Kansas

Today was a light day. I slept in, until 7:30 anyway, took lunch out to the airport, and took our new CFI Alex on a Cheyenne flight with Kevin and his wife out to Lawrence, Kansas. Alex is a Purdue student who just graduated with all his ratings and certificates and no real knowledge of how to use them. ;) We wouldn't actually solo him yet in our planes, but he is a nice kid, getting married in two weeks, and we are working with him to get him up to speed so that he can start instructing. He loved the flight, he said it was the coolest flight he's ever done, so that's awesome. :)  I did the flight over, with Kevin and such on board. Then I had him do the flight home, including the radios and the landing.  Took him over at FL260 because Kevin doesn't like to go high, then came home at FL310 so he could see the 30,000' view too.  He'd never been up over like 8,000' before, so he thought that was pretty wild, with groundspeeds of 340 knots, etc.  He had fun, and it was good to give him a fun flight, plus some logged multi-engine turboprop time in his logbook.  That's the fun part of being able to take these "kids" along.  :)

I had an internet friend who was only 15 minutes from the airport in KS, who offered to let me do a plate of BBQ and take back with me, but I didn't feel right about it this time, so I didn't.  Maybe when I go back on Friday to pick up Kevin and them, I'll go a little early and I'll have time to do that.  That would be nice.

Tomorrow is a long one. I fly to Gunnison, CO starting in the morning, get back around 4-5 pm, pick up two people at Kokomo and fly them 2 hours away to Pennsylvania, and come back to Frankfort, put everything away, then drive an hour home.  It'll be 11 pm or later when I get back...

No photos from today, just yesterday in the post below.  :)  

The Long Day

Kaylee is just trying to get organized on everything, nothing exciting happening there.  The cat is still stable and the same. Ann is still stable and the same. She does weird things like try to chew her pills with food instead of swallowing them with her water, or take her hearing aids out and put them in her bathroom somewhere, but in general she's still just holding steady.  Steve has been working, taking on a bunch of students because I've been gone every day, Spencer is gone as of today, Morgan's checkride is in a week but she's not a CFI yet, Cameron's back in school, and Cusick and Jerry have both slowed down for other reasons and will be gone for awhile.  So Steve's had 3-4 lessons a day for a bit here, and it's a lot, on top of everything else he normally does.

My alarm went off at 5 am, and I was out of the house before 6, had the plane out and ready by 6:30, and we were wheels up shortly thereafter.  Pretty sunrise, and we headed to Michigan.  D had thought they had a courtesy car but they didn't, but the guy there remembered me from the one other time I'd been there. So even though D was sitting left seat, and on the radio, this guy says "You're the pilot, right? I remember you, you guys do Young Eagles rides out of Indiana, too".  He then let D use his personal truck to run out and get his sample and come back in less than an hour.  Small town airports, good people, who trust you.  Very cool. I hadn't even remembered being at that airport before until I got inside and saw all the plants they have.  And this guy remembers some random pilot that stopped in one other time however long ago.  I'm more impressed by his memory than mine. ;)

We left there and headed to Defiance, Ohio, where we dropped off the 340 for its annual. Spencer came in the 172RG and was our ride back to Indiana, his last flight with me before he moves on to the airlines.  *sniff*

Then it was time for the big trip to Florida.  I drove to Frankfort, got the plane ready, they arrived, and the weather was not looking great.  I tried to warn them, there's a category 3 hurricane down there, airspace is going to be a problem, weather is going to be a problem, but they wanted to go anyway.  We stopped in Music City, TN to pick up another guy, a friend who is also a pilot (I thought 'oh goodie').  I got a text about an EDCT for Florida, meaning airspace was already shutting down. I warned them, they wanted to go.  We got in, and got to Atlanta, and my screen was showing a line of storms crossing the state of Florida, and the bands of weather from the hurricane already reaching our destination.   In retrospect, the ADS-B weather looked way worse than the radar on the ground, but the ADS-B is all I had available in that plane.  The front seat pilot is VFR only, he was chatting and asking questions and curious and I'm finally like...look...I need to concentrate on this.  He then took a look at my iPad and the weather and got a lot more quiet.  lol  He then said he didn't want to have "get there itis" and was willing to turn around. He wasn't comfortable with what he saw.  So I diverted, and I landed in Atlanta, where they have a bunch of rental cars and options.  They still had a huge drive to get the rest of the way to their event in Ft. Lauderdale, against traffic of everyone else trying to leave.  I know they got a car, but I don't know how far they've made it down there, and I'm sure they're not happy.  I haven't failed in my  mission in a long time, but in my defense, there was a hurricane.  I probably could have made it, but I wasn't sure I'd make it back out, and I needed to make it back out.  Hind sight I probably could have made it, but everyone back here was glad I called it off.  Steve was watching the weather, looking at the holes I was aiming for, and when I stopped in Atlanta, he says he said "Thank you!" out loud.  Ethan said that's why he hired me, because he knows I'll use good judgement even if it's not easy.  But it's not easy to 'fail'.  However, at the end of the day, even if I anger the other family or even if I lost the whole job (I won't), I am home safe with my family, and not on the news.  So...it's still a win even if I feel like weak sauce at the moment.  There was a big Airbus that did an urgent pilot report right about when I was in Atlanta that said they hit severe turbulence and reported 11 people injured on board, at 14,000'.  When I was there, I tried to deviate around a cell and center said "NO you can NOT" because of traffic. He said I had to get below 10,000' first to move, so I chopped and dropped and turned away from it at the last second. And that was one cell. The whole airspace is stuffed with people getting in and through and around it.  They made it. I could've made it. I didn't make it, and everybody but me and the people I was hauling are happy about it.  ;)

