7 am: I've found myself starting to wake up before my alarm on most days. So, I am up and moving before 7. I turn on my iPad and tune into my favorite XM morning talk show as I shower, shave, make breakfast and brew some coffee. Most days I'll always take a few minutes to make lunch and a snack to bring with me to work. Today, I didn't. I was supposed to have a cross-country with a private pilot student but it was cancelled due to maintenance. So, as I scoured over my schedule for the day, I decided I would just come back home after my 9-11am flight. The next thing on my schedule wasn't until 5 so I would have plenty of time. My schedule for the afternoon had me in the simulator from 5-7, a practice instrument flight from 7-9 and a night cross-country from 9-11. I sighed to myself as I looked at the next day where I had scheduled a flight for 7 am. I got a little overzealous and thought that it wouldn't be that bad. Note to self: it was that bad.
I arrived at the school a little before 9 and walked into pilot prep room to take a peak at the weather for the day and see if any airspace had been closed for whatever reason (usually the President will shutdown the entire east coast when he comes for a visit). Today looks like a good day so I told my student to grab the keys and go pre-flight the airplane. It usually takes 10 to 15 minutes to do, so I opened up the scheduling program and starting to plan my next flights. We are allowed to schedule 3 days in advance so I usually try to take time in the morning before I fly to get on the schedule otherwise it fills it and you end up like I did today: flight at 7 am followed by a flight at 5pm.
I went into the lounge and started talking with some of the other instructors when one of the dispatchers walks in. He asks a nearby instructor what he has scheduled for the day. He replies that he's flying until 5. I perk up and ask, "What's going on?"
"We have an airplane that needs picked up in Sebring." Without even thinking twice I jumped at the opportunity. "I'm free. I'll do it!" After I volunteered for some free flight time (over 4 hours to be exact), I realized I needed to see when my lessons were. That flight cancellation worked out in my favor after all. I just didn't realize how long my day was going to be. So, another instructor and I flew down to Sebring (directly south of Orlando about 40-50 miles) to pick up the airplane. As we are flying down, the other instructor asks if I want to test fly the airplane. Sure, more free flight time, I thought. As we get down there and I go to get in the airplane, the mechanic explained to me that this was a new engine. I was not to fly anymore than gliding distance from the runway in case the engine fails unexpectedly. Also, if it starts running too hot, I need to land ASAP. I had to essentially circle the airport for 30 minutes while waiting for something to either blow up or stop working. It was a little unnerving to fly an airplane with a rebuilt engine but everything seemed to be working as expected. When I got back to the hanger, he said he needed about 30 minutes to see if there were any leaks and we would be good to go.
By this time it was already 2. I was really regretting my decision to not make lunch. We went by the airport restaurant where I picked up a sandwich and headed back to the airplane. By the time I had arrive, it was back on the ramp and ready to go. To the south, storms were starting to build. Since this airplane had been out of service since August, the GPS database was out of date and probably not legal to fly IFR. If I was going to make it back today, we had to leave soon. The other flight instructor hopped in his plane and me in mine. We started the engines and he started out to the runway with me in tow. Over the common frequency, he said, "well, I'm going off to Ocala. Keep a close eye on the engine gauges and if anything starts running hot or abnormal, pull the power and find an airport to land. You should be fine but if anything happens, play it safe."
It wasn't until that moment that I realized I was flying an airplane with a rebuilt engine a hundred or more miles back to New Smyrna. He took off and I followed shortly after. As I climbed out, he said, well, I'm going to contact Orlando Approach. Hope it all works out okay. See you back at base....and that was it. For the first time since July, I was flying on my own.
The flight, needless to say, was pretty uneventful. As I scrolled through glass cockpit's menus, I found that this particular aircraft had a subscription to Sirius XM satellite radio. Bonus! I turned it on got to listen to commercial free music all the way back home. Since I was cruising at around 1000 feet, I didn't have to contact anyone on the radio so the radio blared in my headphones almost non-stop. On the rare occasions when I would hear some radio chatter, the radio would silence itself for a few seconds and then come streaming back into my headset. I even took some time to take some pictures which I will add to the end of the blog.
When I arrived in New Smyrna at around 4:30, I was tired. After over 4 hours of flying, preceded by over an hour in the morning before I left, I was pushing 8 hours and had yet to start the hard part of my day. I ran to 7/11 where I had to get my dinner for the night. I grabbed a deli sandwich and loaded up on coffee. I ended up hitting up the snack shop at the school for some cans of Diet Coke between each of the flights. My night cross-country landed at around 11:30pm and I was home by midnight. I got ready for bed and set my alarm to start the process all over again at 6am the next morning. I cursed myself quietly for scheduling the 7 am flight and started to hope for some bad weather to move in so I could cancel it and go back to sleep. Then I thought to myself, "Self, you get to go fly tomorrow at 7 and get paid for it. That's not so bad." I smiled to myself as I realized that I never once thought that when I was in the Air Force. Winning.
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| Circling the airport waiting for the engine to explode |
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| Yes, that is the cockpit and yes I am spoiled. |
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| Cruising at 1000 feet across flat southern Florida |
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| In Montana, I flew around mountains. In Florida, I fly around GIANT 2000 foot towers. At least the mountains were easy to see. In case you are wondering, the top of that tower is 1000 feet above me. |
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