Two Pilots & an LSW: Well Then

So many things.

First, "the next three days are gonna be a lot" was an understatement. But I'm home now, thank God.

Friday I did indeed have to take six people down to Tennessee. To make it even better, it was 6 people plus bags plus 3 sets of golf clubs (at least the modern ones are light weight now). To top it all off, Where I was going was out of 100LL for the next week, so I couldn't even go in there minimum fuel, I had to have enough to get back out and get to another airport and have reserves. The Cheyenne isn't here, the Conquest isn't going to make it back for another week (they say). I asked them if they could a charter elsewhere and they could not. I asked Ethan if he could take the 340 and I could take the MBros 340 and we could split them up, but Ethan's daughter's graduation party was that evening so he couldn't. I asked them if I could take two rounds of people, one earlier than the other. They couldn't. They couldn't get any other way down there. They had reservations for things and events. So I made calculations and I ended up overgross no matter what, but I took minimal fuel, leaned it way back, piled everyone in, took off, and about 40 minutes into the flight I wasn't overgross any more. Not how I generally operate, felt a little bit stuck in a corner. It was hot. It was SO hot. We were all dying in there on the ground. In the air it was hot up front and cool in the back. But it always stays hot up front with the windows.

I land, drop them off, immediately take back off and head VFR for the nearest airport to get gas. I'd called them ahead of time to make sure their self serve was working, and his voice was funny like "yeah, of course", but I've made stops before where the self serve pump had an issue or they were out of 100LL but it hadn't been NOTAMd yet, and I didn't have enough gas to get anywhere else if they had a problem. So they had gas, I stopped, and topped off, and the trip home was lovely. Before we left, I'd gotten a Jimmy John's sub sandwich to eat on the way home, but doing the self serve fuel I got hose dirt all over my hand/arm trying to get it back on the reel. I ate the sandwich anyway, but I'll show you the photo later. ;)

I ended up at Frankfort at like 9 something p.m. Steve met me there with my car, and drove me down to Indianapolis, where I got my hotel room, at 10:30 pm. Got to sleep around 11. I was already in trouble, because I learned that the hotel's 24 hour shuttle service left every hour at 15 minutes after the hour. My plane boarded at 5:20 am, so the 4:15 am shuttle would be too late. I had to get up at 2:40 am to be on the 3:15 am shuttle. I didn't put my contacts in, I didn't put my make up on. I woke up, got in the shower, cleaned up, got dressed, packed up my stuff, and went downstairs to get on the shuttle. I have never gone in public like that before, but I. Did. Not. Care.

I get there at 3:30 am, and a sign at the TSA checkpoint says they don't even open until 4:30 am. So I sat down and put my make up on in the main area while we waited. Left my glasses on though. There are no coffee shops or food shops open at 3:30 am which is an additional cruelty. No caffeine available. We go through, and I throw my driver's license in the top of my purse as I always do because they make you show it, and then immediately send you to a scanner. My stuff comes out and my driver's license is gone. I dump my entire purse. I clean out the whole bin. I'm digging in my bags that I hadn't opened just in case I'm so tired I forgot something. It's not there. I feel mild panic. I tell them my driver's license is missing. They look, and they find it in their "trap", a thing that collects things that fall out of the bins. Sheesh. That's another way to start your day.

I'm sitting there getting ready to board, and I decide I should check into the next leg of my trip. I'm going from Indy to Washington DC, to Syracuse. If you recall, I was originally sent a ticket for the wrong dates, a day too early. I can't find the next leg on my app. I go digging more right as they are boarding us. There IS no next leg on my flight. I'm landing in DC and going nowhere afterwards. I text Glenn and let him know, and he suggests I buy a ticket from DC to Syracuse. I'm on the plane, I don't know how to work the wifi on there, we're taking off, I can't get to the flight, and when I do it says no seats available. I text him that, and he's on the ground waiting to take off himself as the pilot. He says he'll work on it, and I'm now out of texting ability and range and have no idea how or if I'm going to make the connecting flight from DC to Syracuse, or if I'm stuck in DC. That makes for a long two hour flight at 5:30 am, and I'm too wired up to try to sleep like I was going to try to do.

I land in DC, have 40 minutes to get the connecting flight...if I have one. I start heading for that gate, because of course I'm in A concourse and I need to be in D concourse which is a tram ride away. I get a text, Glenn says I have a seat on the airplane and am going to Syracuse. So that's good.

Getting to Syracuse wasn't so bad after that. I was still in bummy clothes and my glasses, but I Figured I'd change in the FBO nice cool bathroom. I walk all the way to the pick up spot, an FBO car comes and gets me, and lets me know I'll be going to the other side of the field from the FBO. He drops me off on the ramp, and I try to hunt down a bathroom. There isn't really one. The nearest FBO is a big hike away. The big hangar has a taped off bathroom stall, no air, few lights, in concrete, and it's hotter than hell. I go in there, take off my clothes, put on my flight suit, which is already sticking to me, put in my contacts, and go out there and start getting the plane ready. I've got everything done except the oil, and a storm line moves in, they push all the planes away, and I stop working on it. An hour later, weather moved out, and I start doing rides. I did six of them in a row, boom boom boom, all full flights, so that was good. The weather was still murky and not great, and we're going out of an international Class C airport, so it was busy, but...got the job done and it was all right.

