Two Pilots & an LSW: T-Minus One

The dehydration from yesterday caught up to me today, and I was okay until I was back in the heat and the sun and humidity, and then here came the headache, no matter what water or caffeine or electrolytes I took. I headed it off at the pass, but it took a couple hours to fully depart the area. Maybe I just need IV fluids to carry around and put in halfway through a day.

Today was windy and gusty. Mostly down the runway, a little off to the right, gusting anywhere from 17 to 25 knots. I had to work the Beech down carefully, as it has kind of bouncy tires. Fortunately I made 5 landings today and 4 of them were excellent and the 5th was fine. One was particularly gusty and crosswindy and I had to fight it down, and when I touched down I rolled on the right main first, then the left, then the tail, and the people in the plane applauded me. I’m like…hey, I’ll take it! Ha

I had five rides today, each of them only had about 3 people, so none of them were full, but it kept the noise coming and it did make money each time, so that’s good. Not as good as yesterday, but not bad. I had several nervous people today, and because it was so windy and gusty, it was also bumpy up there. The most scared were a little girl and an older man. The older man sat up front, and every time a bump hit he’d grab for the dash or the window. I talked to him like I did scared kids or sick pets. Soothing, quiet, easy, reminded him that we’re just hitting potholes in the sky, like an old Ford with bad suspension on a gravel road. Then I hesitated but asked if he’d like to fly it. He lit up and said yes, and I secretly didn’t let him do anything that would scare himself, and he was so excited he said it was the coolest thing he’s ever done, and his fear was pretty well gone too. He didn’t blink when we came in to land and it made me work for it. The little girl started in the back, and by the end of the flight crawled up front to look over my shoulder and said she wished she could fly. Then afterwards she sat in the cockpit and asked me questions for 5 minutes on what everything was and how it worked and what it did. So that’s also fun. Had an old gent on oxygen and a walker that I got in there, he said it would probably be his last hurrah and asked if he could get in. That was no problem, and he really enjoyed himself. He said it was a lot better than he was expecting. And of course the woman I posted on FB about, her dad was an Army veteran who also flew C-45s, and he died a few months ago, and his name was Bob, and she HAD to fly on BOB the Beech in honor of him. She flew the plane herself as well, said her dad would be super proud of her for going up and doing this in honor of them. Very sweet, and afterwards we took a photo with my BOB T-shirt under the flight suit next to her in front of the plane.

A lady was wandering around the ramp, she said “Excuse me” while I was cleaning oil off of BOB, and asked if she could give me this, that she’d made. It was a hand crocheted butterfly in red, white and blue. She said she makes things by hand and just likes to give them away to people to make them happy, and when they’re happy, she’s happy. She was crying, as in tears down her cheeks, when I said thank you so much, it’s beautiful, asked for a photo with her, etc. She gave away several things to the mostly ladies working on the ramp. It was sweet.

Tonight for dinner we went to a place that carves off pieces of meat and puts them on your plate until you turn your tag over to red to say stop. Chicken, pork, steak, all of it. They said “We prepare our steak medium rare. If you need something else, let us know and we’ll try to accommodate you”. Ha. Medium rare for the win. ;) The food was excellent, the service was excellent, but there were 16 of us, and everyone has to pay for themselves in the CAF group, so all separate tickets. That took her forever. They aren’t supposed to do it, they did it anyway, and some of the guys were getting cranky about how long it was taking. They said up front they’re not supposed to separate checks over 8 people, and we were double that, but she stayed polite and professional and did her best. So I gave her a $20 bill in cash as a tip, because others were grumbling and I didn’t know if they’d take care of her or not, and she deserved it. She’d done a great job, and the separate bill stuff wasn’t her fault.

We’re supposed to have more storms tonight/tomorrow. I’ve got BOB battened down, locked down, tied down, all the downs. Hopefully it fares as well tonight as it did the other night. When I was fueling up at the end of the day, this time I got my own damn ladder out. MY ladder is tall enough to get me onto the wing, unlike the fuel truck’s ladder. I climbed up there and waited on those guys, and he came out and said “Hey, I like your ladder better” and I said “I like my ladder better too. At least I can get up here in one piece without looking like an idiot”. He was gallant to inform me I didn’t look like an idiot, but I know what an idiot looks like, and the other day, that was me. ;)

Oh, I did my first safety wire job today too. My fuel sump cover lost a hinge and a fastener. A B-29 guy came over with his safety wire and put the wire where the hinge goes, but the one fastener missing and the big crack in the plate where the other fastener actually was meant that it was still loose, sloppy, and likely to break off. I couldn’t pull a fastener from somewhere else. The guy couldn’t come back and fix the rest of it. So I went hunting through our tools and found safety wire and the safety wire plier tool thingy, and I took the wire up through the fastener hole, back down around the frame, and I safety wired that thing shut. Now we can’t sump the fuel from that tank, but my plan is to sump from the left main, and take off on that tank. Right main fuel can’t be sumped so should only be used in cruise at altitude, until we get the thing fixed, which should be at the next tour stop in a couple of days. So shouldn’t be a biggie. But hey. I safety wired something! It’s a terrible job, it’s ugly, but it’s secure, so…yay me!

I’ve almost made it. I have one more day, and I go home tomorrow evening. I’m supposed to land in Indy at 9:30 pm. Tomorrow should be a direct crosswind, gusty, which I’m not looking forward to doing rides in. It was tricky enough today gusty with minimal crosswind. *sigh* I’ve got three rides scheduled for first thing in the morning already. We’ll see, I guess. I’ll be glad to be home, though.