clear prop

Here we are at 3am and I am awake as usual! Fortunately we're at the beach. Being at the beach is very close to being in the air on my "favorite places to be" list. Where else? I'm starting to think that even though I am afraid of motorcycles that maybe, just maybe, safe and snug with someone I trust driving (steering?) I might just love a motorcycle ride through the mountains. It's good to be at the beach.

This was a crazy week. Started Monday with a flight. I can't remember any of the details except to say it was a training flight and my steep turns sucked. I get +/- 50' , +/- 10 KIAS. I was using up 200'. It's something I've never done - I'm pulling the entry. Well I was. I cut it out on Friday's flight. I also saw favorite CFI on Monday. He's no longer around so that was a nice surprise. He looked happy and healthy. It was good to see him looking well. I enjoyed thinking about some of the important things I learned with him, because of him. Some people pass through your life leaving you better than they found you. I hope I am that kind of CFI. I hope I am that kind of person.
On Friday I flew two flights plus the sim. The sim flight was very cool. Glass. I was supposed to be working on steep turns just below a cloud layer. It was an interesting experiment. I could easily see what I was doing to mess myself up. Next we flew. There's a small field about 22 miles west of my home field. I rocked the performance landings - wait! That wasn't Fridays flight because my ST still stank that day. I loved that day because I heard myself say, "It is really beautiful over here". I can't believe how beautiful it is over here. On Friday it was super hazy and I opted for the SE Training area - my steep turns weren't too bad. Later I flew a purely for fun flight with a young CFI who I like but hadn't had the opportunity to fly with. He said,"DeAnn, if you put your pant leg over that vent it'll really help you stay cool". It was so funny. I laughed and laughed. He asked, "Why'd that make you laugh ~ "I'm serious", he said, "... it's a greenhouse in this thing!" I told him I liked doing that but someone I flew with said doing stuff like that just blows your stink all around the plane. It just made me laugh to remember. I smell good most of the time. I have been distracted by how things non-airplane smell while in the plane ... I just don't cozy up with the vents anymore!
I had fun flying the arrow with this guy. The airplane cabin was blisteringly hot and the airplane climbed poorly. The performance was below par in all areas. It was easy to execute steep turns in though. Nose heavy enough to compensate for my new tendency to pull early. I didn't hate flying it. Right before we departed for that fun flight, a training flight landed gear up. The airplane, other than the very problematic prop strike, looked surprising okay. All the antennae are sheared off the belly, but I was surprised to see how symmetric the skid marks are. The marks on the runway show the prop whacking itself on the asphault about every three foot for several rotations...the governor and crankshaft and on back into the engine probably look pretty sad. It was a check ride. A commercial practical test type check ride. It's gonna hurt the pilots, particularly the check pilot who has probably had his hand on the gear lever many thousands of times. It makes me very sad to think of him in this mess.

So here we are at the beach floating in the 12th story corner unit. If I open the front sliding door and the back sliding door the gulf air venturi s through almost lifting my cares in the process.