Saturday's Stuff

Harkcom took me and Morgan over to Lewis University, IL's airport, where the Twin Beech was sitting waiting for us. It's funny, the airplane wears me out, is messy, and I hate getting messy. I don't even eat ribs because I hate my fingers and hands getting all sticky and messy. You cannot prep the Beech without getting oil on your fingers, hands, and usually clothes. It's hot in and outside. When someone else takes over for me, I feel relief. I'm done, I made it, I don't have to get up and spend 30-45 minutes early in the morning getting it ready and another putting it to bed, don't have to sweat in the flight suit, can go home, yay!  And then our plane pulls up on the ramp next to it, and I see it, and I smile, and it's great to see it again. Morgan does all the prep work and gets HER hands and clothes oily. ;) First we head back to Kokomo. Justin takes off right behind us, so I do a little formation on him on the way home, which he implied he'd like to see, before we got home and he landed, and Morgan and I continued past the airport to do some Twin Beech training.

With Morgan, I had her go up to 3500', and we did an emergency gear extension first. Then I went through an engine failure, with full shut down and feathering the engine, and restart.  That went well, so did a simulated one. Went fine. Came in to do the hard part--the landings. We did three normal landings, and they were going well, so I started in on her. Pulled the engine on downwind, and had her go through and come in for a landing. The set up went fine but she was too high and too fast, made it down, but needed better energy management, so this time I pulled the engine 400' after takeoff, and that one went well.  Did an electrical failure manual flap extension/retraction, a small "Beech Bobble" bounce recovery, and a go-around at the last minute.  Ended on a normal landing, and called it because she was getting tired, and we looked at the clock at it had been 3 hours. That's plenty of a work-out.  We brought it in and shut down and it was almost 2 pm, and Steve and Nathan had been waiting for us to go eat lunch, which was really nice.

We went to have some Mexican food, then came back and continued the education by learning how to operate the tugs for the 340 and the T-6/C-45. Rearranged the big hangar, pulled out the Citabria, the T-6, and the 340, and put BOB in the back, then the 340 in the other side of the back, then the T-6 in the front, and the Citabria on the other side of that. Because next up I've got someone coming for T-6 training Monday, and then the 340 goes to OH for annual after that.  And the Cheyenne is finally home, so we are going to try to go fetch that on Wednesday in PA. 

After lunch, our 172 stumbled on an instructor and student, and didn't come back right away. So I took it up to try to make it break on me. Stayed over the field, replicated the scenarios, I could get it to stumble for 2 seconds, but not the 8-12 seconds that the others said happened to them. After almost an hour of messing with it, yanking the power in and out, gliding down, carb heat off and on, mag check in the air at full power, etc., I landed and gave the report to Steve, so he can chew on it.

I enjoyed the day.

For you, Mom.

Morgan putting oil in BOB

Awkward dismount

Next engine

Happy Flying

Two hot bald-looking girls in different seats than normal

The prop is feathered but you can't tell here

Shirts that Kevin D. bought for me and Morgan as a gift. Nathan photobombed this shot behind Morgan so we took another, but I kind of like his photo bomb. ;)

No Photo Bomb

Pics as a thank you to Kevin for the shirts

Me catching up to Justin in the RG

Hiiiiiii

172RG looks funny with the wheels up.