I got home around 8 pm, tired and sweaty and hot and disappointed, but the cat and Steve were both happy to see me at least.  ;)

Holy Moley

I'm a little at a loss on where to start; my schedule is crazy for the next little while, even for me!  I do like the paychecks though!

Today would be Sidney's 24th birthday. Actually it wouldn't, because he was born way too soon, so I guess it's the 24th anniversary of his death.  Either way.  Twenty four is a long time.  Kaylee is 22.  So. Weird.

Kaylee had hit a snag on her Master's, and may have had to wait a year to do it.  She freaked out, we told her it doesn't matter, in the end, whether you do it now or in a year, your life won't end, you can build relationships, save up money at your job, all the things. She just settled in to being ready for the upcoming year, and she was notified that there was a possibility she could get into the Master's program this year after all.  Then she was in limbo for weeks.  Today she got the news, they got everything approved and pushed through, and she starts THURSDAY.  She has one class she's going to try to test out of at the end of Sept.  She then has two semesters to go, and she'll be able to graduate with her Master's after all.  I told her, one way or the other, things usually work out, and either way it happens, I promise, it will be okay.  She said now she's almost more bothered because she had all her plans in order to be working full time and getting an apartment somewhere else for a year, and now she's back and scrambling to get ready for school at the last second after all.  Life, it's funny that way.

I tweaked my back yesterday. I think it was when I took a nap in my chair and I was leaned over funny, and I was out for a long time. I pulled something, but my right lower back spasms every time I lift my right leg, or sit wrong.  I may go take some Aleve and see if I can get it to loosen up with some stretching.  I laughed and said apparently I am getting old enough now that I hurt myself just by taking a nap.  ;)

Today was easy, I took the Citabria to test out its tailwheel, which still doesn't seem right to me, and flew it to Ft Wayne, where I met up with Bob who is selling his T-6.  Took a mechanic up on a flight to test the things they fixed, then landed, put Bob in the back, and let him fly us around for the last time probably in his airplane before it is sold.  We were up about an hour, and then I had to get back home to feed Ann.  Flew the Citabria home, stopped at DQ to pick up chicken and an oreo blizzard for her, one of her favorites, and then got home and started plowing out what I could on my schedule and my upcoming flights. I have so many of them, with people asking me questions on all of them just for the next three days, and it is like 9-10 trips in 3 days, so I have a lot of planning to start hitting here. Usually I do them one at a time but this one is piling up on me.  lol

Gosh, I just got the nicest private message.  I posted something on a public forum about the T-6 crash up at Oshkosh and the young lady who flew the plane.  I got over 70 "likes" on that post, so I guess a lot of people thought it was good, but then this guy sent me this message:

Hi Laura,

You don't know me from a fence post... that's ok. I'm sending this note your way to thank you for your excellent and enlightening comment in the T6 crash discussion.

In my 42 years of flying the single most distinguished pilot with whom I have flown was a female commercial pilot who flew remote sensing aircraft and air ambulances. She distinguished herself not by playing the 'girl card' - she did it by simply being better than everybody else at what she did, and by doing it so effortlessly that those around her who took a moment to observe her were left feeling like ignorant clodhoppers. I last flew with her in the early 90's and this many years later I still aspire to her level of professionalism.

Your commentary has displayed a similar level of professionalism in its clarity of thought, its reserved means of expression, its clear respect for others, its display of humility. Once again I have been offered an opportunity to observe one who is better than I and am left asking myself how I can do better.

Again, thank you... for being you and for being such a wonderful example.

