Two Pilots & an LSW: King Air-ing

Whew buddy Sunday was a full one, and mostly unexpected. I was supposed to go to Nebraska today (Monday) early, so Sunday I was just going to go with Morgan in the King Air up to Traverse City, MI to pick up a guy named Mark and his wife and drop them off back home. I had to get up at 5:45 am to do that, and drive to Indy, but we did it an it worked out well.

After that, I was going to go home, get gas, and take the rest of the day off, be ready for Monday. But right around 11 am, Logan said "We may not go tomorrow, I'll let you know". If Logan didn't go, I could go to Florida that night too, but we needed to know by noon. So Morgan called her "buddy" John, and asked if he didn't want to go, that I could go instead, and he'd get the day off and the client wouldn't have to pay for me but they'd still get two pilots. He said okay, but was a little miffed that he didn't know I went that morning. Except he didn't need to know I went that morning, she communicated directly with the client and it wasn't his job or problem. So there was some conflict there and he said he was going to email her about it to have "expectations in writing". I said good, you can respond and cc your actual boss, because she didn't do anything wrong. And yet we are on day two here and he hasn't sent the email, so either he's taking a long time to compose it, or he thought about it and realized he was wrong and is letting it go.

So we left Indy Metro in the King Air at 7:30 am, in the fog and mist, and landed back there done by 11 am. We took a car and ran to Culvers, stuffed down a burger, and then back out to the airport. Logan texts me that we are for sure "off" for Monday. So Morgan texts John that I am "on" for Florida. The client saw we got back early so asked us to leave early. We topped off the airplane and then loaded up a family of six, plus the two of us, and headed for Kissimmee, Florida. There was a tornado not too far away but it blew through before we got there, so bonus. ;)

Morgan's having someone else go along because the autopilot in the King Air doesn't work the first 30-60 min of a flight and may not work at all, the GPS glitches, the G600 blanks out the top half so you can't see weather, and the radios go in and out so you can't hear well. She's flown it herself for like 3 flights now. So low time, busy airspace, not great weather, and equipment not working, she wanted someone along. It was going to be John, now it's me. She didn't end up needing me anyway, but you never know.

We get about an hour away, and smell smoke. Second time in a week or so where I smell something burning in an airplane. Then the smoke started happening. We shut down the environmental system where we thought it was coming from, and that slowly made the smoke dissipate. The backseaters asked if we saw that. Yes. We then got close and they were all very hot back there and asked for AC, but it as that system that caused the smoke/burning smell. So we tried the vent fan alone just to see if that would work, but it did not, that was worse. The smoke was bad enough our eyes were watering. We did get it to stop again, but it was hot and acrid and smokey in there until we got on the ground and got out.

When we leave the airplane, we notice the family has left behind lots of presents. Trash, food, crumbs on the carpet and seats, water bottles with stuff in them, paper, and my personal favorite, somebody's chewed gum was spit on the floor. MY clients don't act like that. Good thing, too. I'd hate to get fired for telling them to drag their gross little entitled asses back up here and clean up their shit. I don't care if I was a billionaire, I'd never let my kid act like that. He claimed Caitlyn Clark had invited him to play golf so he had to get back to TN soon. Sure she did. I bet she's having a fundraiser event or something. But either way, *cough* (douche) *cough*.

The plane was staying in Florida anyway and we were airlining home, because the next trip home would be Thursday, and they don't like the cost of flying the plane back and forth. But they had to buy our two airline tickets, which were over $2000, too. One way, for two people. Isn't that insane?? So we got a crew car and went into town and had an alcoholic drink and a Florida dinner, before returning the car and getting an Uber to take us to Orlando for our airline flight home. It was supposed to leave at 9 pm which would get us back to Indy around midnight, and home around 1:30 am. Instead, our flight was delayed by an hour. So we got back to Indy around 1 am, back to Metro Airport by 1:30 am, and I got home around 2:30 am. Crawled in bed and fell fast asleep until early this morning, after which I went back to bed and didn't get up until 9:30 am, which was lovely.

So I was up at 5:45 am yesterday morning for Michigan, then got home from the whole day at 2:30 am the next morning. On my day off. ;) I instead made Monday my day off.

Except I get up this morning and Steve wants me to get ready and go to lunch with him and stop by our insurance guy's place and get our updated wills signed with witnesses. I did it, seemed like a good idea. We met Chuck at lunch, then stopped by and did the paperwork, and THEN I came home and put comfy pants on and contacts out again. I still did two loads of laundry, had groceries delivered, prepared for an upcoming trip, did some calendar organization, answered my emails, dealt with some questions on my newly ordered helmet, organized one of my cabinets, took off my old nail polish and put on some new, and in general stayed busy doing stuff anyway, but it was stuff at home alone watching bad TV shows I was catching up on (like "Best Medicine" or "Brothers"). Steve made it back home by 5 pm, and as far as I know, there is nothing interesting on tap for the rest of the day. I'm going to relax, and sleep in tomorrow too, as I don't have anything but a Bonanza flight in the afternoon so far.