Two Pilots & an LSW: New Yawk

I haven’t felt like complaining I guess! I haven’t felt like doing anything, actually. What a couple of days.

Well, working backwards, I’m sitting in an airline terminal in Detroit, Michigan, got her at 7 something and will be sitting here until 10:45 pm at which time I’ll depart for Indy. Should arrive there by midnight, to then get an Uber to Frankfort by 1 am, to then get home by 1:45-2 am, so that I can get up at 7:30 or so to go back out to Kokomo Airport to hop in the Cheyenne and fly right back out to…New York. Pick up Andy, take him all the way out to Omaha, NE, go home. Weather is sketchy again, so that’s great.

I couldn’t sleep last night, lot going on, but then I didn’t get out of bed very early either because even though I was awake I wasn’t “up and at ‘em”. Finally went downstairs for breakfast, which was the first food I’d had since lunch the day before, half of a taco salad. I was shaky I was so hungry and I hadn’t realized it. Yes, Mom, I know. ;) But I had a decent breakfast including yogurt, peanut butter on toast, eggs. Some protein and stuff.

I had gotten to bed very late and this was the cluster part where I guess I have to go back to the beginning.

I spent the whole day staring at the weather. Everything said there would be a bunch of storms right in my path, but looking at the data, most of it said it should be scattered. Workable in other words. It wasn’t supposed to be one big fat line of badness. We couldn’t leave until 5:15 pm because of his schedule and by 4 pm I knew we were in trouble already. It wasn’t scattered, it was forming, and it was merging. I had two “outs”, two holes I could hit. And then I watched them getting more and more narrow, and I knew that wasn’t gonna be a good idea. By the time we got ready to leave, one hole was down to about 12 miles wide, and it would take me 40 min to get there. *sigh* Nope. So I planned a second flight plan, going waaaay out of my way to the south to go down the back side of it.

When we got in the plane and I started it, the right side avionics didn’t come up. I had planned for that, and got ready to fly over to Kokomo and pick up the Cheyenne and take it instead. I had had the guys top it off and get it ready for me, my Plan C. Right as I was explaining this to Andy, it comes up, and the autopilot comes up too. Without the right side, no autopilot. Without the autopilot, I will admit I’d have been in trouble in that plane in the weather and with all the huge re-routes and arrivals and looking up waypoints and plugging in 15 waypoints into the GPS at a time (more than once) and having to hand fly too. Some airplanes I’m fine. That one is trickier. It just is, trust me. I thought about taking the Cheyenne anyway, because I want it to work coming OUT of there too. But we’re already late, weather is already bad, everything is working, and I go.

That plan started off great. And then ATC kicked in, and because of all the weather and the traffic issues it was causing, they routed me most of the way to Florida and up the back side, over the top of Washington DC, and through the worst of the airspace. I had massive full route clearance reroutes, and then was given an “Fly Via the whatever Arrival”, which means I have to hit every waypoint at the right altitude and speed and stuff, which is easy to do with modern avionics, and harder to do with the old manual stuff we still have in there for now. And you’re in the middle of JFK and La Guardia and Newark and if you goof it up, you will be getting a phone number to call. I did not goof it up, fortunately. Shot the ILS in, landed, shut down, and the line guy says “WHOA, your right engine is POURING oil!”

I get out and look at it, and he’s not exaggerating. The bottom of the right engine has two streams of fluid literally pouring out of it. Huge mess, streaming. I have time to stare and look and get out a camera and video it and everything. I can’t leave like THAT. I was supposed to get gas and leave and head down to S. Carolina to be ready to pick up Ethan and family early the next morning. We put a bucket under the mess but it was already all over the place.

I call Ethan, I go inside and ask for on-field maintenance but it’s 9:45 pm. The line guy pulls some strings and gets a couple guys out there and they take off panels and look, and it’s hydraulic fluid. They don’t know a thing about Conquests. They don’t know where to check the hydraulic fluid level. They don’t know how to motor the engine, they don’t know where anything is under there. So I call the West Star mechanic, who picks up at 10:30 pm, and he talks them through some things to look at. We’re out there until 11:45 pm or so. At one point we put hydraulic fluid back in, and they ask me to start it so they can try to see where the fluid is leaking from. The one guy gives me the “kill it” sign asap and I get out and there’s still smoke coming out of the right side and fluid spraying all over the place again. So much they can’t even tell where it was leaking from.

