As a recap, we did it all. He also picked up things very quickly, so I took him all over to different conditions. We went to 75', 100' and 150' runways, and today I had him take off from a 50' runway. I didn't have him land on it because the winds were gusting to 26 knots and I can't see the runway at all from the back seat. I had him go to Muncie and do a right base, grass strip operations, huge crosswinds, half flaps, engine outs, a formation landing with the tail up all the way to the end then drop it and get off on a taxiway, a lot of the real world stuff the 'other' place doesn't do. The winds were fierce and gusty today, and it was good practice for both him and me in getting back in the saddle. Oh, and it was *freezing* up here too. Literally frost warnings, temps in the 30s, and it was frigid in the airplane. Another reason I was so tensed up (below explanation)--I was really cold!
I was tense enough back there, my leg muscles are all messed up. My knee was already messed up, and I've compensated by putting weight on the other leg, and now they both hurt, but I think 80% of it is muscle pain from tension and pushing up with my legs for hours at a time. I also was having to climb up and jump down onto the wing and onto the ground of the T-6 repeatedly, a pretty far distance, and that didn't help. Now it hurts to walk or sit down on a chair, but I think most of that will be gone in a couple of days. Steve is torn between making fun of me for walking funny and pitying me. The bad knee IS better, just not 100% better. Working on it, but it definitely sidelined my V02 max efforts for a bit here. No speed walking for Laura right now.
So yesterday we got a phone call from the two new intrepid C-45 pilots, that they had started the engines without opening the oil shut offs. They claimed this wasn't for long, and it had happened Friday, and they went ahead and flew it 3 hours away and then gave 3 plane-full of riders rides. Then this morning let us know that actually it had run without oil for several minutes, the right one shut down and that's when the second guy saw the oil shutoffs were out and pushed them in, they restarted the right engine and everything seemed okay, and Doug, the guy in the left seat, convinced Mike that things were fine.
Things are not freaking fine. Their story kept changing. It was just for a few seconds. It was for 4 minutes. It was for 1-2 minutes. Oh yeah the ENGINE QUIT when taxiing out. Doug tells Glenn that our checklist needs revised. I see red because that checklist has "oil shutoffs in" on it THREE TIMES and it's highlighted. We all use that checklist, I wrote the checklist in fact, and if you actually READ the checklist, you'll be fine. He got in a hurry because of weather. He didn't read the checklist. He tried to hide that it even happened and put the plane, passengers, and the two of them at risk, and then tried to blame other stuff for why it happened. I'm pissed off. I'm *really*, really angry. And on a personal level, I sign them off, and the very first day they're on their own, he does that, right after the OTHER guy took a tour of the runway and turned that into HQ. I look incompetent. I can take a hit on the first guy, because he didn't understand something correctly, and an instructor can take some of the blame for that. But the second guy, damn it, he made those choices, he skipped the checklist, he hid it, he deflected, he very well may have toasted not one but TWO engines worth over $50k each, worst case scenario it could be the end of us on the Tour, the end of BOB for years, a big hit on the IN Wing and our participation in it, a big hit on my reputation in the CAF, and I want to kick his teeth in. Odds are high that the bearings are scored or ruined and that the engines will fail at some point. Only way to know for sure is to tear apart the engines. In the meantime they are testing filters, oil, etc. to see if they can see any "trash" from the bearings. But we can't risk plane loads of passengers like this. So...we wait to see what the guys find and go from there, see if I can maybe get it back home in one piece. Something. Still feels like every time something icky or stressful gets resolved, something else icky or stressful comes along to take its place, doesn't it?
And that is the woes.
Tomorrow I have a trip in Gary's Conquest to Traverse City, MI, drop off Tell, get dropped off in Iron Mountain with a prospective buyer, and fly *our* Conquest back with him, to Frankfort. Hope nothing goes wrong and he'll buy it and this part will be over.
Pete
Cloud surfing
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