Steve was up early and out the door at 7 am, headed to Kokomo to meet up with AE and Hunter and some of the guys to drive the trailer over to Marion for the fly-in breakfast. I hadn't slept super well so I was dragging a little to start the day. I got up and out to the airport by 8:10, I'd wanted to be in Marion by 8:30, but when I got to the airport, the T-6 needed oil, was in the back, I had to pull out the 340 and then the T-6, put away the 340, yadda yadda. So I didn't land at Marion until 8:45, which is late for me.
I had a "comped" rider right away. His name is Dan, he's the guy who drove our trailer up to Oshkosh for us, so Steve gave him a ride. He's a talker. As soon as I got back, I had an 89 year old man who wanted to go. He'd ridden with me two years ago, and wanted to do one last flight. We had a heck of a time getting him in the plane, but like I always say...if I get to live that long and I want to go on a last flight, I hope someone has the guts to let me do it, liability be damned. And if something goes wrong and I can't get out, then it's better than most other ways, so hey.
Ironically, after him was a woman, she was younger than he was, but she had much harder time getting in the plane. It took like 4 of us and a lot of effort, mostly because her leg wouldn't hold her, her foot wouldn't bend. After her ride, Steve Tummers who was there helping pointed at a guy in a wheelchair and asked Steve S. if he wanted to go talk that guy into a ride too. Lol The rest of the rides were normal, and I ended up giving 1 freebie and 5 paid rides. Unexpectedly busy! It was hot, but doable, and fun for me just flying around.
My last ride was done around 1:15, so I topped off with gas and then headed to Huntington.
I was supposed to meet up with the T-6s out of Huntington and do a FPR (Formation Proficiency Report) with Job and Curt and whoever else. Then I was going to finish by flying Bob's T-6 because all the planes were supposed to be out and messing around. I fly to Huntington, land, Greg Morehead picks me up in his car and takes me back there, and zero planes are sitting out. I walk into the hangar, and almost nobody looks up, nobody pulls up a seat or tells me to join them, I only know like 3 people, and the vibe is just weird. I don't even see Job anywhere, and Curt says Job left about an hour ago to go take a nap, catch up on some sleep. So we couldn't do the FPR because Job wasn't there, and the planes were all put away so I couldn't fly Bob's T-6, so I just had Greg drive me back to my airplane so I could go home and join my own crew.
In the car on the way back, Greg let me know that yesterday Job had taxied their Japanese Zero airplane into a parked car and got the wingtip, unfortunately. I feel for him. I know how it feels. It's worse that it happened at his Young Aviators event, assumedly in front of his friends and fellow warbird pilots, many of whom he's instructed. I'm sure he's embarrassed and upset. I don't know if this is the first thing that he's ever done, but he's got like 2500 hours or something like that now, and he flies literally everything, all the time, so do that long enough and odds are that something will break or that a person will make a mistake. Because everyone makes mistakes, some are just bigger than others. I got some of mine out of the way pretty early, but even later I caught a few. It happens, and it doesn't feel good. And for the record, people who gloat about it are jealous and/or not experienced enough to have made their own mistakes...YET. I'm jealous of everything he has gotten to do, and I desperately wish I had the financial backing to do whatever I wanted like that, but I am not glad this happened. I am sorry it happened. Because like I said--I know how it feels. He apparently dropped off a couple people at Marion this morning and then left right away and never came back out to do anything with the folks who are there. That's another life lesson though. This was his event, people were there to fly with him, they came for him, he is hosting, and they were all just sitting in the hangar not sure what to do. He's young. But hopefully tomorrow he comes back out and faces it and them and finishes his weekend. It's hard, I know, but it's the right thing to do.
I got back to Kokomo, and nobody was there yet back from Marion, either, which surprised me. Later learned the PT-26 had a mechanical issue and they had to leave it there, so our guys stayed to help for awhile. So I had been doing wheel landings all day, like I usually do in there, and my landings were pretty nice, I was pleased. So I decided at home to do a 3-point. I had come from Marion and Huntington with the runways half the width of Kokomo, so coming back to Kokomo the runway looks huge and it messes with my sight picture. I should have done a wheel landing first to find the runway again, because what I did was flare about 5' too high, hit the tailwheel first, then drop the mains on with a Ker-THUD. I landed that thing like it was on a Navy carrier ship. I Arrived, man. I flinched and then back taxied and thought "well, can't end on on THAT one". Landing #2 was still a little high on the level off but wasn't a bad landing. Not good enough. 3-Point Landing #3 was nice. I took it and went back in and put everything away. ;) But out of 11 landings today, 3 or 4 were greasers, 5 or 6 were perfectly nice, 1 was fine, and only 1 was knock-your-filling-loose-from-your-tooth bad. It was straight, not dangerous or swervy or bouncy at all, but Damn it was firm. Lol
I put everything away and came home, talked to Kaylee for a little while, and then Steve came to pick me up and we went to Pastarrific, met up with AE, Morgan (who wasn't at Marion today but had her real job to do until then), Hayden (one of our CFIs who helped us out today), and Chuck. We had appetizers and bread sticks and entrées and I took a dessert home, the guys all got smoky maple old fashioned drinks, and we had a little celebration of what had actually been a really nice day. I enjoyed doing the rides, I enjoyed the event type thing, I enjoyed flying the T-6 a lot. I don't know if I'll be able to keep flying the T-6 or not, so every time I do feels like it might be one of the last, and I hate that thought. A lot.
Tomorrow I was going to take off. But Tim said he'd have Job text me if he was going to be around in the morning and we could do our FPR after all. Job is the one who needs it the most. I've now flown two airplanes to Huntington and paid for the fuel twice to get there and back and still not accomplish flying Bob's T-6 or anything else, but...there are worse ways to spend a day and money.
Arriving at Marion
Setting up our area before the rides began
Just a couple shots from the plane
I had a video I posted on Facebook but it's too big to post here...I'll save off any other photos I get from the weekend since I didn't take anything, I was too busy up flying. :)
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