Water Joys and NY Adventures

The morning did start off slower. It was foggy, and not much flying, which wasn’t super helpful, because I needed to be able to move the T-6 from Kokomo to Logansport. They are shutting down all the runways at Kokomo again, and the T-6 needs to go to Logansport for their weekend event we promised to attend, the Aerostar needs to go there because of a trip coming up to Kentucky with Nathan, and the Champ needs to get to Glenndale because it’s going on a checkride during the ‘down’ time. So I had planes to move, I’m the only one that can move the T-6, and I didn’t know how I was going to get it done, because it was foggy all morning, I had a trip that evening, and the next day I was going to Pennsylvania, didn’t know if I’d be back before dark, etc.  So finally once the fog burned off, it was go time. I raced around, drove out to the airport, had the guys pull out the T-6 and top it off, had Morgan get the Citabria ready to come get me (she couldn’t get the gas cap off, it was missing an inspection cover, T-6 needed gas, everything was not going smoothly.  Meanwhile, I’d just learned that we had a water problem again, and the guy came out to roto-root out the pipe again, which was just done in January, only to find that the problem was the pipe was collapsed out in the alley. From last Jan when he told the city about it because it’s on their property. They said that it’s on the fitting on our side, so we’re responsible for it, even though it’s on their land. So once again, a couple of things. Once again we can’t run our dishwasher, our washing machine, or put any paper or solids down our stools, though we can brush our teeth, take quick camp showers, or flush just #1 no paper occasionally. So THAT’S great. Going next door to do most of your business for the unforeseeable future. And two, once again this could be very expensive, depending on how far down this goes. And the city doesn’t care, and won’t pay for it, and trying to make them pay for it what, legally? Sue them? While we don’t have the ability to use our water much, and pay attorneys anyway? They win no matter what. So freaking frustrating. So I’m waiting to hear when the guy is going to come out and start digging down and seeing exactly how far down and how bad this is going to be for us. Never can have a very long time frame without something expensive slapping a person, can ya.  If I never have water problems again, it’ll be too soon. This is Suuuuper annoying.

Also meanwhile, in Oregon yesterday I was eating when suddenly what I was eating was crunchier than it should have been. A corner of the tooth next to the one I’m getting implanted broke off, and the tooth in my mouth had a corner as sharp as a knife. My tongue was cut up. It hurt to eat, to talk, to move my tongue. So I called the dentist this morning, and he agreed to get me in at 2 pm to file it down. 

So to recap, I’m having a great morning anyway. Now I have to time all of this perfectly. I’m driving out to the airport while it’s still IFR, needing things topped off and pulled out and fixed, launch right when it gets good enough. I climb into the plane, and my foot slipped on the seat and I fell forward, and I almost fell out of the airplane on the right side of it. I caught myself with my arm, scraped up the skin on my right arm, and about fell head first out of the thing. Which actually made me laugh once I didn’t, because that would have been a ridiculous reason to break your neck. lol So I buckled in, sat there and took a few deep breaths and said “FOCUS now, Laura. Focus”. Which I did. Slowed down, took my time, and got in the right mindset. This is good, because…. On the way over, I listen to Logansport’s weather and it says Winds Calm. Morgan is ahead of me in the Citabria, and she lands on 27, like I was going to. I am landing on 27, and I can feel it, the winds are a quartering tailwind, which is a great way to lose it on a T-6. It did NOT like that. I wrestled it and managed to put it down safely, taxied to the end where the wind sock was, and sure enough, it was a quartering tailwind up around 10 knots or so. 10 knots in and of itself isn’t a ton, but with a crosswind/tailwind, it is. You can feel a 3 knot tailwind. It wants to swap ends and get really squirrelly. In fact, Chuck Yeager ground looped a T-6 with a quartering tailwind. No joke. I am not Chuck Yeager. But fortunately I was focused, and fully paying attention, and I was able to safely put it down. I get in the Citabria and say “that was not ‘winds calm’!” and she’s like “nope!”  I said ya could’ve warned me. There’s not a wind sock on that end of the field, so coming straight in you kinda go off of the AWOS. But it was wrong…it caught up when we went to leave, and was now saying what the winds really were. Thanks!

