure up yesterday to test the #2 cylinder head temps. So we dragged everything out, I fired it up and flew IT around for .6 too. Completely different sight picture, and my first landing I decided to do a three point. I leveled off, got ready to flare, and made the prettiest wheel landing you can imagine...completely by accident. It totally doesn't count if you didn't mean to do it. ;) I did about 5 landings. The third one in was a beautiful, squeaker, perfect 3-point, which are hard to do in there, and if I could have quit right then I would have, but I couldn't, I needed more data on the climb-out temps, so of course I didn't end on ones as nice as the middle ones. But hey. It was still nice to get up and HAVE to do takeoffs and landings and get some practice in.

I came on home and ordered pizza for dinner. Steve and I and everyone out there actually were all just wiped out and grumpy today. Lots going wrong. Lots going on.

Yesterday I was up at 4:45 am to be out at the airport by 6 am so D and I could takeoff and head to a little airport right by Grand Rapids, Michigan. The weather was weird and IMC without being in the clouds. Smoke maybe? The runway is short with trees for a twin, but I didn't take on any more fuel, so getting out of there we were light. We were there most of the day. It's always a little entertaining to watch people try to figure out what I am when I come in with Dustin. He's talking on the radio and left seat, so he's obviously the pilot, right? I don't go with him so I'm not in the business with him. So they usually ask me questions to flesh out and see if I know anything about airplanes. Sometimes it gets old, sometimes they figure out I'm a co-pilot. Then they think I'm a low time co-pilot, but it doesn't really matter what they think. Anyway, we left there around 2 pm, got home after 3. I tried to run the T-6, got rained on, it wouldn't get fuel pressure, so I went home and fed the cat and fed Ann, before going back out to the airport to take the Aerostar out and over to Delphi to pick up Ethan, and run him up to Battle Creek, Michigan to drop him off at 9 pm so he could drive home late with his wife rather than her drive home by herself in the middle of the night. At Delphi I heard the alternator belt squealing on the left engine when I started up, but it didn't stop like it usually does. We went anyway, what am I to do at that point? Landed in MI, the belt was quiet. The alternator was still working. Took off from Battle Creek, and my alternator 'out' light went off. Dead alternator. Fortunately I have two. I get it back to Kokomo, and the guys find that some bearing wore out and disintegrated, the belt failed, and some parts are required and expensive to fix that one too. Basically I was out at the airport from 6 am until 10 pm. Long day. Long couple of days.