Blown Away

7 am wake-up, 8 am departure, 9 am wheels up for Decatur, IL and then over to Lincoln, IL. The winds were fierce today, a crosswind when I took off that was already up to 25 knots.  By the time I landed in Decatur, the winds were at 21 knots gusting to 42. A 21 knot gust factor up to 42 knots.  That was impressive, man. While I was there I walked to the restaurant on field and had a good breakfast, and then paid my fuel bill and headed over to Lincoln, where the winds were now swapping from 200 to 280, an 80 degree variability. Coming in to land, over the trees, less than 100' above the ground, I got hit with wind shear. The plane lost 20 knots airspeed in a heartbeat, dropped, I shove the nose down and blast in power, catch it, and wrestle it to the runway. I had considered landing on the grass strip there because it was potentially closer into the wind, and at 3000' I should be able to get it down and stopped, but it was also over trees, and I didn't know the condition of the runway ahead of time, so it wasn't a wise idea, so I didn't. But that one was a rodeo. I landed dead on the centerline, main wheel into the wind first for awhile and rode it down, and it was one of the smoothest landings ever, and I had nobody to see it and appreciate it. ;)  My guy had driven from Decatur to a project in Lincoln, and he met me there in Lincoln to head home. Coming home we had a fierce tailwind and ended up doing almost 250 knots groundspeed, back to a gusty crosswind landing back home.  I've certainly gotten some good landing practice in again lately.  Damn winds.

Tonight Steve and I drove over to Dale E's place and picked up him and Chuck, and I drove us all in Dale's car down to Sheridan to eat with the pilot group at Greek's Pizzaria.  AE, Nick and his wife, Allan, Doug and his wife, me and Steve, Dale and Chuck, George S.  We joked that it was the car of the infirm. Chuck has a bad case of the shakes and can't hardly eat, walk, etc. Dale has such bad neuropathy that he needs a walker. They both wanted to go tonight but neither could drive, so I did.  Had a good pizza and good company.

Now I'm on "fast duty", because I have bloodwork tomorrow at the doc office first thing in the morning. Then an afternoon flight to southern Indiana, and then possibly going to pick up the Conquest that late afternoon/early evening in Ohio if the weather holds out.  Nothing fancy.