Two Pilots & an LSW: Weekend Update

Busy but uneventful, which is just fine.

Kaylee has been home over the weekend, and she seems to be feeling okay-ish. She's got her cardiologist appointment tomorrow and she's just worried he'll have nothing to say. I said it'll probably be a consultation first so I doubt you'll have answers right out of the gate, but you have to take it a step at a time, and this is another step.

She got on our computer and played with a couple of her friends on an online computer game. Her laptop isn't strong enough for that so she bums our computer. I felt like it was kind of funny though that she's over there talking through her apple ear buds on her phone while playing with them, and then her ear buds died, so I lent her mine, but she said my mic might have a problem because they can't hear her well so I charged hers up...it felt like she was 15 again with a problem that I kept solving for her because she was getting flustered. Like...man up, girl, it's okay! ;) Meanwhile, we're watching "Masters of the Air" about the hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of 18-20 year old kids who went up knowing they'd probably die, just to do their duty. And my 23 year old is like "MY EAR BUDS ARE DEAD AND YOURS AREN'T WORKING RIGHT AND I'M SO FRUSTRATED AND I CAN'T PLAY GHOST WITH MY (adult married) FRIENDS'. Some day maybe she'll read this and maybe she'll be old enough to understand why I helped her out, and shook my head ruefully at the same time. For my Gen X-ism here..."kids today"... And most younger Gen Z and A are way worse! At least my kid also buckles down and does what has to be done for work, life, etc. ;)

Today (Sunday) was supposed to be the Winter Storm Event, so I convinced my guy down in Florida to let me pick him up Saturday instead, when the weather was actually supposed to be nice. Morgan was supposed to pick him up Sunday, but she couldn't do it Saturday because she was Maid of Honor in a wedding and skipping that didn't seem wise or kind. So I did it instead. It was perfectly clear all the way, and I had enough of a tailwind I could make it all the way down there non-stop, which is nice for once. They came, and now we had enough of a headwind the stops weren't even a question. I stopped at my usual place in Georgia, where they are CAA (so cheap fuel) and they get you in and out in 20 minutes. In fact they were faster. Now that we're on file and everything, we'd all just gone to the bathroom and came out and they were done. The only delay there is getting in and out, it's right around Atlanta so they always route us around, down low and slow, and add 20 minutes to our flight just right there. I may have to look for another stop with CAA fuel that's on the way where we don't have to deal with Atlanta and speed things up a little...if they'll be that fast on the ground, too.

When we got back, it was 12 degrees in Indiana. I took about 3-5 minutes to secure the plane on the ramp, because the airport guys at Marion didn't want to stay an extra 30 minutes to put it away in its heated hangar. Unlike Frankfort. And at Kokomo I can do it myself. Anyway. The chocks were frozen solid to the ground so I couldn't move them, and I went walking around looking for more up by the building and there weren't any. Good thing it wasn't supposed to be windy by morning. I put all the covers in/on. By the time I was done with that, 3-5 minutes, my hands were burning and frozen, THROUGH gloves. My hands are such a weak point on me now, they've been frostbit enough times. I had pre-started my car, so when I got into it, my heated steering wheel was on, and my heated seat, and I just sat on my hands for awhile, and wrapped one around the wheel and the other on the seat until I was home. My hands still sting a little bit today when I scrunch up a fist. But if I get super thick gloves, I can't wear them to do anything anyway. I ought to look at some of those little heater packs you can put in your palms. It won't save my fingers, which are the part that hurts the worst, but maybe it'll be better. I'll have to see if I can dig those out.

Tomorrow I'm trying to take the guy from Burlington, Iowa to Raleigh-Durham, NC for his experimental cancer treatment. We've got a winter storm moving through basically the entire route here. Kokomo is getting squat, so far, and not looking to get anything super interesting. But south of us is a mess. I arranged with Frankfort to start plowing early and to keep me appraised of when I can get from the hangar, down the taxiway, and off the runway safely tomorrow. Iowa looks fine. NC is going to get hit with low IFR and heavy rain, so I'll have to watch out for that, and sleet, and bad icing in the air on the way. I'm hoping this works out and I don't have to make them drive through it instead. But it will be what it will be, right?

