Flying with Lisa and John

Lisa is an invoicing analysts in my department at Learjet. Her husband John is interested in pursuing his pilot's license so I offered to take them on a flight. We planned to meet at the airport at 1800. I went early to get in some crosswind pattern work before they arrived. John sat up front on our way to Moundridge and flew most of the way. He's quite good and had little trouble holding altitude, heading, or airspeed. We did two touch-n-gos at Moundridge before flying very low over Dave's house. Lisa was able to pick it out easily after seeing the pictures I had taken of it earlier.

We then headed towards El Dorado with John at the controls. We climbed to 5,000' and were kissing the bottoms of the few puffly clouds that dotted the baby blue sky. We did a full-stop landing at El Dorado so Lisa and John could switch places. After leaving the airport we turned north and flew low over El Dorado Lake. Lisa flew the VOR back to Jabara and, like John, did quite well.

Any time flying is a good time. It's especially great with good company and pleasant weather. John and Lisa seemed to share at least a bit of my passion for aviation. Hopefully John and Lisa will soon begin their aviation adventure and work towards their pilot certificates!

Flying in the Rain

Tonight after work Justin Linot met me at the airport. He was excited all day and we continually checked the weather. Storms moved through all day one wave after another. The clouds were ominous and at times the rain very heavy. When we walked out of the building the wind was calm and the cloud ceilings high enough so I gave it the green light.

We preflighted the airplane, took off, and headed toward Cook airport. We flew over Justin's Dad's house and did a touch-n-go at Cook airport. It's a short narrow runway with trees at one end. The landing was perfect!

After our landing at Cook we headed back and over Wichita. We had planned to do a touch-n-go at Midcontinent but we could barely hear the controller on the radio so decided to head back east. We did a touch-n-go at El Dorado as well as a power-on and a power-off stall. Justin was a little uneasy about the maneauvers and preferred to stay mostly level. He did fly the airplane rather well back to Jabara but at times chased the instruments.

The rain was coming down hard and was beading up and streaking over our windscreen. We purposely looked for pockets of rain to fly through which is ironic since the whole day we were hoping the weather would permit us to fly. We did two touch-n-gos at Jabara which were uneventful. On our third trip around the pattern and while turning base we heard another aircraft call a three-mile final. The rain was pouring down and the visibility was minimal which made us both very nervous. Instead of continuing to final I decided to go around. I didn't want a faster airplane to run into the back of us on final. It turns out he mistakenly landed at Beech, an airport a few miles away. Our next go we landed without incident.

The clouds were menacing and the weather at times made our visibility low but the aircraft performed beautifully. It was a nice change from the past few flights in the underpowered Cessna 150. Justin said he enjoyed himself and mostly he seemed to. It was, perhaps, my most eventful flight and for me one of my most favorites!

Refueling A-10s

This past week MSgt Baker (Biscuit) asked me if I'd be willing to go on an out-and-back to refuel some A-10s. That was an easy decision. I get to fly AND don't have to sit in the office?

We showed up this morning at six o'clock and eventually took off. I was in the boom pod when we passed gas to the A-10s. It was cool! I've never seen an A/R with those awesome aircraft.

Tonight the weather cleared up so I decided to go flying. I've been wanting for about a week now to do a touch-n-go at El Dorado then fly over the lake with a night return and night touch-n-gos at Jabara. It was fun to land at an unfamiliar airport, fly low over the water and try to see what the campers were having for dinner, and getting some night time in. The aircraft at times made me a little nervous but I had fun "hanging out" over Kansas.