Two Pilots & an LSW: MI and Kansas City and Oh My

I'm going to have to go back on here, even though it's only two days, it's been really hopping. Lots going on. I'm not even sure where to start, I've been staring at this for like 45 minutes while watching a TV show too. lol

Gosh. Okay.

Right now I'm sitting at home, Friday afternoon already, recuperating. I don't feel the greatest, hoping and assuming it's mostly from the last few days not the 100LL bath I took to the face at midnight last night.

Yesterday I was up at 6:15 am, drove to Frankfort and took the Conquest up to Iron Mountain, Michigan. It was going there to finally get the engines synced up, and work on an avionics error message. I was there from 8:30 am until about 4:45 pm. While I was there, I flew it three times with their mechanic and another pilot named Dean. They said they had a pilot, but I had to go along. I'm like...that's the point of them having a pilot, so I don't have to do it.

Come to find out, Dean was an airline pilot, does recurrents in Conquests, a former FAA examiner, all the things. He'd fallen and hurt his back/hip, 23 days later was in the ER with a small brain bleed, when he didn't even know he'd hit his head. He went to a specialty medical place in Michigan who helped him get his stuff together, and then submitted his medical. Nine months later, the FAA pulled his medical and grounded him with a flat denial for the next 5 years on a non-appealable letter anyway. He's telling me this, and I am not feeling great about this story. That's why I had to go along, because he didn't have a medical.

I left a message for the place helping me in PA, and the lady called me back, and started off trying to be reassuring but in the end, really wasn't. She was like "Brain bleeds are bad and the FAA makes people wait 2-5 years no matter what anyway and this isn't that". But then she let me know that the FAA is also really leery about providing 'yes'es on the phone any more, and that they're also super leery right now about mental health issues after a few major accidents where suicide or mental health problems were at the forefront. That even if a person can prove that isn't the case, that the FAA could balk, probably wouldn't say 'no', but might take a long time to say yes. That here are the options.

1) Dr. L calls the FAA and presents the case and they say "sure, go ahead", and he does, and it's all good.

2) Dr. L calls the FAA and they say "Send it to Oklahoma City for us to review", and it takes a couple of months.

3) Dr. L calls the FAA and they say "You're going to have to send this to Washington DC" and it could take 6-12 months for a response.

4) Dr. L can't reach the FAA and just submits the application and the FAA reviews it on their own and either lets it go, or sends me a letter months down the line and pulls the medical while they review it.

Out of four possibilities, only one is the best case scenario. Her making me feel better attempt was "they shouldn't say no, not with everything we have. It's just a matter of how long it'll take to say yes". So...I wait. Nothing else to do.

While I was up there, I went flying 3 times with the mechanic and the pilot. The 2nd time they were hoping it was done, but the engine split was worse than when I arrived, so I made them go back up a 3rd time and fix it. It's great now, the best the engines have been since we first got it and the criminal Don B from Florida set it up. The man knew how to set up the engines, was a genius at it, but ended up being super negligent on the rest of maintenance, putting all of us at risk with his shoddy oversight of his workers. He was sued, moved across the country, the FAA ended up going after him, and last I heard, he was finally 'out'. He should have just gone around to mechanics and shown them the ropes, because he knew his stuff, and this ending for the legacy he had was a shame. His own doing, but still a shame. Anyway.

The flying I did was almost like a checkride, three times in a row, because the guy is a Conquest check pilot, examiner for insurance companies, etc. The good news is, he provided feedback on my flying, and the worst thing he had to say was that he suggested I turn off the flight director if I'm not using it, rather than have it give conflicting information. That's a suggestion I'm going to ignore, because I was flying in day VFR looking outside, did not care about the flight director, wasn't following it, wasn't even looking inside hardly, and do not care. But he also gave me some good info on the Conquest that I didn't previously know, about a couple of checks you can do on it that are important and not part of the normal training routine. Good info, and if we were keeping the Conquest, I'd totally do it. At the end of it, he said he liked my flying, and the mechanic who rode around in the back said "I have to be honest, I get nervous flying with random pilots I don't know, but you didn't make me nervous at all. You did a great job". That made me laugh, and I told him honestly SHOULD be nervous flying with random pilots. But I was glad to not scare him. I was tired at the end of all of these exercises though.