Kind Regards,

Mark B

Wow, that was sweet that he took the time to even write and send that!

So, my schedule.  I can't even tell you how many times it changed or how many things swapped around. I had entirely different schedules three times.  But here's how it ends up, and it is going to have me hopping.  

Tomorrow I'll be waking up at 5 am, wheels up at 6:15 am to go to Michigan with Dustin in the 340. Go from there to Defiance, Ohio, to drop it off for its annual.  Spencer will pick us up in the 172RG and bring me back to Kokomo. I will then drive an hour to Frankfort, stopping at McDonald's I suppose on the way down, leaving Frankfort at 2 pm in the Conquest with 3 people, and stopping in Music City, TN.  Picking up 3 more people, and going on down to Ft. Lauderdale, FL.  This is where it gets interesting. There's a hurricane coming into Florida. It's going to be north of where they are staying, but it's still not north of where I have to fly though. We were supposed to go Wednesday, but hurricane would be full force by then. So I am taking them in Tuesday afternoon, to beat in the worst of the weather.  It'll be rainy and windy, but it should just be the outer bands at that point.  Still not gonna be fun going through Georgia and most of Florida.  Drop them off, top off, get back out of there around 7 pm, which is as late as I want to be getting out of there.  Dodge thunderstorms and rain until I get north of Georgia again, and land back at Frankfort around 10-10:30 pm.  Drive an hour home.  That's tomorrow.

Wednesday I'll be taking the Cheyenne to Kansas, Lawrence, KS, and dropping off Kevin and Janine. That's the short day I think.

Thursday I'll be flying the Conquest to Gunnison, CO to drop off a family, getting back around 4 pm, and either taking it straight on to Pennsylvania with another couple, or going home.

Friday I may be doing the Pennsylvania trip if I didn't do it Thursday.  I'll also be taking the Cheyenne back out to Kansas to pick up the family. 

Saturday all day I'll be doing T-6 rides at the Marion Pancake fly-in breakfast, something we do every year.  

Sunday I'll be going back down to Ft. Lauderdale, picking up six, dropping three off in Tennessee, then back to Indiana.  

Monday I'm taking the Conquest back to Colorado to pick up that family (and back).

Tuesday is Green Bay Wisconsin.

Wednesday is several projects with Nick in a couple states.

Thursday is taking a plane of 9 people down to Jacksboro, TN

Friday is a student and probably running another kid down to Jacksboro.

Saturday is a full on warbirds rides event at Kokomo where I'll be doing T-6 and maybe C-45 rides 9-4.

Sunday the 10th I plan on sleeping.

Monday the 11th I pick up all the families from Jacksboro.

Shall I stop?  I shall stop.  

Remind myself and you that I'll probably be bored in the winter, sitting on the couch and watching bills grow while income doesn't.  So, I'm an ant, not a grasshopper, what can I say.  Besides, half of this will likely get rearranged at some point anyway.  lol

View from the Citabria

The Citabria and the F100

Two of the three are planes I flew today. ;)

Me & Bob. He looks grumpy. He's selling the plane and doesn't want to.  ;)

Break

The heat stuck around until this evening, and finally it broke, but not in time to save me from another hot sweaty day.  It started off in fog, so I stayed home and fought off a headache brought about from dehydration and sweating the day before and heavy fog/moist air/bad weather.  Finally the ceilings started lifting, so I drove out to the airport, pulled out the Cheyenne, pulled out the 340, pulled out the T-6, put away the 340, closed the hangar door, got in and fired up to head to Westfield for their lunch fly-in.  The sun was beating down, the air was still so thick and moist you were wearing it. It's a grass strip, so there were biting flies and sweat bees all over too.  About two hours later, we packed up, I did a fly-by of nice low proportions, and headed back to Kokomo, where there was a traffic jam.

I wanted to practice some takeoffs and landings, but the Champ was in the pattern, so after two I quit and taxied in. John was waiting on me as the Cheyenne was in his way and he wanted to go fly. He had the Bo out, I had the Cheyenne and T-6 out and had to pull out the 340 to put everything away, and then the Champ taxies in and just sits there running. Everyone is waiting on me, so I run and pull the 340 out, get the tug, shove the T-6 back in, put the 340 back in.  John fires up the Bonanza and gets out of the way next. The Champ taxies in and gets put away. I get the Cheyenne from the other side and put IT away.  And now the airport is quiet again.  A traffic jam, and I was dripping sweat by the time I was done with all that. I mean, I sat at a table for a minute and left a puddle of sweat from my face and another from my arms.  It was gross.