So a friend let me know that Apple TV was free for this weekend only. I have a few things I'd like to see on there, but I don't have time to see them all, so I went for "Masters of the Air", because...WWII and B-17s and Airplanes, of course. An acquaintance was the tech advisor for the show, he's also a B-17 pilot, and he and his girlfriend made a big deal of the release, the promos they got to attend, opening night, a gala or two, some Hollywood stuff I guess. When it came out, it got hit with the same bombs that EVERY aviation movie gets hit with. The actual pilots come out of the woodwork to show how knowledgeable and cool they are and pooh pooh things here or there, details, CGI, whatever, and 'hate' it because of that. I'd like to know how they would like to re-create hundreds of bombers in the skies over hundreds of ships in the sea without CGI. Just wanna put up the 5 or 6 B-17s we still have flying and not portray what it must have looked like to see the skies full? I remember a few being upset at the haircuts of a couple of the pilots. Because again, that's the point of the movie, right, to make sure you get the haircuts 100% correct? Those people really annoy me. I don't want Hollywood to just not care, to get nothing right, either. But stop taking important historical movies, series, shows, etc., and tanking them and their stories publicly just because you as a C-172 pilot, or pilot wanna-be, or even warbird light pilot wanna be, think you're super cool to know internet factoids about something and like to prove hollywood wrong.

Steve and I liked it. Yes, there was CGI. Honestly, I was kind of glad for it a couple of times, because some of the scenes in the air were intense, and if they'd looked any more realistic I'd have PTSD myself. Sometimes a vivid imagination isn't helpful in life. ;) Imagine being up there, undefended, losing half or more of my squadron with every mission, watching them blow up, blow apart, dive down, men falling out, on fire, all around you. One mission, only one wounded B-17 returned. Being sent on these suicide missions constantly, sometimes daily, losing 10 men with every plane and sometimes 10+ planes per mission. New planes and crew constantly being brought in, just fodder. If a crew survived 25 missions they were sent home. It didn't usually happen. It was so rare they threw a huge party if it did to provide hope to the rest of them who probably wouldn't make it. The story was based off of real missions and real men on them. A handful of the survivors, their stories and photos were told at the end of the last episode. Most of them lived to be very, very old, doing things like school teacher in Detroit.

It was heavy, hard, but one of my favorite parts was when the P-51s were introduced to help keep more of the B-17s alive. They're on this horrid mission, that had wiped out half their people on the last run of the same mission, but this time as they're manning their guns, and they see the enemy fighters up there getting ready to attack, and they call it out and get ready to try to defend themselves with their on board machine guns as usual, then suddenly you see a crap ton of Mustangs go ripping past them, and for the first time, engage the enemy fighters, shoot them down/run them off, and keep them safe. I actually got goosebumps, because I can almost imagine the relief those boys, sitting ducks in the bombers, felt seeing that. And that was real. I've even heard bomber pilots say they couldn't describe how they felt seeing the fighters engage to protect them. This really visualizes that, after you spend a few hours watching B-17s shot to pieces and blown out of the air unprotected prior to that. It sure was a turning point in the war. Watching D-Day unfold from above was pretty cool. The show also dove briefly into POW camps, where because of the Geneva Convention they were treated okay, but showed also the liberation of the prisoners (which was fabulous) and walking through concentration camps with nothing left but dead, burned, starved, frozen bodies. The atrocities that a lot of people today want to minimize or pretend didn't happen. One old Jew said "We are already forgotten. Even the dirt that covers our bones won't remember us." He's probably going to be right, some day.

Anyway. I got it all in before the free weekend expires, so thanks for that. :)

Now...watching football and the weather, and glad for the day off. First day all year I haven't flown, in fact!