She runs me back to Kokomo, where I get in my car and race home to brush my teeth (not leaving the water running of course) and go to my dentist’s office, where I sit for 40 minutes while he squeezes me in. I get back there and he said “I shouldn’t be seeing you this soon, what are you eating?!” I was like… :/ He looked in there and said “Good Grief, that thing is sharp! I bet you couldn’t even eat”. I said yeah, I haven’t been able to eat much of anything since lunch yesterday, my tongue is sore, I can’t talk properly, and I was thinking of taking a metal file and filing it down myself. Both he and his assistant flinched at that one, said it was a good thing I didn’t. I said it was a good thing you got me in, then. They ground down the sharp edges, and it was instant relief. My tongue is still sore, but at least everything else feels a lot better. I was able to leave there and get a sandwich and eat, finally. I get out of there in time to run home and flight plan and look at the weather for White Plains, New York, to drop off Andy. Morgan decided to go along. Like yesterday, there were storms and weather around, and a lightning show, but also like yesterday, they weren’t show stoppers.

We were wheels up at 5:30 pm, and landed in New York around 7:45 pm. I had ordered a quick turn fuel up ahead of time. Buy 160 gallons and it waives their several hundred dollar landing fee. They are CAA so the fuel is $4 cheaper than it is for non-CAA members there. I walk in and she says “you know about our special event fee, right?” I said no, and she informs me that it’s $1000 Special Event Fee for ramp space because of the UN Meetings and a Golf tournament. I say “That isn’t published or posted anywhere”, and she said “No, it’s not posted anywhere, but I got your fuel order so I sent an email back to you letting you know about the fee”. I said I didn’t get an email, and she looked and said “Oh, it wouldn’t let me send to that, so I sent it to fuel@foreflight.com”. I said “That’s not my email, that’s an aviation software company email, has nothing to do with us.” She basically said oops, so sorry, but she had just found out about the fee today via email and was letting people know who contacted them about coming about the fee, and that it was non-refundable, non-negotiable, and there’s nothing she can do about it. I’m standing there with my eyebrows up like…what the actual…  I tell Andy about the fee for those two events, and he says “Man, that’s special all right, I’m not even here for one of those things”. I said it didn’t matter to them, tons of places do this for big events now, from Vegas to Super Bowl cities to Olympics to whatever, and they don’t care WHY you’re there, just that you’re there, and some jets even get to pay tens of thousands of dollars for even a stop and drop off. But I think it’s BS that they didn’t have it posted anywhere and are just hitting people with $1000 when they walk in with “no repercussions”. I’m still debating what to do about it. Online stuff, company stuff, will they care if I just contact HQ, etc. I still have to go back Saturday and pick him up, unless he doesn’t want me to. So $2000 just for the privilege of being on their ramp for a total of 1 hour and buying their gas.

We went to leave, and my PDC said “Contact Ground 5 min before start”. Weird, haven’t had that, so we sit in the plane and flip on the battery and contact ground, and they said we’d have to wait for a reroute because the PDC wasn’t going to work. Fine. We’re sitting there battery on for a long time, and finally they come back with a new clearance. We fire up, plug it all in, taxi to the runway, a plane takes off, we call ready to go, and they say “Departures are halted for now, hold short the runway”. What?! So we sit, running, at the end of the runway for a good while too. So much for not getting home too late for the next early morning departure. We’re finally released, work our way around thunderstorms (one lightning bolt was close enough Morgan says “That’s not good, right!? That can’t be good!” lol It wasn’t great, but it was okay-ish. ;) 

There is a mass of rain and storms headed for Frankfort too, and we weren’t sure we would beat it in. But we did. We parked in front of the hangar and I pushed the plane away just after it started raining. I got a little wet, but it could’ve been worse, and I was just glad to be there.

Drove home, put the car away, caught up on a few things, and then crawled into bed sometime after midnight, getting ready for the next 5:30 am wake-up call…

This is me driving the tug out in the rain to put the Conquest away, and the concrete under the plane was dry, making the perfect shape of the airplane, including engines. But I was driving on a tug and it was wet and dark so the photo was blurry. You can still get the idea though. :)