Finally made it home, changed clothes, went out to dinner with Chuck, AE, Steve and Spencer at Pastarrific, home for the night where I've been working on my schedule for the upcoming weeks with the Conquest.  It's busy.  I have 14 of their flights scheduled through mid-September, and that's not all the flights I have, just for the Conquest!  Should get paid well this month. ;)

My first time acting as an examiner. ;)

Just a shot out the T-6

I thought this was a nice thing to say. :)

Yawn

It was hot. I flew twice. I got up early and now I'm tired. Tomorrow is a fly-in event. I sweated so much I'm afraid I dehydrated out and will have trouble in the morning.  Hopefully not.  Kid looked at an apartment for this coming year and may take it in November.  It's in downtown and over a coffee shop and not very expensive.  Ann turned on her kitchen sink and left the water running, so that water bill ought to be expensive.  I'm going to bed!

Pressures

Our house windows were completely fogged/moistured over this morning when I left the house.  Dew point was in the 80s and humidity was 100%. I should've taken a screen shot of it.  When I stepped outside, my sunglasses fogged over, and my contacts got a little foggy too.  The high heat index for today up here was 115°, a little south of us it was over 120.  It was okay until about 2 pm though, and fortunately I got most of what I needed done before then, while it was still in the 90s and not triple digits.  

I took the Aerostar over in IFR to Aurora, IL, had to hand fly it the whole time because I'm taking it over there to fix the autopilot which doesn't work At All.  I left at like 8:30, and Spencer my chase pilot left Frankfort at 8, and we both got there at the same time.  He landed right in front of me.  Twas good timing, I almost chased him down but not quite.  We came back in the Cherokee Six, and it doesn't have good airflow, so it started getting pretty toasty in there.  Came back, had lunch, then I took up Jerry's Citabria after Spencer changed out the tailwheel springs, to see if it handled better on the ground.  It didn't, not enough.  But I took it up and flew it anyway, and THAT was the end of my flying. I was hotter in there than anything else. Greenhouse effect, sun pouring in, can't open the window or door in flight, and when I got out of there I was soaked.  Put it away, came home and sat in the air conditioning.  Fed Ann, fed the cat multiple times, worked on my checkride for tomorrow, answered phone calls believe it or not, and emails, and just tried to keep up.

The checkride tomorrow is supposed to go off of the Sport Pilot PTS, so I printed a copy of what I need from that, what I'm supposed to ask, what we're supposed to do as far as maneuvers, and then what paperwork I need to send in.  I get to be the check pilot for a glider pilot who wants to add on to become a Sport Pilot in a tailwheel aircraft.  So...should be interesting.  Hot again tomorrow, but hopefully not too bad at 9 am when we're meeting, and we'll see how it goes. 

Steve went out to dinner with some airport folks, but once I got home I didn't want to go back out.  I mean, right now it's 6:30 pm and the heat index is still 101.  I'm good here.

I am feeling grumpy because I was put into a position I don't like to be in. Somebody pushed to do something. I said "Maybe later, but not right now." Then somebody else said something that made the first person think it was okay to do what he wanted all along. And he's been pushing ever since, and leaving me in a position of having to either do something I don't want to do and don't even think is the best thing to do, or hurt his feelings/make him mad which could cause him to walk away and cost money for others, not just me.  It's super annoying, and I DETEST being pushed. Now that I've been pushed by him, and another guy via email, and a third person by email, to do it, I have about the same desire to do that as I do go outside in the 115° heat and sun.  Which is none, in case you're wondering.

Oh, Indiana.  HAhahaha

Aerostar this morning...

"Excessive Heat Warning"

That's what it says on my TV anyway. It hasn't been as bad as they said it would be, but it was still bad enough. I do not want to live anywhere where this is "normal".  This is not normal.  This is air you can drown in.

I was driving home from the Frankfort Airport today and this song came on, and it made me laugh, because the lyrics go "It's getting hot in here (so hot) So take off all your clothes. I am getting so hot I wanna take my clothes off (let it all hang out)."  Yeah, Nelly, I hear you man.  It is freaking getting hot in here and I wanna take my clothes off too!  

I had a Conquest flight to Huntington, which was like 15 minutes away, and then over to Champaign, IL, which took about 30 minutes tops, and then home to Frankfort from there, which was 20 minutes.  By the time I got up to altitude I was coming right back down.  It was so hot and muggy, but the Conquest has good air conditioning even on the ground, so once you got an engine going, you were okay. But getting in the plane? Holy cow. You were swimming out there on the dark concrete or asphalt or whatever it is ramp.  Steamy.

