6 am wake-up. It’s cold, grey and windy. I loaded up a guy at Frankfort in the 340 there and took off for Decatur, IL. At 7000’ we broke out of the clouds and it was warm sun and blue sky above. It was only a 35 minute flight over, but we enjoyed the sun in our face while we had it.
He had one job there, so I had them top us off while I walked to the diner nearby and had breakfast. French toast, eggs, bacon. GOOD stuff. Paid the fuel bill, and a man walked into the FBO and started talking to me. He was a former warbird pilot, said that he flew in airshows, that he flew Mustangs but they got boring after awhile, loved the T-6. Flew twins including the Cheyenne, was a former DPE, works now with the FAA and NTSB, is still an instructor. He’s 87 years old. He still looks and acts like a MUCH younger man, sharp as a tack, another octogenarian pilot that I aspire to be anything close to. He left me and went out and flew in a Citabria with a student. You go, dude. His name was “Doc” because he was also a veterinarian. I am not very (okay, at all) social, but he made for a fun conversation.
We left there and went back to Frankfort, I hopped in my car, and ran to Kokomo, where BOB the Twin Beech was waiting to go on its first post-annual test flight. I had been sending emails to HQ. I’m out of currency. I have to get a checkride every 2 years, and mine expired in November, right about when BOB went down for maintenance. That’s 5 months since I last flew the plane and 5 months past my expiration. I told them I was current in multi-engine ops and current in tailwheel ops both and requested a waiver so I could fly the plane, since I’m here and it’s here and nobody else is here. They never got back to me. So today I called on the phone and got the guy in person, and he agreed to waive it. I was on the way to the airport, so I was glad it worked.
It was spitting rain, ceilings were at pattern altitude, the winds were 20-30 degrees off the runway at 17 gusting into the mid twenties. It’s always icky out when I haven’t flown the plane in awhile, I swear. I went up by myself and did three full stop takeoffs and landings, to get my multi tailwheel currency for carrying passengers back, and then I took up a mechanic and a worker and his son, and went around and did one more landing with them. It went great, the plane flew great, and the landings were no problem. It felt pretty comfortable and everything, I didn’t even feel rusty and it had been a LONG time. So that was a good feeling.
After that I took up our Cherokee 180. It has a left rolling tendency they’ve been working on. I test flew it, it still turned left. I landed, they tweaked it some more, I took it back up, and this time it was a lot better. It’s close to exactly right. So we put it back in the hangar for now, to let it fly tomorrow, and that made two problem airplanes that had been down for months that I got to test fly and get back in the air today. Tis a good day.
Met AE and Steve at Harvey Hinklemeyers for dinner, then came home to catch up on the paperwork part of life. Print off and take my T-6 8 page groundschool quiz I have to do tomorrow. Receipts for the last couple flights. Billing. Hobbs on aircraft log. RallyPoint on CAF flight. Logbook for me. Yadda yadda.
I didn’t take any flying photos in BOB. I was…busy. It was scuzzy. But I did take the one of it NOT leaking oil all over.
Above the scuzz it’s beautifully clear
Clean BOB looking GOOD.
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