Two Pilots & an LSW: Weekend Update

Monday, May 13, 2024

Weekend Update

Saturday I did indeed get up at the crack of dawn, drive to Frankfort, pick up the 340, and fly to Crystal River, FL to pick up Mrs. Hewitt, her son Kevin and Grandson Cory. It was 3.5 hours down there, and I was going to say it was relaxing and nice, and partly it was, to be alone, listening to music, reading a James Patterson book. But the pressurization system partially failed, so the cabin altitude was around 11,000' where I was up at 19,000'. It was still legal, and I had to keep an eye on it all the time and make sure it didn't fully fail, which would have required me to descend. But my "Cabin Altitude" light stayed on and I kept an eye on it. Then I am just cruising along fat dumb and happy, on the main fuel tanks, and my left engine quits. I turned on the fuel pump, and messed around with the fuel selector valve, and still didn't come back, so I was getting ready to do more, when it fired back up. A little later it quit again for just a couple seconds when I switched to the aux tank, but that happens sometimes on that switch. I don't know why it happened the first time. Air bubble? Contamination like water slug or something? I dunno. But it hasn't done it since.

I get to Florida without having to stop for fuel thanks to a tailwind, but I didn't have that option for the trip home. The three of them and luggage plus me, we stopped in Athens, GA for fuel. I always go there because it's right in the path of Florida, it's outside the Atlanta mess, and they are fast at quick turns. Mrs. H stayed in the plane because getting in and out is too hard. That set of legs was 5 hours of flight time, so all together it took about 8.5 hours to get down there and back. Long day.

The last 30 minutes of that flight to Kokomo, my oil door on the left engine pops open. Boink. It was closed. I KNOW it was closed. It was closed the whole flight and I didn't touch it in Georgia. When I landed at Kokomo, it was bent a bit but still on. I offloaded them, got some speed tape and taped the door down, topped off with fuel, and then flew it back over to Frankfort. I didn't get 10 minutes out and that door popped back open, ripping past three strips of duct tape. Tough door forces, man! Come to find out, the hinge on the inside was gone. Never had that happen before. Weird day, man.

I got the plane put away in Frankfort and drove back to Kokomo, where the Bonanza formation clinic guys were having pizza and beer and bourbon. I had dinner with everyone, no beer or bourbon, so that Morgan and I could then take the Champ up and her do some flying from the back seat while there was still a little bit of wind. I then drove Steve home, and crashed at the end of the day.

Sunday was Mother's Day, of course. I was back out at Kokomo by 8:30, to fly with Art in the T-6, while the formation guys did their sorties again. Saturday it was super gusty and windy, with Indy calling out low level wind shear from Southwest, so it was...fierce. Sunday was beautiful. Art is a Stearman pilot, and he did well in the T-6. It was my first T-6 checkout of the season, and that's always a little tense back there when you don't know how the person is going to do or what they may do to you. lol So I was glad he was competent. We spent a lot of time on the ground where I answered his questions, and then we flew for almost 2 hours. Airwork, no stalls, and 3 point TOLS. It was starting to come together for him.

Left there and came home mid-afternoon. Kaylee came over, we ordered food from Pastarrific and she picked it up for us on her way over, and we hung out for the evening, just eating, a little cuddling, before she had to head back to her apartment for a busy Monday, just visiting for Mother's Day evening.

Monday here, I was up early again, and I took the Aerostar over to Ohio to pick up Ethan who was dropping off the 340 to get fixed. Took him back to Frankfort, I went back to Kokomo, and we had leftover sandwiches from Bonanza guys for lunch. Then Morgan and I went back up in the Champ. She's going to be a tailwheel CFI with her first tailwheel student coming up this week, so I'm having her fly from the back. I bounced some landings for her to fix, and today we had gusty winds. Started off down the runway at 15 gusting 18. When she didn't have any trouble with that, I had her do it with a direct crosswind. She did well with that. Then the winds picked up to 22 knots and shifted direction, so we had a 40-50 degree crosswind no matter what runway we used. She handled it all just fine. She's ready. She won't be taking students up in those winds for awhile anyway, so she's doing great.

The rest of today I didn't get a lot done except scheduling. I unscheduled my Tues/Wed T-6 lady because of bad weather. I rescheduled a Wednesday guy for Illinois. I sent out a scheduling email to E and A. Talked to a bunch of people, actually, spent most of my evening on this stuff and I'm bored even talking about it again here. lol

Tomorrow I have PT on my arm, missed last week. Then nothing because the weather is going to be bad and my T-6 is cancelled. So...probably not much to talk about tomorrow except how it rained and whatever happens in PT.