In Champaign I went into town to have brunch, and I ate light because I thought I'd get a little dessert action elsewhere. I was in the mood for a little mini cupcake, or baked good of some sort. I saw a bakery on my way in, so I stopped at it on my way back.  The signs were up and it looked great, but the business was totally gone.  So I pulled up Google Maps to find another. Found a bakery a mile away that had donuts and cupcakes and went there.  I pull in and there's a sign on their door that they're closed for the next three days.  That's two.  So I decided maybe I wasn't supposed to have a dessert today and I went back to the airport.  lol

The rest of the evening I spent working, up until now. I'm going to be an examiner for a guy wanting to do his Sport Pilot certificate, and I'm able to do that, which is a first and kind of cool. Doing that Friday instead of doing the T-6 training I was supposed to be finishing up with Suzi from Florida.  Tomorrow I'm running to Aurora to drop off the Aerostar to get the autopilot fixed, and coming home in a Cherokee Six, which is going to be mega hot.  I have to get up and get out there early to get gas at 8 am, so it'll be a hot day with an early start and I don't even get paid for this one. Boo.  ;)  I had a guy who was harassing me about getting him in for scheduling on T-6 training. So I finally contacted him with available days and he says "It's a long way to travel for 1-2 days of training. Why don't we wait until we have more time. Thx".  I was like...excuse me?  Then his buddy contacted me and told me that this guy's wife is terminally ill and he's having a hard time and it was a bad week to try to leave.  It would've been a lot better if he'd have just said "This is a rough week for me, let's try in a couple weeks" other than "It's a long way to travel" when we're only going to be doing this for 2 days anyway.  So a little annoying, but gotta give a pass to a guy whose wife is dying, regardless.  He needs to focus on that more than this anyway...

This is a picture from the dad of the lady I took for a flight in the T-6 yesterday.  I thought it was kind of different, the ole putting on of the helmet thing.

Steve's mom was sitting down on the deck yelling for help this morning.  She was super freaked out and was having trouble getting up.  So Steve went over to help her up, but her biggest problem was that she was totally panicked, wouldn't stop yelling even when he was right there.  She used to walk all the time, get a lot of exercise. Now she sits and sleeps most of the day, and she has put on a lot of weight. It's making it harder for her to get in and out of her chair/bed, and we can't make her exercise, she doesn't understand.  So another fun thing to add to the list of dementia consequences.

I got Roadie's records from the vet today, so I can transfer her care to the Greentown veterinarian who put Dulcie to sleep when it was time.  He was compassionate and gentle, unlike Dr. Doom who has taken over for Dr. Hiss, who was a great vet with a terrible name.  Anyway, so I'm going to contact this other fellow and see if he'll see Roadie too, for her ear infection that keeps coming back, and when it IS her time, it'll be nice to go to the same place as Dulcie.  They'll be scattered ashes together out there... So far, however, I haven't been steroiding her for a long time, and she's eating and hanging on on her own.  Stubborn cat.  It must be a family trait.

Heating Up

Along with half the rest of the country, it is getting h-o-t out here.  Sunday I did indeed take off, and it was marvelous. I slept in. I did house chores. I hung out with Kaylee.  I paid bills. I played phone games. I chilled.

Monday I got up early and had one flight in the 172RG with a guy who is working on his instrument rating very slowly.  He's mostly got the ILS down, and has been going up and practicing it hand flying and autopilot both.  But yesterday the ceilings never lifted, so we went up and I filed IFR for real and we shot an ILS into Marion, then an RNAV circle to land back into Kokomo.  It was 500' overcast at Marion, and 800' broken at Kokomo, so he got some good real world experience at it. Said he was too old to figure all this stuff out, which I disagree with him on, but it does take some time.  :)  The rest of Monday I also took off.  I watched a movie called "Only", which is about a virus that wipes out the earth's population of women.  A handful of women who safely quarantined chat while they hide, while the government offers a $2 million reward for any woman found not sick still alive, because they need to repopulate the earth and are trying to do experiments to figure out how to do successfully do that without women. They phrase it as "do your part, turn yourself in to save humanity" kind of thing.  Yeah, no.  In the end she's the only one left, and she basically exposes herself to the disease because she'd rather die than be stuck as a prisoner with her loving boyfriend forever, and they go out and go to some hiking exploring thing at a big beautiful waterfall for her last wishes.  It was weird, interesting, and I always watch things I know Steve wouldn't like if I'm home alone wanting to watch something, and that would have fit the bill.  lol

Then Monday evening, Steve and I watched "The Engineer", based on a true story from the 90s about a hunt (the biggest hunt in Israeli history) for a famous Palestinian bomb maker.  It wasn't fast paced for the most part but it kept you entertained anyway. Also kind of shows the pointlessness, because you cut off one head, that guy, and it didn't stop anything, more heads grew up, as they, evil, always will.

