Perfect day at the airport

I can't tell you how great it is to be back at my home airport with our plane. Minneapolis - Flying Cloud (KFCM) is where I finished up my single engine commercial and truly started learning how to aviate. Ben, my instructor, is hands down the finest teacher and flight school operator I have ever come in contact with and has improved my skills more than I could have imagined. Without fail he provides free Saturday morning safety seminars which have grown from a rag tag group of 7 to what are now full blown events that top 100 people in just over a year with people flying in from around the local area to attend. It has been amazing to watch.

Flying Cloud is also where I earned my first dollar as a pilot flying the morning traffic reporter for a local radio station. The drill was to wake up at 4:15am to check the weather, make coffee and head to the airport by 4:45am, preflight the Beechcraft Sport 150hp plane (in sometimes 0 degree temperatures), and be wheels up by 5:30 for a 2.5 hour circuit around the twin cities area out to the Wisconsin border. To be fuel efficient, we would cruise at a low power setting which didn't give enough energy for the exhaust-warmed cabin heat system. By the time we got back on the ground my coffee would be a solid ice block in my insulated travel mug! Touching down at 7:55, I would refuel, park the plane, rip off my snowboard gear down to my work slacks and shirt underneath and be at my desk for work by 8:45. On the days we were teaching ground school I'd head back out to the airport at 5:30, grab a sandwich, and help Ben with the lesson until 9pm. Doing this twice each week I would log the 5 hrs/week paid flight time while cramming tons of new learning in my pea-like brain. It was a thing of beauty.

So today started like 90% of my Saturdays when we lived here heading out to the Saturday morning seminar to polish up things. Except this time, instead of looking to see which transient aircraft came in for the day, I knew it was our plane parked out front with curious lookers peering in through the side windows. The seminar was packed to standing room only in the hanger, once again, successfully luring 102 obsessed pilots away from their airplanes on a precious CAVU (calm air, visibility unlimited) Saturday morning for a thorough review of towered airport communications. Typically, this would be followed by 1-2 hours of B.S. and listening to other aircraft owner stories of recent adventures, upgrades, airport politics, etc but today was about showing off 55C to the gang, which... to be honest... felt awesome.

This had to be cut a bit short because Ben, in a Superman-in-the-phone-booth like mental shift, is already bringing out the class of tailwheel groundschool students and is using our plane as the demo. The awesomeness continues. The elation subsides a touch as for the next 15 minutes I am fumbling through detailed questions on tire pressures, tailwheel steering chain specs, etc as the proud but somewhat ignorant new owner of the bird - but in teaching I am learning. By now it's time to meet up with Caroline for a sandwich at Jimmy John's to catch up on each other's morning. Being both eager to get back to our projects, she drops me off back at the airport on her way to a bookshop and library which is, in my terms, her airport equivalent.

Fortunately, one of the instructors is also an A&P (Airframe and Power plant mechanic) and after a few minutes talking over the growing squawk list of minor things to repair, he and Ben suggest that I get things taken apart to prep for the work that needs to be done, saving labor costs and of course learning, learning, learning.

Somewhere between the 2 hour (how long I told Caroline I would be) and the 8 hour mark (the time it was when I actually looked at the clock) the awesomeness reached a fever pitch when we had the cowl off and about 8 pieces of aluminum sandblasted, prepped, primed, and painted. It was like a makeover show for the engine and will help it run cooler and prevent future corrosion. The sun has now set, I'm covered in grease, and it feels great to wash with GoJo again.

In our opinion, the only way to end a day like this is for some sushi and hot green tea. Which is exactly what we did (although it was Minnesota sushi... whatever... close enough).

If you're in the area, check out the seminar or rent a few hours in the Citabria:
http://www.inflightpilottraining.com/