My day off, I headed out to Kokomo to meet the kid named Andrew from Purdue, needing his spin endorsement for his CFI. We spent about an hour on the ground talking about stalls, spins, spin entries, recovery, the most common ways students will get you in trouble, etc. Then we went up and did power off stalls, power on stalls coordinated, power on stalls uncoordinated, spin entries to the left and right, a fully developed spin, and a spin where I just had him let go of the controls after entering it. I don't know how many total we did, but quite a few. He did a great job. He'd never been in a tailwheel airplane before and we had a 40 degree crosswind around 15 knots. He did the takeoff, but he didn't want to do the landing. I haven't landed from the back seat in ages, so I told him that and jokingly said maybe he'd get to see how not to do it. He asked if I needed him to move his head so I could see. I said nah, that's part of tailwheel, not being able to see in front of you. Then I asked if he was sorry he wasn't trying the landing himself yet. He's like...maybe... I then happened to absolutely grease it on, roll it on so gently you couldn't hardly feel the wheels touch. I'm taxiing in, and he says "You say you're rusty and then you land like that." I said "We all get lucky now and then."
After I signed his endorsement and he left, I went out and took up the Citabria next. I had been concerned that the last time I did spins in it, it had over-revved. And it had maintenance just done. So I took it up on a post-maintenance test flight, and then did spins in it, too. It has more horsepower and does more aggressive spins, but it did not over-rev, and then I remembered, it was when I was doing aerobatics and fell out of a maneuver that the RPM got too high, not spins. So in the future I can do spins in the Citabria and that'll be fine. After the last spin I did in the Citabria, my head felt it. I'd woken up with another headache, and Tylenol, Advil and Excedrin later, I still had to take something else, and finally felt decent by my 1 pm spins flight. But climbing up at a higher altitude and repeatedly doing spins, then landing, going back up and repeatedly doing spins, at the end I thought "okay, that's the last spin I need to do today." lol So I went to do some takeoffs and landings in the pattern in the Citabria, which handles a little funny and I have more trouble greasing on this particular one than I do Chuck's Citabria or our Champs or about anything else. But when I get there, our 172 is in the pattern, and they are doing giant patterns. Waaay out there, and I'm stuck behind them. So after spending more time in a pattern cross country than on practice, I moved to the other runway, and got 2-3 landings in before the 172 said they were coming in on my runway too now. So I got stuck behind them again. I pulled up the schedule on my phone and they were supposed to be done soon, so I out-waited them, and then when they left, had the pattern to myself. I got in about 3 landings before the Cherokee 180 came out and wanted to stay in the pattern too. *sigh* Since I had to go to the bathroom anyway, I just quit at that point and put it away. Got about 12 landings in though.
The foliage is really bright and pretty now, we're reaching peak. I didn't take any photos or videos of the spins this time, just one of the foliage.
Tomorrow morning early I take Ethan's guys to a project up in Cleveland. Back to Frankfort around noon, and head for Marco Island by 1 to pick up Andy and family. So tomorrow will be a long one, getting up at 6 am, getting home by 9-10 pm. Just carrying on day by day.
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