Well....

Today did not go as planned.  I guess you could always say that about this life/living.  It started out well.  I got everything ready and took the T-6 up to Goshen, Indiana, for their "Ribs & Rotors" fly-in event. Spencer and Jon took off in the Cherokee 180 with our ladder and stuff, and I went with Steve in the T-6.  We flew over the city, made some noise, came in and landed, they parked us, and I immediately had a rider.  Cool.  I took him up for a ride, and he was an Army Paratrooper; came down, fueled up, and had some lunch.  The main event didn't start until late that afternoon, and we knew we were early, so I went up next with a guy who wanted to get 5 hours training done in a T-6.  But he had a new tailwheel endorsement in a C-140 back in like November and hadn't flown a tailwheel since.  Steve usually weeds out those, as we at least want current tailwheel time, and more of it than he has, and then I'll go up with them in a Champ first and see how they really do before throwing them in the big plane. This time I just had the T-6 there, so I put him in the back seat first. He didn't S-turn or seem to know how. So I demonstrated for him how we would s-turn so I could not run over the 4-wheelers, airplanes, and lots of people that were out wandering around close to or even on the taxiway.  He wanted to do the takeoff, and I wanted to see it.  I saw both sides of the runway before I'd stomp a rudder and get us back, three or so times, and then he tried to haul it off the runway too early, one wing going way up, so I grabbed that.  Not an auspicious start. We spent a good 40 minutes in the air, and I just tried to teach him to do straight and level and coordinated turns.  He was not ready for the T-6.  So I didn't even attempt to have him do the landing. I only have so many nerves left. ;) He has really bad body odor too, very strong, and nobody but me smelled it that day.  Steve caught it the next day though.  The gentleman is from London, as in England, here on vacation, so apparently personal grooming of the English is a little....less.  :o  

After that fun experience, I went up with Laurence, a pilot from Terre Haute who flies our CAF BT-13, and he wants to be a BT instructor.  So he flew it from the back seat. We went up and he did the usual stuff, steep turns, slow flight, stall series, a "whooperdill" where we went almost vertical up then vertical down, then some takeoffs and landings. He did well, so when we got on the ground, I pulled up an iPad and sent in the form in order to recommend him as a BT instructor. We'll see if they accept that, or send Mark N. down again to double check me.  Either way, he's ready to go and I did actually accomplish something today, at least.

Steve had Cameron come get him in the 172RG, as he had to go home and get Ann.  Spencer came up to me at the hangar and said "Hey, Laura, come look at the tailwheel on the T-6. I think it looks low but maybe my eyeballs need recalibrated."  I get up and look, and that sucker is flat.  Spencer goes and gets an air compressor from the maintenance shop on field and we air the tire back up.  At some point I realize the tire is flat again. That's not good.  Now we're talking what to do about it.  I'm talking about airing it up one more time and me flying it home and making a landing back at Kokomo keeping the tailwheel off the ground until I get to the end of the runway closest to the hangars, and then putting it down and hoping I can control it and taxi off.  Seems sketchy but in theory it should be okay.  Tailwheel will be locked and straight.  I've had about six flat tires over the years, nose and mains, but never a tailwheel.  The rest of them create a lot of drag and pull when they go, but it's a 150' wide runway and I've been fine.  Seems like the tailwheel should be the same. But it wouldn't be great to be wrong and groundloop the thing.  So then we tried to see if we could get a replacement tailwheel up to Goshen. But nope, we don't have one set up to be put on.  Can't leave the plane outside on the ramp at Goshen because thunderstorms and rain are coming through the next day.  So I was going to just try it, and take it home.  As a last test, we filled the tailwheel up again and this time we ate dinner and started a stop watch.  Forty  minutes later after our tasty dinner, walked up to the plane, and that tire was flat again.  I wouldn't have time to get home before it went flat, for sure.  I could even start taxiing on it and it could go flat on the taxiway or runway, shutting down an entire big event. None of this was good.  I talked to the FBO, and they ended up finding out (after an hour) that they do indeed have a hangar I could put the T-6 in, they have a P-51 tow bar which works on the Six to push it inside, and this is the plan.  I will fly home with Laurence in the BT, where he will drop me off at OKK.  Jon & Spencer will fly home in the Cherokee. The T-6 will be in the hangar up there until we can get a tailwheel up there and swapped out, and then I have to be around in order to fly it home, and I won't be around for awhile.

While we were there, I got a text from Ethan with a video clip of the Conquest II taxiing in at Frankfort. It made it, it's here, and now we're about to be off and running.

I was so tired by the end of yesterday. Nothing really worked, we only did one ride, they paid for our gas there and back and our hotel rooms and we sat there broken down most of the day and then couldn't stay in the rooms after all, so they lost their money. The BT at least did three rides, but I feel like we failed them, and right as we were leaving for the night (because the BT has to be back before sunset and the forecast for storms was too yucky to leave it out overnight and stay), a bunch of people were there, and cars, and the crowd was really growing huge.  Thousands of people.  And I just feel bad that they tried to have us there making noise and we just didn't do it...