The end of the evening, I needed fuel, so I asked for it, and waited by the plane for an hour while they fueled other planes. So hot out there, sweat just runs into your eyes, runs everywhere. I've never sweated so much in my life as doing this. So I stood out there an hour in the sun in my flightsuit waiting, because I didn't know it would take an hour and the plane was a hike away from the gate so I didn't want to hike over and then have to hike back. Fuel truck finally gets over to me and says "So sorry, we ran out of fuel. It'll take an hour to fill up the fuel truck and get back to you. Can we do it in the morning?" Well, we'll have to now, because they won't wait another 1.5 hours or more for me to finish up fueling, which means I start off tomorrow behind the ball. Fine.

The guys wanted to go to Mexican, and they were all going. I had slept 3 hours the night before. I was dehydrated no matter how much I drank, I had flown non-stop six rides in a row, I'd been around people non stop. I'd been on two airline flights, got up at 2:40 am, two shuttles, didn't know if I'd have a ride, and I was DONE. I asked them to have someone please take me back to the hotel, I wasn't doing dinner. Guy named Jeremy drove me back to the hotel. I get inside, and I sit in silence in the air conditioning, and I order PF Changs and a Crumbl Cookie from Uber Eats to be delivered to my hotel. I sit at my desk there, eat Chinese, and update RallyPoint, and send off texts to Kaylee, Steve and Morgan. I look at my weather for Sunday, and I get concerned. I get a text from Loren, the guy who was coming back in the Beech with me to get the 5-6 hours training time so he could help us out. He can't make it, got called into work. I pass out. At or before 9 pm, I'm gone.

I wake up at 2 am to take the headache med I knew was coming without a doubt. Went back to sleep in about 20 minutes, and I slept straight through to 6 am when I had to get up to start the day. To say I needed that was an understatement.

Sunday, today, dawned pretty in Syracuse, but there was a line of storms that were supposed to move through, and they were between me and home. The best option was to get out early and try to get to a place called DKK and stop and get fuel ahead of the line. Well here, I typed this out once elsewhere, I'll just copy/paste it here.

Today's adventures. I was supposed to do rides in Syracuse until 2-3 pm and then take another guy who was going to airline in back home with me for a 5-6 hour flight in the airplane to build his hours in it so he can help us out. Instead, he got called into work and the weather turned to crap, so I bugged out of there this morning by myself.

My plan was to stop at a place and get fuel, just before the weather. But the fuelers at Syracuse delayed me by an hour, and the weather beat me to my fuel stop. I was going to fly through just the rain, but then ATC let me know that three other pilots that came through it said it was moderate to heavy and they were IMC in there. I can't be IMC in the Beech, so I diverted. I was going to a little strip with cheap fuel next, and pulled up their AWOS, and the winds were a 60 degree crosswind gusting to 29 knots, and the runway was only 3300' long. I noped out of that, told ATC I'd just go to Buffalo. Winds there are 18 gusting 28 at the time, and only 10 degrees off the runway. Cool beans. He has me do three 360s on downwind for big boy traffic, because I am very slow. Then he sends me down final and informs me that the winds are now 18 gusting 39 knots with wind shear being reported down final, loss and gain of 15-20 knots on short final, and one aircraft that did a go-around for it.

I mean, it wasn't far off the runway, but that is a LOT in a taildragger. It was not forecast to do that, I would not have launched, I would not do that kind of wind and wind shear on purpose in a C-45 or T-6 either one. But looking around, there weren't any other better options. So I made one of the most puckered up landings I've made. However, fear is a good motivator for concentration, and it ended up being one of the nicest landings I've made in there in awhile.

I've just got my tail down, rolling out, relieved as heck, and the tower guy comes on and says "Right on Echo, left on Delta, Delta 3, Quebec, Hold short Runway 14 at Quebec with me" or some such thing, and I laughed on Freq and said "I'm single pilot with my hands full, I'll have you repeat that in a second". He laughed and said "no problem".

I get gas, I wait, there's a kind of break in the weather, I have some rain to fly through. I find that there's a gap in the window that shoots rain at your left eye and forehead, and pours water onto my right leg from another spot. The eyeball one was more problematic but if I put sunglasses on I couldn't see at all.

Finally got home after 6 hours of turbulence, lowish clouds, dodging rain, flying over the middle of the great lakes, which I hate doing, winds, winds, winds so strong I was doing 75 knots groundspeed at 2500' with 120 knots indicated. No autopilot on the C-45 so six hours of that and the first 5 hours of it dealing with weather, I'm tired again. Glad I don't have to fly until 3 pm tomorrow. Glad to be home.

Steve and I pulled out the T-6, put away the C-45, pushed back in the T-6, closed up, stopped at Hardees for chicken strips for dinner, and came home, where I'm only halfway unpacked, but have two loads of laundry done already, because...it was hot.

I slammed my toe into the rolling chair, and now that toe feels bigger than my other toes and hot. I don't think I broke it, but it hurts like a son of a gun even two hours later. It's my middle toe, of all the weird things to hurt. Lol

Now I'm watching the Air Race Classic results banquet, to see how Morgan's team did on the race. I know she didn't get any penalties, so that's great, and now we'll see where her team placed, at some point tonight. :)

Whatever I forgot, I forgot, and if I remember, I'll post tomorrow. In the meantime, I'll be going to bed after I hear these results!