Two Pilots & an LSW: Weekend

Kaylee texted us yesterday that she was headed to Pennsylvania for a couple days and wondered if we could watch Molly for her. I don't know where she's going, or with who, or for what, and I don't care, but I'm glad she's going out and doing something fun this weekend. :) Molly is too stinking cute. She's a little fluffball and talks a lot and is super engaged and happy to see you every time. If you don't like that cat, something is wrong with your personality, dang it.

My tooth hole is doing better. It still kind of itches and aches sometimes, but I only had to take one Advil yesterday. I've been doing what I was supposed to for care of it, and I think it's healing appropriately.

Saturday morning, Chuck came and picked me up at the house at 6:45 am (was going to be 7 so good thing I always get ready early lol), and he drove me to Marion, while Steve and AE went together after meeting up at Kokomo to pick up the trailer. I got to Marion as the sun was rising, which honestly depressed me, that it was still dark at 7-something a.m. C'mon, Mother Nature. Stop now.

When we got there, I went to go through the pancake line, and Ray J, in charge of the event, pulled me over and handed me a mic and did an interview with me over the whole PA system, to sell rides. I'm not great at interviews first thing in the morning, unprepared, etc., but I did all right. Had my pancakes and sausage, which were both very good, and then started greeting people I knew, hadn't seen for a long time, got hugged several times, and it sort of felt like I was 'back'.

We hadn't gotten any rides by 10 am, so I took Morgan up in the T-6 and just flew around the pattern a couple of times to make noise. She took some photos of the grounds below, and when I landed and we got out, I shook her hand like she was a passenger, and we all laughed.

We had SO MANY people there. Steve had called in a ton of reinforcements for the day, way more than we ended up needing, but hopefully they enjoyed spending the day out there somewhat anyway. We had 15 support people there, including me, and not including the CAF guys who were also there! Holy cow...

My rides started with Rob, the gent from Ft Wayne who isn't a pilot but had bought a T-6 and I used to fly him around in it. He bought a double ride for his buddy, an airline pilot. He is going to buy another T-6, and let his airline pilot buddy fly it, and his buddy (can't remember his name so let's say Kurt) wanted to do some flying and takeoffs and landings from the back seat. I hesitated, because I'll be darned if I want to let him do his first takeoffs and landings from the back seat at Marion, filled with everyone who knows the plane, knows me, where I've given rides for 17 years, where there are cameras and videos going at all times, because they're gonna think it's ME. He didn't care, didn't think it would be that big of a deal, but he didn't know what he didn't know, did he? Muncie airport wasn't that far away and he'd bought a double ride, so I had him do the flying in the air, I did the landing at Muncie and explained what I was doing, then I let him taxi us back to the runway. I asked tower to let us do some maneuvering on the ramp, which they granted, and they must have thought we were nuts, because I was showing him how to lock and unlock the tailwheel, spin around, stop it, lock it back in place, etc., and we had to do 20 turns or more. Finally he was ready, and I talked him through his first takeoff, which got a little sideways, not enough rudder, but he got it off the ground with a "whoa!" We came around the pattern, and I talked him through the landing. We turn final and he says "I can't see anything! How are you supposed to land if you can't see anything!" which made me laugh out loud, because that's what I said back there too! I was like "peripheral, man". He touched down okay, I told him not to move anything for a second or two, just let it settle. He moved something, the plane darts, and I rescue it and pull off. Have him taxi us back, and he does the second takeoff, which I also have to rescue because he's trying to pull it off the ground too soon, too slow, and crooked, after much swerving. Kurt says "Wow, this thing is amazing. You really have to know what you're doing in here, don't you". I'm like...yeah, THIS is why I wasn't going to do this at Marion in front of everyone! I just said that I have a lot of time in here and I still botch landings, and you have to respect the airplane, always. He said over and over that in the airlines, he's just a systems manager, but THIS kind of flying is why he got into flying in the first place, and he is so excited to learn new things, and he's so excited to actually be feeling the flying. I told him the usual line, flying is part art and part science, but in some airplanes, like the Cub, or the T-6, the art outweighs the science. You need the science to know what you're supposed to do as far as P-factor and gyroscopic precession and angle of attack and so forth, but you have to have the feel of it, the art of it, to actually be any good at executing the science. It's not just buttons and numbers. He loved that. When we landed, he was excited, and was talking to Rob and Steve about it, all lit up, and I'm pretty sure yesterday an airline pilot got his groove back for flying. ;)