This afternoon I had one flight. It was in the T-6, with a friend's daughter, who is a new Private Pilot who did it in the Super Decathlon, Monica.  I had her fly from the back seat, but I had her do it all.  Takeoff, even came in and talked her through a landing that I didn't have to touch.  Now I'm going to brag a little bit here.  The T-6 isn't an easy airplane to land, from the back seat, and if you don't give anyone any coaching, it isn't going to go well. The part where I can talk even pretty new people safely through a decent landing makes me feel pretty good about it, except for the part where they then think it's no big thing.  lol  Usually it gets more sporting when I quit talking and let them start figuring it out. Or if they don't listen. But funny thing--women usually listen pretty well.  ;) We had fun though, and she did great, and we got Go Pro video of it, and I took a couple photos, too.  

Then I had a conversation with the young lady who has taken over most of what Steve does as far as answering phone calls, scheduling, setting up students with instructors, organizing all the airplane cleaners and volunteers and other workers, selling things on eBay, social media, etc.  She works 40 hours a week and she stays busy the entire time.  She wants to start a family, doesn't want to fly while pregnant, and doesn't want to work, even from home, while pregnant or a new mom, doesn't want any 'outside stress' during her pregnancy or early motherhood. This is not great for multiple reasons but mostly for Steve. He's really come to rely on her, and I don't know how or who will take over everything she's been doing.  I can't, he can't.  *sigh*

Me and Monica in the T-6

National Aviation Day

Kaylee wanted to come home yesterday to see us, only to find her parents were busy until after 10 pm.  Steve had friends over in the back yard for awhile, and I flew all day.  But finally I made it home and we got to cuddle on the couch and talk.  

Spencer is leaving us to go to the airlines, and he leaves in about 2 weeks. He needed an additional 6 hours of flight time under the hood, and we were going to let him use Ethan's Cherokee Six, get the time with Morgan, and they could both log it and use it. But Ethan's Six has a dead battery, so that plan went out the window, and instead of having him just use a 172 and burn time to do it, I offered to go with him on my day off and take a couple cooler airplanes. So we used John's A-36TC Bonanza and went up for a couple hours to do instrument approaches at Lafayette and Kokomo, and then took the Aerostar with his mom and grandma and flew to Sikeston to go to Lambert's Cafe, Home of the Throwed Rolls, for dinner.  It was a beautiful day for flying, just starting to get warm, but perfectly still and smooth, which was good for his mom who gets very motion sick, and his grandma who had only ever been in an airplane once in her life.  He flew us, did a great job as always. His grandma bought dinner for us all.  None of them had been to Lambert's before, so it was fun for me to introduce them.  You fly into Sikeston. Call Lambert's, and they send over a van to pick you up.  The van parks by an exit, and the driver lets you in the back, walks you right into the restaurant, and seats you immediately.  No matter how many poor non-pilots are waiting in line on the other end of the restaurant.  ;)  So we were seated right away, ate too much food as you can't help but do there, caught a couple of hot, fresh rolls, and flew home at sunset.  Landed after dark put everything away, Spencer thanked me for everything, I thanked him for everything, then said "but it sounds like you're dying or something", and he said "Oh, I'll be back."  I hope so. We will definitely miss him around here!

Today as Sunday I plan on actually taking the day off, unlike the last several weeks.  Last week I flew with Bob's T-6 guys, the week before I was flying Andy's family home from vacation, but this week?  This week I'm sitting on my couch and doing house work and maybe reading or watching movies or whatever I want that doesn't involve going outside, getting sweaty, or going to the airport.  :)

Interesting Day

Well, I sit down to write this after going next door to put Ann to bed and finding her sitting on her deck picking at a leg wound, with blood running down her leg and chunks of herself under her fingernails.  I'm not easily grossed out, but that did it. My stomach still sort of hurts.  I got her cleaned up, a fresh bandage on her leg, and ready for bed.  Took awhile.  Not a pleasant way to end an otherwise pleasant day.

This morning when I went to the airport, my intention was to take the Citabria to Frankfort so I could check out the tailwheel on it. Steve had made plans for me to fly the T-6 instead, and test out its stall characteristics again, so I took it to Frankfort instead.  Took the Conquest from Frankfort with Nick to Gary, Indiana. It was like a 25 minute flight.  The Chicago Air & Water Airshow is going on today, and everyone was staging out of Gary. So they wanted me to land on the short runway, which fortunately the Conquest can do, and as I was on downwind, one of the formation teams was taking off on the long runway below me.  We get inside, and the performers are inside the FBO too.  The Thunderbird pilots are there. The military demo pilots are in there  A-10s, F-16s, C-17, KC-135, F-18, and all the aerobatic guys. Dacy, Stein, Holland, etc.  Photographers are there taking shots of all the airplanes coming and going for the airshow.  