It’s late, I’m really tired, it’s been a long, stressful day in every way, spending the whole day planning and staring at weather and trying to look at a crystal ball and anticipating every problem I could, I had four plans in place, but I couldn’t anticipate THAT.

The desk lady offered to help me book a room with their ‘guaranteed rate’ of $180. She called for me and they said it was $300. So I went on my Hilton app and just reserved a room for myself for $155, and got a Lyft over to it. Except the app wasn’t working and wouldn’t find my reservation and wouldn’t let me check in remotely. The problem with that is now I have to go to the front desk. It’s now 12:25 am, and my driver’s license doesn’t pull up the reservation because the hilton honors thing is in Steve’s name. She has to call his number and talk to him—except we changed it to my number. And my email. And my credit card. Just his name. She said they can’t let me have the room, it has to be him. I’m about to have a melty at this point. If I could have checked in via the app I’d have just gone to my room and it would be fine, like every other time, but not THIS day, of COURSE. She eventually took pity on me and added me as a secondary person to the room and let me in but said I needed to fix it. I finally get to bed around 1 am, and then I wake back up in a couple hours and never really get back to sleep because of all the stuff running through my mind. I have so much planning to do and people to contact and more weather to look at and an airline ticket to buy and a way to get back here to figure out and maintenance shop people to talk to and just…a lot of stuff. Hard to sleep like that. The whole day was exhausting and difficult and frustrating.

Two random things. When we were on the ramp working on the airplane, a giant animal walked across in front of us. Giant. I thought it was a possum but I just caught a glance. The mechanic swears it was a giant, and I do mean giant, rat. GIANT rat, if that’s what it was. Either way, it waddled across an aviation ramp like it owned the place. Secondly, when they checked the hydraulic fluid level, there was zero in there. Zippo. I saw where it went, all over the ramp, but I’m glad I had enough in there to put the gear and flaps down uneventfully to land, without having to blow the gear down, at least. Part of me says “yep, should’ve just taken the Cheyenne” and the other part is like “well it would have failed somewhere somehow, and on the ground here is as good a place as any and better than the hose blowing somewhere on the way to Colorado or something”. Oh, it was a hose that broke, blew off, blew a hole in it, something like that.

We have a mechanic from Ohio coming to help these two mechanics here fix it, because they know nothing, and I do mean Nothing, about this type aircraft, and it was not confidence inspiring listening to them talk amongst themselves last night. At all.

So even though I did get dehydrated, and I didn’t eat, and I didn’t sleep, I still didn’t get a headache somehow, and today I am making up for it. Drinking a lot of water, eating well, not doing much strenuous. It’ll be a late night and an early morning, but I’m taking extra care where I have down time, and I have a LOT of down time today. Sitting around at airports waiting for airline flight.

I should’ve stayed at Million Air today longer. Instead I headed over to the airline terminal expecting options. It is tiny and there are not comfy seats or places to plug in or much to eat. Million Air has huge comfy couches, a rest room, free food and drinks. I was a fool, but it was a 20 minute drive and $10 valet tip to get there so I didn’t want to do it three times total.

This has not been a grand adventure. Now I need to stare at the weather some more for tomorrow. Can’t tell you how thrilled that one makes me…

Oh, my first airline flight today I ended up in an exit row, except there is no exit. More leg room, an exit sign, but no actual exit. I wondered if I was the only one who noticed that. The flight attendant points at it when she’s talking about exits and I look at the side of the plane and…no. No exit. I don’t mind the leg room, but I hope people don’t stampede my way if we end up off the runway because we ain’t getting out there.

I’ve also seen about 20 airline pilots walking by since I’ve been sitting here. One happy bright shiny blond girl and everyone else looks puffy, fatigued, worn down and ready to go home. Of course, for once, I probably look that way too, so fair is fair. ;)