I wasn't able to sleep in as much as I wanted, so I started the day off a little tired, but I rested most of the day until it was time for my 3 pm flight out at Kokomo. We went up, she's working on consistent landings in the 172RG so I can sign her off for the complex endorsement and to solo the RG. She's mostly working on her instrument rating but is having trouble with landing the RG. She gets in her own head, tries to fix one thing and then focuses on it and everything else goes to pot. Like she started landing flat so I reminded her about that and then the next one she balloons way up high because she's by golly not gonna land flat, but doesn't see or fix the balloon either. Etc. One of these times she'll get out of her own head and get it down. :)
Then came the night flight. I had to fly over to Purdue, during one of their basketball games. Andy texted "the game is terrible, when can you get here", early, so I went over as early as I could get there, and sat in the airplane so the FBO would close at 10 and not charge us a $150 landing fee. But then Andy and crew ended up stuck in traffic, and we didn't get out of there until almost 11 pm anyway, which was later than our original departure time was supposed to be. Oh well. I sat in the back of the plane with my feet up and was fine.
When they arrived, most of them had been drinking, and they were six, loud, boisterous cement workers having a good time. I got all their stuff loaded up in the nose, got them loaded into the plane, made them all find and wear their seatbelts, and then we headed to TN. I had my headset on "Pilot isolate" so I could hear ATC over them, but they were having fun. Every once in awhile one of them would yell "Where are we now??" and I'd answer them. They were amazed that we could see Cincinnati and Louisville at the same time, so I told them we were almost 5 miles up in the air, so we could see pretty far. They loved that. Coming in to land, one guy said "Is THAT the runway?? That looks SHORT! and Skinny!" I said "It is." They got quiet then, and after I rolled out and off the runway, the one stuck his fist up into the cockpit to get a fist bump for a 'good job'. lol Thanks. ;)
Coming in over the mountains though, it was super dark, the moon wasn't out to help, and the beacon was out at the airport. So I had to cross the mountains, which I couldn't see, and then find the airport, which I did, but I needed to do the pattern, and the mountains are right on downwind, and it was so dark I could not see them, it was just a black hole over there. Creeped me out, so I hugged the runway pretty tightly, almost on top of it where I could see everything, which meant I had to crank around a little bit to land. But I'd rather do that than wander any closer to the black area where I know things are taller than I am. Somewhere over there.
The trip home I was by myself, so I listened to music and read a book for an hour. Landed at Frankfort around 1:30. Got home around 2:30. Got to bed around 3 am. Slept in this morning until 10:30 am after a brief wake-up time around 6 am which did not make me happy. The 10:30 am thing did feel good. I needed that one.
Now Steve is off having lunch with our friends while I sit here on the couch in Yoga pants and relax. I canceled my two afternoon flights and said I am taking the day. Tomorrow I go back to pick them up, and I do an evening flight too with Ethan, but for today...I do whatever I want. At home, probably. These are just some night scenes.
You can see the stars and the ground lights both.
Louisville, KY off the wing
Indianapolis off the nose
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