Two Pilots & an LSW: Ypsilanti

I'm home from Michigan, and all went well.

Yesterday we left in the afternoon, and made it up there by 3:45 pm. My rental car was waiting for me, and we drove to the hotel and checked in, put our bags in the rooms, then went for a coffee. All the coffee shops except for Dunkins and Starbucks, and many, many restaurants were all Middle Eastern, with those drinks, desserts, free Quran available at many of them advertised. Ypsilanti definitely has a huge Muslim influence. We then drove around and checked things out. We went out to Grand Isle, and there was a fair going on at the old naval base out there. But it was huge, and we'd have to walk a bunch, and there were a lot of fair rides put together by fair people, and neither Morgan nor I decided we needed to go. I'm trying to protect my legs, too. So instead we went to a place to eat, JP's Waterside Restaurant. But the inside is dark, crowded and loud. So we went to the outside patio on the water, in the sunshine, but it was only 50 some degrees and windy, and we were really cold out there. So we packed it in and drove around some more and ended up at BJ's for dinner, where I had a "Lucy Ducky" drink in a tub with a floating rubber duck and a straw. And dinner. lol

We went to the rooms by 10 pm since we had to get up at 4:15 am, and I fell asleep sometime between 10:30-11 pm. I then woke up, and tried to get back to sleep, and finally looked at my watch and saw 1:30 am. I never really got back to sleep after that. Not ideal. But when my alarm went off at 4:15, I was actually alert and ready. I was really focused on this mission, wanting it to go well, I'd run over all the possibilities, how I'd do a briefing for the pilots, where we would go, all the stuff. So we get out to the airport at 5:15 am, met up with the three Huey guys and three C-47 folks. Rachel was the left-seater in the C-47, and she was a professional pilot too. Everyone we worked with this time was top notch. Last time we tried to photo their B-25 and that pilot was terrible. Our expectations were low this time because of that, but they brought their A game and we brought ours, and Greg said we ended up with some excellent shots they'll be happy with.

It was tiring and a lot of work. A crew that doesn't know me nor me them, I'm not familiar with the area, it's in the middle of Detroit's Class B airspace, we're trying to find areas without ground clutter but the best two areas had tall towers in the way I had to keep an eye out for for both me and the plane we were photographing. I had to direct them, watch for traffic, obstacles, talk on the radio, and fly very, very smoothly for the ships flying off of me. For the Huey, they wanted us at 90 mph, which meant I had to drop some flaps and do slow flight while I was at it. And avoid their rotor wash. I was pleased because I held pretty much exactly 90 mph the entire time, with the air smooth as glass. Steady and smooth. It was good.

My legs were so much better yesterday. Right one didn't hurt at all, left one only a little, and I could walk pretty normally. I took a stool and Morgan would help me with it, climb up so I didn't have to, put the stool away after I climbed up. And then came today. Just the two hours of flying we did and the action, my legs hurt again quite a bit. They were weak, stiff and achy. I put on my knee wrap this evening and am trying to rest as much as I can. Because...my next two T-6 checkout guys arrived this evening to Kokomo, and we start tomorrow morning at 9 am, only this time I have to get in the back. So Steve is going to have the guys bring a ladder over for me so I can just get in and out a lot more gently. These T-6 checkouts are coming at a good time when I don't have anything on the schedule at all for corporate flying until like June 27th. Not that more won't happen, but that's crazy. And I have these two this week, another guy next week, and a third guy the 3rd week in June. That means Morgan can take the corporate stuff that comes in, because she'll need that too, along with students, and then I can actually make more money doing the T-6 stuff. I can make as much in one weekend in the T-6 as I can in a month of the corporate flights. I need that right now. I also need my knees. So I will be as gentle and kind to them as I can, no playing the hero like I did the first time and just ignoring it and pretending it was fine. It was not fine. I'm just grateful they were starting to get so much better, meaning it wasn't some kind of permanent damage. They are still weak, and they inflame easily, and get stiff and a little painful easily, but they ARE better. I just need to keep them that way, while I also make a living.

Steve and Kaylee went hiking today. It ended up being a harder hike than they intended, and Steve was excited because he's lost about 7 pounds, and been eating much healthier, and he didn't have hardly any trouble with the hike. Meanwhile, Kaylee did have more trouble, but she also had a bigger pack with extra 15 pounds on it because it was supposed to be an easy trail but wasn't. She's leaving in 5 days to go to Wyoming to go hiking with her friend in a higher altitude environment, and now she's worried about her conditioning for that. She hasn't been doing any hiking in quite awhile, and now she's jumping into this, so she has a reason to be worried. Me, I've also lost a couple pounds and have been working with weights for my bad left shoulder and arms, regaining some muscle, because I couldn't hardly use that arm for months, and what you don't use, you lose. I've been bigger for a long time now, but I was always very strong anyway. I've been focusing on my own health too, including weight and strength.

Steve is still working on his garage project too, and my car is sitting outside while he organizes everything. He's super pumped with having these new tools and tool boxes and this project to complete. He's been on cloud 9 with it all. :) He thinks he'll be close to having it back together by the end of today.

Like I said, I got 3 hours of sleep last night, so I tried to take a nap when I got home and Steve and Kaylee were off hiking. I think I did fall asleep, but it was less than an hour. Maybe that's good. I'll try to go to bed early tonight for tomorrow's work.

Tonight a guy flew his own T-6 here and parked on the ramp at Kokomo. Starting tomorrow, he wants his son checked out in it, but started out in Checkertail for about 5 hours first. Then he wants to go up with me on a refresher flight and see if he's "picked up any bad habits" or has anything to fine tune, and he wants to do some flying from the back seat, too. I don't feel quite ready for this one because I've been focused on the photo shoot, and I'm too tired to plan much tonight for the few hours before I go to bed, and when I wake up I'll have to go out and be ready to go. But...it's not my first time so I'm guessing I'll make it work out. Hopefully. :)