Two Pilots & an LSW: T-6 Adventure

Happy Birthday Steve! 66 years old, on the downside of the 60s now. :o

Sunday was a quiet day at home all day, until 5 pm. I went on out to Kokomo Airport for the 1-hour T-6 flight with Dave. He's a Pitts pilot, aerobatic competition guy, instructor, so I was a little concerned with what he'd want to do in there, but he was good, he wanted to basically do a checkout flight in the plane, not just go up and go upside down for an hour. So we went up and did steep turns, stalls, which were very benign because he's small and he was in the back, so the forward CG makes the plane a lot more stable. Put a big dude in the back and it gets a lot more exciting. Anyway, we flew around for awhile and did all the things, and he was flying and recovering from everything well, so I said if he wanted to do some rolls, he was welcome to. He did one roll, and then on the second roll he tried to do a slow roll, and it didn't go well. Ball was completely out of whack, we were sideways in the air, and went negative Gs, and my map case flew open, and I saw stuff flying everywhere. I saw a checklist and some water bottles go by, and my phone was no longer in the map case either. I figured it was all on the floor. We finished up and came in and did three takeoffs and landings, and then parked it, and started cleaning out the back of it. He found three water bottles, two pens, a part off my helmet, a checklist, but not my phone. I tried to "ping" it from my watch but it said I wasn't connected, which wasn't a good sign. I'd also been listening to music which had gone away, which also wasn't a good sign.

So I borrowed Dave's phone, to call Kaylee, who did not answer. Of course not, it's a number she doesn't know! So I texted her something like "it's me mom answer the phone". She texted back "You have the wrong number", because in her head she thought it was "It's me, mom" and she's like "I'm not anybody's mom!" So I texted back "It's Laura" and I called her back and finally she answered. She thought for a split second something was wrong, I was hurt, had been in a car wreck or something because why else would I be calling on someone else's phone. So, sorry about that!

I asked her to check my location. I share my location with Steve, Kaylee and Morgan, and they with me. Not for weird, stalkery reasons, but some practical and some just because it's a nice connection. Kaylee pulls me up and is like "Oh, Mom's in Florida" or "Mom's moving really fast over the ground, not on roads, she must be flying". This time, she looked me up and said "Nope, it shows you're somewhere over by Converse right now". (I was not over by Converse right then). But my phone was live and sending a signal right then, which was amazing.

I put all the planes away in the muggy heat, sweating like crazy, said goodbye to Dave and his family, and then drove home, because I didn't have any way to get my own location on my Apple Watch. It doesn't have its own GPS, so it needs to be connected to...my phone. lol So I went home, where Steve was rolling his eyes at me, and did NOT want me to go look for the phone. It's now dark, it's in a corn field somewhere. But it was still live and pinging. I didn't know how long that would be the case, you know? He told me I couldn't wander around in someone's field in the dark on private property, they could arrest me (I said they ain't gonna arrest me if I tell them what I'm doing, they'll probably laugh about it), Kaylee later said someone could shoot me, shoot first and ask questions later, and I decided that was probably highly unlikely too, but thanks for that. I really, really wanted to go look. But I had one other problem. Corn fields in the dark, fully grown corn, is very scary. And tight rows now days. And FILLED with spiders. So enter Morgan, who is not afraid of spiders and who grew up playing in corn fields and is completely unbothered.

Kaylee and I got some bright flashlights, and went back out to Kokomo, where I inspected the T-6 to make sure that nothing that flew out of the map case hit the surface anywhere and caused any dings, dents, damage. Indeed, it did not. But we got trapped in there with, speaking of spiders, a BIG ONE. I mean it. I'm not exaggerating. It was really, really big, right by the inside door. I get across the doorway, Kaylee is following me and she yelps and jumps out of the hangar. I turn around and this thing, as big as a 50 cent piece is in the middle of the doorway. About gave me a heart attack. I go into the bathroom and find a can of spider spray, and I let Kaylee in through the side door, and then I just start blasting this thing with the spray. It will not die. It is big. It keeps walking towards me, only now it's completely covered in white foam. It's a white giant spider on a black rug/runner. Coming towards me. I keep making high pitched noises and Kaylee keeps saying "You're being so brave! You're being so brave!" Which cracked me up because I was NOT being so brave, my heart rate was almost double. Finally it died, and I left it right there, because I am not picking it up with a paper towel, I am not bending down over it, I am not touching it. I am leaving it there for someone else to hopefully find Monday morning.

Morgan now shows up, and we pile into my car, and use the "Find my iPhone" app to get directions to the phone's location. It tells me exactly where to park my car, which is directly across from a farm house. Since it's a narrow, dark back road, I pull into these people's silo area, just off the road, and all the lights are off in the farm house, so they must all be in bed. Which is good. Morgan, Kaylee and I hike though the edge of the corn field which is butted up against a bean field. Morgan has this lantern thing that outshines both our other flashlights by a lot, and she leads the way. I walk where she walks so any spiders will already be knocked off. We walk to the approximate distance into the field, and then turn and are facing a wall of corn. It's in there. I can't do it. Could I have done it if Morgan wasn't there? I doubt it. Maybe? I dunno. But I didn't have to, because she just plowed in, and disappeared into the corn. Pretty soon I hear her talking, and she's talking about maybe trying to call it, and then she said "Oh, here it is!" She used the tracking app until her dot was on top of my dot, and the phone was right at her feet. I mean...how cool is that? She picks up my phone, and it comes on. The screen doesn't have a single scratch on it. I can't stop getting cracks in my screens when they just drop from a couple feet away. This fell 5000' and there was not an additional crack on it. It's perfectly fine.

I took a couple photos, and then once I got back in the car I realized that my camera lenses were dirty, and that's why the pictures weren't the greatest. So I wiped the dirt off the camera lenses, and NOW the phone is perfectly fine. Isn't that crazy? The thing falls from 5000' into corn and the earth and keeps on ticking.

I drove everyone to Kelly's in Greentown to get a celebratory Black Raspberry Malt, before driving Morgan back to the airport and Kaylee and I home. I can't believe that worked. I can't believe the phone didn't break, and that the Find My app was so accurate I could get directions to the nearest road and then walk right up to the phone and find it in the middle of a cornfield In The Dark. Just amazing.

And my phone is already shattered on the back of it, by the way. Last July a dzues tool was in my flight suit pocket with my phone, and pressed into the back of my phone, shattering the back panel. As long as I keep my phone protector case on, it holds it all together and it's been that way for over a year. Now it drops from 5000' and STILL doesn't come apart, even though it's all cracked and bits of glass in the bottom of the case and everything. Like I said. Amazing.

And that was how a quiet, uneventful Sunday turned into a weird and funny adventure. ;)