So Thursday morning Morgan was to launch in BOB to Des Moines, Iowa, for her first weekend of giving rides all by herself. She was nervous about it, and we talked a few times, but I told her Glenn would be there, and she'd be just fine. The weather wasn't great, so she got a delayed start, and in the meantime, I took Andy and Josh in the Conquest over to Latrobe, Pennsylvania for a project they're working on over there. While we were there, I took their crew car to get breakfast, and I ended up at this place downtown, tiny cafe, and I ordered a "small pancake". It came back the size of the plate. I said "this is the small one?" and she laughed and said "Yep, this is the SMALL one!" It was delicious--the edges kind of thin and crispy like a crepe, the inside typical pancake with a little doughy, and it was a cinnamon roll pancake. I ate most of it, because it was really, really good. I hate it when I find really really good stuff because it ruins other lesser things from now on. ;) Pennsylvania is so hilly and pretty, it made for a nice drive around. I would have loved to have taken a nap at that point, my first stop, after a carb and sugar breakfast, and I was alone in a little room with recliners, but then I got a call from Morgan.
Morgan and I have an agreement. We don't like talking on the phone. And we both know the other doesn't like talking on the phone. Ergo, if one of us calls the other on the phone to actually talk, we answer the phone. So I'm sitting in the pilot lounge, when Morgan calls. I answer, and her voice is a little shaky, and her first words are "So I was landing BOB, and" and immediately I thought "oh shit, did she groundloop?" She did not. Whew. She had decided to stop short of Des Moines, for weather, and went to this place called Muscatine. The last 30 min of the flight, she felt like the plane was running a touch rough, and decided when she got on the ground she'd do a mag check again to make sure. All pressures and temps were in the green and appropriate. She got on downwind, and smelled something hot and burning. Thought to herself "that smells bad. Focus. Gauges all still green. Land the airplane." She lands the airplane, is rolling out, and sees white smoke Billowing out of the right engine in the back. She stops by the end of the runway and just shuts down, right there. Gets out and sees oil everywhere, and calls me. lol
We talk for a minute, then she hangs up and Facetimes me so I can see what's going on too. A truck is coming from the FBO to see what's going on, and she's telling me everything that happened and that she did and asks what to do next. I told her to get out the ladder, and check the oil on the right engine. It wasn't on the dipstick, so I said to add a jug and see where it put it. After 1.5 gallons it showed up as 4.5, which means it had 3, which means it wasn't out of oil, thank God. I had her ask if the airport had a way to tow the Beech, and they said no, they don't. So I told her to put it back up to 5 so she could start the plane up and taxi it over to a ramp, off the runway, out of the way. And to pull the prop through first and make sure there wasn't any kind of hydraulic lock or resistance, etc. first. It was all good. She facetimed the whole time she was taxiing, and showed me the white smoke still billowing out of the exhaust--looked like airshow smoke. The whole place went IFR after she taxied back, which was really funny in a way. She parks, shuts down, and wa-la, safe.
The airport guy in the truck asked if she had anyone else in there with her, and she was like "nope, just me, the child". Lol She thought that, she didn't say that. ;)
She did a great job with the whole thing. She wasn't even shaken up any more after the first few minutes there. Afterwards, we were talking, and she said she felt like it was a thing, but that she was pretty chill about the whole thing, and she wasn't sure if it was a thing. I said it was definitely a thing, and she has the advantage or disadvantage of being around someone (me) who is more low key with things that didn't actually go badly, but that most people would probably be pretty freaked out. But...nothing bad happened. She smelled it, she flew it, she landed safely, she saw it, she shut down, she got assistance, and both her and the plane are fine. She done good.
That finished up right when my guys came back and were ready to go to Virginia, which was IFR. I figured I'd nap there. Flew down to Virginia, shot the ILS in, broke out pretty high, and spent 3 hours there, nowhere else to go, in a small room with a dude I wished would go away. :p
By the time the guys came back, it was getting late. I got back to Frankfort to drop them off at 6:30 pm, and then flew the Conquest over to Toledo, where it needed to go for a Phase II inspection to last a couple days here. Meanwhile, Morgan was being rescued in the 172RG by Ethan, one of our other instructors, and Justin, one of our mechanics, who looked at the plane while he was there and determined where the leak was coming from. Morgan gets back to Kokomo in the RG, tops it off with gas, and then launches again to come to Toledo to pick me up. I only beat her by like 10 minutes.
We fly home at sunset, landing at Frankfort at 9 pm to drop me off to get my car. I now have an hour drive home, the long way because they're working on the roads I normally take, so I get home at 10. She has to fly back to Kokomo and put the plane away and drive home herself. We both get home at 10 pm, after getting up very early and having a long and not easy day. We were going to go out for a drink when we got back, a celebratory beverage, but instead we were both too tired and went home to crash. Figuratively. ;) I didn't go to bed until 11:30, because you need some unwind time, or at least I do, but then I slept through until 8 am this morning, only waking up because I had to go to the bathroom. It was nice. I was wiped. (And I think the sleepless nights I get once in awhile even when I am tired are cyclical, hormonal, because otherwise I have been sleeping a lot better than I used to. I'll take it...)
So that was my Thursday. A full one. I'm fairly sure I'm missing something...
Sun Dogs this morning
That really tasty pancake. Looks weird. Tastes delightful
The oil under BOB
Facetiming while taxiing (phone on the seat, not in hand)
More Messy BOB
The flap...
A quick clip I videod on my phone off my ipad of her showing the trail of smoke from the inside.
A video a line guy took of the Beech taxiing in, turning the field IFR with its smoke. We have decided we want a smoke system like airshow people because it's kind of cool.
Last pic, on the way home in the RG
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