It was neat, I had a bit of an airshow throughout the day.  I also took a courtesy car and went into town and got some brunch, and honestly the area wasn't bad. The last time I flew into Gary it was the armpit of Indiana. The airport was scary, the surround areas were worse.  The airport was really nice, and the surrounding area was safe.  It has really cleaned up. 

When it was time to leave, they pulled the Conquest up front, and the big C-17 taxied past it and parked behind it, and it was the only airplane on the main ramp. I taxied past the Thunderbirds.  When we were leaving, a 4-ship of A-10s did an overhead break and came in to land behind us.  It was fun.

However, as we were walking out of the FBO to go to our plane, we passed right by a group of Thunderbird pilots. As we got to our airplane, Nick was laughing, and said he heard one of the buff flightsuited pilots say "I thought they were coming over here to get our autographs".  The thought never even crossed my mind. It's not my style.  ;)

When I was taking off and the A-10s were down there, I really wanted a photo, but I was too busy flying, so I made Nick take it in front of my face.  lol

We leveled off at 10,000' and I had 12 minutes to get to Frankfort with the tailwind. Super short and uneventful flight. Just how we like them.

Oh, on the way over to Frankfort in the T-6 this morning, fuel was dripping out of the primer steadily. It wasn't doing that on the ground.  That wasn't great, lots of fuel running down. So I texted the guys and they flew over to FKR and fixed it while I was gone.  So on the way home, I flew up to 7500', and I did some stalls. They were pretty standard stalls for the plane, fairly aggressive breaks but not as bad as it was last time.  While I was up there I did a couple of rolls, because I haven't done aerobatics myself in awhile.  Came on in, did a couple of landings.  Put everything away.  Got out John's Bonanza, and flew it with Cameron to do his High Performance endorsement. We did maneuvers, takeoffs and landings, engine out, etc. 

Finished that up and went to dinner with Steve at Oscar's Pizza, a nice little downtown pizza place.  We sat outside, had good garlic knots and a white pizza.  Good stuff.

After putting his mom to bed, we watched a movie, Jason Statham, "Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre". Pretty good, actually!

Kaylee will be starting her Masters of Social Work the beginning of September, so now she has to decide whether she'll stay working at Compass Rose, or how much, whether she'll live at home or in Marion, or what she's going to do.

Me sitting in my day job ride while looking over at my transportation and weekend job. ;)

Two places I don't want to go for $500, Alex

On the ramp with the big boy

Thunderbirds ahoy!

A-10s under the wing

Oscar's Pizza

Sunset makes it hard to see but it's nice little ambiance.  :)

Blur

Yesterday started early and ran late, but it was all good.  I got out to Kokomo and flew the 340 back home to Frankfort.  Pulled out the Conquest, and then Ethan and I took it, and for the first time he finally flew his own airplane from start up to shut down.  We took it to Ohio where Fortner topped off the oxygen, topped off the brakes/hydraulics, and looked for an inverter problem.  Flew it back to Frankfort, Ethan did, landed from that, and then I was supposed to take the Cherokee Six to Kokomo, check out Morgan in it, leave it there for Spencer and Morgan to fly it through the weekend, do Cameron's HP endorsement in it, etc. But went to start it, and it was dead.  No start-y.  Dead battery.  So all that got scrapped, and Ethan had to drive me back out to the Kokomo Airport from Frankfort.  From there I took care of the people at home, and then went back out to Glenndale to check out Morgan in Chuck's Citabria. We got out there and it was empty, as in almost no gas. No big puddle or stain on the floor, and he'd left it 2/3 full or more. FlightAware even backs up that it had less than an hour flight on it since fueling up at Kokomo. So the only option left is that someone drained the fuel out of it.  It's in a locked hangar, so someone who has to know the combo, or got lucky.  Or got in through Tom's side.  There wasn't enough in there to go fly to get gas and there's no gas at Glenndale.  So Ron came over with 5.5 gallons of fuel and poured it in.  The plane burns about 6 gph, I now have at least that, and it's about a 10 minute flight over, but we didn't dally. Started up, taxied, run up, take off, aim for the end of Runway 5 at Kokomo.  Landed, topped off, and it took almost 17 gallons. Including the 5.5 gallons Ron put in there, that's 22.5 that it took.  It holds 25.  So yeah.  Some way or another, gas got ungassed in the airplane.  It started us off late, but fortunately Morgan is good, and we enjoyed the sunset anyway.  I had her go up and do steep turns, and suddenly it started talking to us.  Verbally and loudly. It's some unit in the panel that's new.  It was saying "ROLL ROLL ROLL ROLL ROLL" and then beeping really loudly.  Morgan says "WHY IS IT YELLING AT ME!?" and I laughed and said "I don't know!"  Then we figured it out, when you exceed 45 degrees it yells at you.  Well, Private Pilot checkride and Sport both require 45 degrees, and Commercial requires 50-55 degrees bank, so that's a stupid marker.  So then I had an idea, and I asked for the controls, and I pitched up pretty far.  It starts screaming, high pitched, "PITCH PITCH PITCH PITCH PITCH"  I was like...what are you calling me??  So we went into the unit and found the menu on how to shut those alerts off.  It's an AEROBATIC AIRPLANE.  Stop it with the alerts when you exceed straight and level.  Chuck never does more than a 15 degree bank anyway, so he would never know or care that the alerts were disconnected, though I did tell him at lunch today.  lol  Anyway, then we did steep turns, stalls, 3-point and wheel landings, all of which she did great, so moved over to Glenndale as she's not familiar.   Had to come in over the wires on 18, so that was good practice.  She did great, we did three in a row on 18, then I had her do the takeoff on 36 over the wires, and a landing on 36 too, just to have done both directions. The only thing we didn't have was any wind at all, so I want to go back up with her in crosswinds, but...I know she'll be fine.  Watched the sun set from the Citabria. 