I also had a little girl as a passenger. She was nervous, and her grandparents had sent her up. She was fairly quiet, but she would answer me. I asked if she wanted to try flying, she said no. I flew around a bit, gently going over the cities, etc., and I asked if she wanted to do things like a roller coaster, or if she liked it just like this. She liked it just like this. So we just floated around, I'd comment now and then, and then before going in I said "I'm not trying to pressure you into doing something you don't want, but I don't want you to have any regrets, so if you'd like to try flying it yourself for a second, I won't let you do anything that scares either one of us", and she agreed to it. She flew it for two turns, and then I took it back, and I came in and landed a little early, actually, because I could tell, she was good. She didn't need to keep going. I land, she gets out, and that night I see posts on Facebook about how this girl went on her first ride and she wouldn't stop smiling the rest of the day and how excited and happy she was, etc. So that's fun!

Next up was Rob, the non-pilot who bought Kurt his double ride. He got himself one, and we went up and talked and had fun too. He asked me if I'd gotten my Mustang checkout done yet. We'd talked about P-51s before, and he knew I wished I could do that. I said no, it takes $50k just to go down and get the initial insurance checkout, and that's not something I have available to me, and probably won't ever have (I mean, if I have $50k disposable I've got to be more practical with it), but that's life, and I changed the topic. We landed, and Kurt had been trying to convince him to get a Bearcat. I told him, "Hey, if you get that Bearcat, let me know so I can come over and pet it!" I was just kidding, of course. He said "I don't think that would be a great investment. I'm not a pilot, and it's a single seat airplane, so what am I going to do with that thing except write a lot of big checks and stare at it from the ground or on the ground. I think a better investment would be to send you to Florida and get you checked out in Mustangs." I, being me, had no idea what to say to that. I didn't say anything I don't think. He's too big to fit in the back of a Mustang, and I'm certainly not going to take him seriously. It was a sweet thing to say, though.

One of the last passengers was a club member who is learning to fly the Champ with Nick. He told me many times how much he loves our flight training centers, how he has a huge drive to fly with us but it's worth every moment, and he loved his flight time. Got down and talked some more to Steve about how much he enjoys FTC, the Champ, us, etc. So that's always nice to hear too. A lot of times unhappy feedback is a lot more common than happy feedback, ya know?

So basically yesterday was a lot of fun. It was kind of restorative—I needed that. I do love my job, but I need the back-up pilot so I can go do the rest of the things I love doing too. That needs to happen by next Spring. I’ve let my formation card expire, I’ve dropped out of the Air Power tour, I’ve only made 2 events this whole season, I haven’t been able to do any of the warbird training in the T-6 or C-45. I’ve lost touch with friends in that community.

It felt so good to see everyone, give rides on a pretty day, come home smelling like oil and radial engine with gnarled up hair from the open cockpit and a little sunburn, after having gotten lots of smiles and a few “whee’s”.

End of the day, I flew it back to Frankfort and met Chuck, AE, Morgan, Steve and a kid named Josh (one of the 15 workers there) at Pastarrific for an after-event dinner, which we all enjoyed. I hadn't eaten since pancakes at 7:45 am, and it was now 4:30 pm, so it was time to get some food!

Morgan asked if I was too tired to Champ with her (we use Champ as a verb too). I thought about it, and I was not. It was a beautiful evening. So we went out to Glenndale, and she and I went Champing, and had a lot of fun. She'd had to watch everyone else fly all day, and not get to do it herself. I get it, I know how that is for us addicts. :D She was having trouble on the bumpy grass strip, getting smooth takeoffs. The tail would go up and down, the plane would launch early, she did like 3 bad takeoffs in a row and was getting annoyed, so I said "Let me try one, probably do the same thing". I took off pretty fine, and it came back to me, so I helped her out on technique, which made us both happy. Me because I still have useful information for her even though she's rapidly getting very good, and her because she smoothed out and fixed a problem. lol I did one takeoff and one landing, but otherwise let her do all the flying. We ended and I said "Now do a wheel landing", and she didn't think she could on the rough runway. I said you can, and she got it. So I said "Now do a one-wheel landing", and she didn't think she could, and I said "If you can do a wheel landing, you can do a one-wheel landing!" and she did. So the evening ended as the sun was almost gone, and we laughed our way around the pattern for an hour and a half straight.

It was a good day.