The sad thing is that the engines are set perfectly the day before a purchase agreement is likely signed on the Conquest. So next it goes to Ohio for a tire replacement (story coming soon), and then down to Bloomington for a pre-buy inspection, and that'll be the last flight I fly in the Conquest, as it heads out the door to a new owner. Much to the delight of the current owner, and a little bitter-sweetly to me.

That was about a ten hour start to the day. Up at 6:15 am, over in Michigan, didn't get back to Kokomo until 4:45 pm or so. Got food, picked up Morgan, and was planning on heading down to Kansas City to pick up Nick. Except earlier in the day, I'd noticed the left main, which has been balder than the right all along, now had tread showing on a spot. I thought...if I can just get it to Kansas City and down to the pre-buy, they can replace it then. This is the last trip on it. But when I landed back at Kokomo, I saw that there were several spots now where tread was showing. It might have been hidden on the bottom last time I looked at it. It's a heavy airplane on concrete, with tread showing, and if I land a little crooked or plop in hard or hit a brake (THAT one I can control) or hit a rock wrong, I could blow a tire on landing, and now we're all stranded in Kansas City.

So...I took the 340 instead, but this was a whole Thing. I still had to get the Conquest back to Frankfort, which I did carefully, and put it away. Then I had Morgan solo the 340 for the first time, and she came over to Frankfort to pick me up. We had to self-serve the airplane at Frankfort, and now it was going to take us a lot longer to do all this. Morgan flew us to Kansas City Downtown, MKC, a nice big place. Took over 2.5 hours with the headwinds, and we didn't arrive until 9 pm. Had to top off with their $9.50/gallon gas, picked up Nick, and flew him back to Delphi. Another 2 hours there. But Kansas City didn't get the 340 topped off all the way, they shorted us by like 12 gallons, and that 12 gallons is what we needed to complete the mission. So after we dropped Nick off at Delphi, she dropped me back off at Frankfort, and we put another 30 gallons in at midnight at the self-serve pump there. Morgan was up on the ladder, and she slipped, and the nozzle came out while I was standing there, and the fuel sprayed right into my face. It got in my hair, on my face, eyes, and sweatshirt. I was laughing, and I honestly didn't think a whole lot about it. I went inside and washed my hands, but that was about it. I had contacts in. Morgan flew off for Kokomo, after having had a bit of a rough couple of legs. It was late, everyone was tired, but she made it back, put the 340 away, and I drove home from Frankfort in Steve's Jeep. (Another story there). My eyes were blurry, but I was tired and my 'new' kind of contacts are always blurry and bad at night anyway.

I got home, washed my face off all the way, threw all my clothes in the laundry, and went to sleep around 1:30 am. It ended up being an almost 18 hour day.

When I woke up this morning, I told Steve about getting doused with 100LL, and I was laughing, but he was not. He said "Did you wash your face and eyes out and stuff? Use the emergency eye wash thing at the airport??" I'm like...naw...and he said "This is bad! You can damage your vision!" He leaves, and I google it, and the news really isn't that good. He's right; it says seek medical attention immediately, flush your eyes for 15-20 minutes straight, not to use eye drops, all the things I did not, and did, do. Whoops. After reading that, even though it's been like 10 hours since it happened, I went ahead and put water in both my eyes to flush them out a little bit. They're not red, swollen, they are dry and watering at the same time, but I didn't get enough sleep, I had a super long day, and hopefully that's the end of it. Like I said...whoops! I didn't actually know it was that bad. Live and learn...

I'm spending today catching up on all the paperwork, and trying to recover from the last few days physically too. I'm beat. :)

I'll have to go below and post about the day before's flights to Philly and Pittsburgh next.

These are two still shots from the video Morgan took of flying the Sonex. She had one landing where we ballooned back up, and that was our facial expression on the left, and then we shot a look at each other on the right, then looked back forward. It was just really funny. It is not a super flattering angle or shot for me, I know, but it's still funny so I had to stick it on anyway.