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.  ;)