I had to wear a sweater today--it was in the 30s this morning.
It was a non-stop day. I didn't have a moment to myself on the ground from the time I left the house this morning until about an hour ago when I got home at 9 pm. I woke up at 5:30 am even though I didn't have to get up until 7. So I got up, drove an hour to Frankfort, and took the 340 to Toledo, where I got lucky, because there was an F-16 with an emergency and some resealing happening and they let me in and out RIGHT before they shut the airport down for two hours. I shut down, picked up the Conquest's logbooks and nosewheel fender, filed IFR, took off and headed to Lima, OH. Had to shoot the ILS in because of rain and clouds. Stopped, did the paperwork for the LifeLine group, loaded up the husband and wife, took off IFR and headed to the Chicago area. Waukegan I think. The husband is a new pilot, and he has lung cancer. He's on a clinical trial but they just canceled the trial. He has to get from Lima to Waukegan every week, and it's a long drive. He's going today to get a treatment, and additional scans. If the clinical trial meds helped, his doc is going to try to get as many of them as possible before they're gone now that the trial has been shut down. So he's waiting to see scan results and learn his fate. Meanwhile, he was talking to me on the way there about how he was going to sell his RV-6 and buy a Comanche (high performance, complex, etc.) and how he intends on being a corporate pilot after he finishes his Instrument Rating, Commercial, etc. All I could think was...lung cancer. Lung cancer is not one of the ones that has a great outcome. About a 26% chance of surviving 5 years on average. I sure hope he beats it.
The flight was rougher, lots of rain and wind, very gusty all day. It was good and solid IFR, shot the RNAV in the heavy rain down to the runway with an almost direct crosswind gusting up over 25 knots, drop them off, talk and make sure their cab arrives to take him to the hospital for his treatment. File IFR, get back in the plane, fly back home. Spend the next hour in my car returning phone calls for people trying to schedule for the same days coming up, and trying to arrange tomorrow which ended up with two people needing to go two places in Ohio at the same times. Got that worked out. Got out to Kokomo Airport, got the Aerostar ready, flew down to Indy with Cameron, Morgan and Steve, to attend a CAF meeting. Cameron flew us there, Morgan flew us home, I right-seated it. They both did well with it. Next up was torture. We were in a crowded tiny hangar with 50 people, standing room only, for over 2 hours, in a meeting. Gave my update on the Air Power tour, the training for the C-45, yadda yadda. I hung out sitting on the wing of the PT-26 for most of it, because the food was gone and there was nowhere to sit except the floor. We flew back, Cameron put the Aerostar away, we drove home, with me on another phone call with someone about my Conquest, Cheyenne, and Meridian recurrent/initial training, which may run into the Arkansas rides event I'm supposed to take the C-45 down to the end of this month, and getting the Conquest out to its inspection in Colorado the same day I'm supposed to be doing a mass formation fly-over for a veteran's event in Illinois.
Even I'm tired by this day.
Tomorrow is get up at 6 am, drive an hour, fly Conquest from Frankfort to Kokomo, take Guy 1 to Ohio1, drop him off. Fly to Ohio2 and pick up Guy 2, fly him back to Frankfort. Drive an hour back to Kokomo, wait for call, take Cheyenne and fly back to Ohio1 to pick up Guy 1. Got it? ;)
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