Today I was supposed to go to Gary, Indiana (oh yay).  Weather blocked us all morning, so that trip has been rescheduled for tomorrow.  That'll be fine, I was going to try to fly the T-6 with the Ft. Wayne guy, but his plane is in the shop for repairs, so it's not available anyway.  So now I have something to do tomorrow to get paid for.  Perfect.  ;)

Tonight Morgan is talking at the EAA/Squirrels meeting about the Women's Air Race Classic.  She doesn't want to, Steve forced her into it, but she'll be all right. None of us likes to talk in public.  I reminded her that the Squirrels don't even know how to fly yet, and the majority of the guys in there haven't flown anything in decades, so she doesn't need to be intimidated, just go up there and share her story and it'll be fine.  :)

Ohio

I went to the hairdresser today, first time since April.  She missed me.  My eyebrows and dead ends missed her.  :D  

After that, Steve and I went to lunch with Nathan, and then I went out to the airport to take John's C-421 over to Ohio. It was IFR, and I told him and the mechanic both that I wasn't taking it over while it was low IFR. I haven't flown that 421 in years now. But John is down for health reasons for awhile and the plane needed taken over, and I'm the only other person who can do it around here. I told them I'd wait until I had at least 5 miles visibility and 800' ceilings, because his avionics are different, and like I said, it's been a few years. With 800' and 5 miles basically I'd break out of the approach at pattern altitude so shouldn't be a problem.  So finally it did get up to 800', and I launched, it took a whole 35 minutes to get there, shot the RNAV 7 into the little airport, and all was almost well. I couldn't talk on the radio because the N# was different, I had to plug the airplane into my ForeFlight in order to be able to file an IFR flight plan, but got that done.  And had to figure out a couple of weird quirks his airplane has that I wasn't used to, but it was fine.  lol

I left the 421 there, and Ethan's 340 was already there waiting to come home. Perfect. But I didn't have a ride back from Frankfort if I took it home, so I took it to Kokomo and put it in John's hangar overnight.  Done flying for the day, but it was good and productive.  I'm glad to get both planes basically where they needed to be.  And I got to shoot two approaches today.  And fly two different Twin Cessnas.  :)

Tomorrow is going to be busy. In the morning I'm flying the 340 down to Frankfort, leaving it there. Picking up Ethan and the Conquest and taking it to Ohio for the mechanic to top off the pressurization/oxygen system.  And maybe looks for some other things.  When he's done, Ethan and I will fly it back to Frankfort, and then he's going to take me back to Kokomo in the 340 and do some practice approaches since it's been awhile for him.  Drop me off, and then Morgan and I are going to go back down to Frankfort and I'm going to check her out in the Cherokee Six.  After that, depending on how much time I have left, either I will check Morgan out in the Citabria out of Glenndale too, or I will take up the T-6 and do some stall stuff in it and try to figure out why it's getting weird on me on stalls.

Should be a good day.

The puddle of hydraulic fluid under the 421, one of the reasons it needed to go to the mechanic. That and annual. But yes, it was topped off with fluid before I left. ;)

The C-421 on the way to Ohio

The C-340 on the way home.