Shadow

So today was the first day of NB "job shadowing" me. Steve ended up needing to get the Aerostar over to Muncie to work on the autopilot, so I took her with me in there. I did all the ground stuff and takeoff, and had her fly us for awhile. Then I did some super steep turns and wingovers and such since she'd said she really liked stalls. She enjoyed that. She's a quiet one, introvert, Junior in high school. We land, and Morgan is there in the 172RG to pick us up, but because I'm trying to actively kill time, I have us all go inside. Talk to the front desk, talk to the avionics guy, go up to the pilot lounge and sit for a bit, go over flight plans, eat up as much time as possible. We got in the RG and I had her and Morgan fly us home. Morgan asked if she wanted to take off, and she said she'd never taken off before. Later I saw her logbook, and she has 6 or 7 flights (6-7, hah), for quite a few hours, and she'd NEVER taken off?? I have my Discovery Flight students take off the first time they ever sat in an airplane if they want to! Her instructor is not doing her any favors, that's for sure. It's a new girl, named Mercedes, who is a brand new CFI, and apparently she is not comfortable at all, or she'd at least let the girl take off. I do not feel promising about this one. Anyway. She took off and flew us home, and Morgan landed it after NB said she didn't want to do any more on downwind. We then had an hour to kill that was kind of slow. I talked to her about different options in aviation, from the weird like fish game wildlife to firefighting to island tours in Hawaii to airlines and corporate. 

Then we went to lunch. I told her lunch was a big part of being a pilot. ;) Afterwards I ran some errands with her and Morgan in the car, which highly amused Morgan. Then we drove back to Kokomo. While we were at lunch, I got an email about LifeLine needing a pilot for tomorrow. I was like...hey...that's what we can do! But I didn't know if Ethan would want me to now that he's selling it. And then ten seconds later Ethan texts me and asks if I want to do that flight. Yes I do. That was fortuitous. So I wrote in and told them I could do it. Ergo, after lunch, we drove down to Frankfort so I could see how much gas I had on board, figure up how much I would need, see if I needed to add any (I didn't), and do all that work. The three of us hung out at that airport for awhile, and then she headed out and we were done for the day as far as the job shadowing goes.

Here's the thing. She isn't really all that interested in aviation. When Steve asked her at lunch if she'd learned anything, she said not really, didn't have anything to say. Even though she'd done her first own takeoff and had done almost aerobatics for the first time too. She wanted to job shadow her dad's company, but they wouldn't let you do a family thing. So she had to go to someone she sort of halfway almost knows (me). She didn't talk a lot, she didn't care about the various airplanes that much, didn't know the name of the airplane she was "learning to fly" in, hadn't had a flight since last September, and definitely doesn't have the "bug" for flying. She thinks it's interesting and wants to do something different for a living that isn't sitting at a desk, but she's not super enthralled with aviation, and if you ask her what she wants to do, she has zero idea. "I'll start with Private" and go from there. So...the pressure felt gone on my end to try to make this anything but slightly entertaining and just get through it, because she doesn't really care. I got through today all right, and tomorrow should be all right. I have no idea what we're doing on Wednesday yet. I think 3 days of 8 hours each is a lot to ask of me, especially when she only has to write a 1-3 paragraph, not page, paper about it at the end. If this were true job shadowing that would be fine, but I'm having to come up with something to keep a 16 year old introvert who would almost rather not be there but has to be in order to graduate, not too bored. That's not the most fun for any of us, right? But we all did all right today. I think she enjoyed most of it, found it something relatively different to do. And she loosened up by the end and was talking more. It helped having Morgan there, who is closer to her age. Morgan and I could talk like normal people and then she could chime in here and there, vs me trying to talk to her on my own, which I did for awhile, and got nowhere and it felt awkward. lol So anyway, that was day one. Day two it'll just be her and me doing the LifeLine flight, and then Wednesday Morgan will be around again.

Afterwards, Morgan, Steve and I went to Half Moon for dinner, before coming home so I could work on the LifeLine stuff. In the beginning I was thinking of that flight as a 'win' because I now had something to do with NB. But then I got the itinerary, and the flight is to pick up a 51 year old woman traveling alone, from the Chicago area, where she is getting treatment for her Stage 4 Melanoma that has metastasized into her liver and lungs. In other words, she's probably gone, and not too long from now. Suddenly being available for a trip was more about helping her get home than it was about not being bored with a kid for a day...