Two Pilots & an LSW: Iowa

Friday, August 15, 2025

Iowa

What a mess of a couple of days. Airplane problems. BOB is a mess, the Conquest is a mess, my schedule is a mess. But it'll all work out eventually.

Spencer, Jon and a new kid named Ethan are out in Muskatine, Iowa working on BOB. They got stopped for want of a tool. They couldn't find it in all of Muskatine. We couldn't find it in Kokomo. We called stores, mechanics, and finally we find what we think we need, and Steve and I load up the Aerostar and fly it out to the guys. It's not the right thing. We call mechanics in nearby cities in Iowa, and find the tool. I fly us over to pick it up, and THAT was it. Finally the engine is hung back on BOB. Missing a cylinder and all accessories, but at least it's off the fork truck hanging there and back on the plane.

It's hotter than heck again, too.

The Conquest is in Toledo and they were going to work all day and try to find out why it wouldn't start on the left engine. It never acted up on them, so they couldn't fix what they couldn't find. And now instead of me going back to get it to go to Florida tomorrow, I have to get up at 4:45 a.m. and take the Meridian, including two fuel stops, down there to pick up Andy. But I didn't know that until the end of the day, so I filed two flight plans. One in the Conquest, one in the Meridian, because I needed the plans in 23 hours in advance because I'm going to SE Florida on a Sunday and I need to get in the system. Now I know I'm just going in the Meridian so I deleted the Conquest plans. But whew. It's also close enough that I could almost go non-stop, but shouldn't, and it would be very close. I want to go non-stop because it saves an hour of my life in an already slower airplane and already long day. *sigh*

I had Morgan take my MBros flight tonight in the 340. She went to Lake Front airport with Dustin and his family. I did that so I could get the Conquest (didn't happen) and run to Iowa (did). Next week I have a problem needing to take Kevin's people somewhere on the 25th or 26th. Well, the 25th I have an Andy flight and the 26th I'm having oral surgery. And I have NO open days that entire week. But we need to take Kevin's people around, because Ethan over-used the Cheyenne, and we need to pay some of it back.

I added photos and a Kaylee story to one of the posts from the last few days, don't remember which one, so you'll have too skim to find the Kaylee paragraph in the last few days. I know you're a quick reader. ;)