The Good Stuff

SkyChaser

SkyChaser

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SkyChaser
So, there's lots of talk and threads about the bad and the ugly parts of 2020 and how glad everyone is that it's over, but you don't hear much about the good stuff that happened. At least for me, a lot of good stuff happened, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one!

Highlights of my 2020 included starting flying lessons (finally!!!), spending lots of quality time with my immediate family, getting to know a super sweet guy, and getting to meet a fellow POAer and his wonderful family. I think this is where I become real or something, right? ;)

Anyone else have any good memories or stuff that happened from 2020 they care to share?
 
My favorite part of 2020 was our trip to Ireland (before the lockdowns) and moving home to the US of A. I also bought a new plane and flew myself from Illinois to Idaho. I also passed the IFR written.

I'm hoping to make the Idaho trip an annual thing but it may not turn out that way.
 
RyanB said:
We’re going to need details ya know...:D
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Wasn't there a thread about SkyChaser getting a date? :D
That should be enough information to meet the minimal standards around this joint.;)

SkyChaser said:
I don't think I'm going to give them. Y'all can make it up. LOL
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Believe me, you do NOT want to tempt this crowd with that sort of offer...
 
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GRG55 said:
That should be enough information to meet the minimal standards around this joint. ;)
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Standards? Here? As Joey would say ... Come on man! Here's the deal!

Yes it was a good year. Covid came to the house and it left without much ado. Didn't get quite the hours last year but still got to fly a bit. Added ADSB to the airplane. My friend continues to do well in his flight training and many other flight related good stories to tell. Since we don't get into Christianity or politics here I'll digress with the list of great things from last year.

I know some have had a tough year and my thoughts, heart, and prayers go out to them. I firmly believe the kind of year a person has depends on that thing described to me in flight training as "attitude" - which is - the position of your nose in reference to the horizon. That's true in real life also.
 
We were pretty much, life normal.
completed projects, cared the house/lawn, fixed some stuff, broke some stuff and moved on.
 
2020, turned out poorly for me.

Tami and I did get to meet friends at the Las Vegas speedway. We spent 5 days RV camping with friends, eating, playing games and drinking. That was in February

March started my covid nightmare. Working 3 weeks on 12 1/2 hour days living in a man camp. Getting tested every 3 weeks for c19 and quarantine for 1 week before returning to work

Flew as much as I could on days off, but the bad weather seemed to follow me all summer

Accident in October damaged right eye. Spent the next 8 out of 10 weeks in Seattle in motels. 3 surgery's on eye during that time. Tami was with me the whole time and I know it was hard on her.

The kids kept the house in order and had the carpets professionally cleaned, installed a new tv box so we could stream movies, they took my truck to the dealer and had it repaired. We had no idea they were doing any of that

Spent 3 days on a boat 17kts for 900 miles to get home instead of flying 3 hours. Doctor said I could not fly because of surgery.

Headed back to work 1/10. 3weeks on 3 weeks off.

I did meet a POA member last week outside Seattle and enjoyed the visit.

I'm grateful to have a good support group/family to help me through these trying times
 
I agree 2020 wasn’t all bad. My wife and I welcomed 4 new foster grandchildren bringing our total of grandchildren to 9. My son and his wife are teachers in Kotzebue, Alaska and are now fostering 4 native children. They joined us for Christmas along with the other 5 grandchildren and their parents. Interestingly all of the parents have had the first COVID vaccine shots. Four are medical first responders and the two Alaskan teachers get priority because of where they work. I took the Alaskan kids flying (they probably have as much air time as it takes for a PPL flying from village to village) which was a first for me. So ya, not the best of years, but for us personally, not the worst either.
 
Overall, 2020 wasn’t bad for us. My wife upgraded to captain and then got a reduced time schedule which works well for our RVing. I discovered I really do enjoy working from home (although I would enjoy it more if the kids were at school...), we bought the RV which is something I’ve long wanted to do and started doing some amazing trips. Shut down Cloud Nine so I could start a new chapter in my life. Started some great projects, finished others, was fortunate enough to get my first sponsored build (the Harley). Started work on the new shop and made some much needed home improvements we love.

Really, the worst part of the year was mom’s falls and subsequent hospitalization and rehabilitation/PT - but as things are developing I’m optimistic there will be silver linings to those falls even though they themselves were obviously bad and undesirable.
 
I had a great year! Made two big GA trips. Flew a rough 150 from TX to MI for a friend- the trip can only be described as “National Lampoons Ferry a 150”, made it back to Johnson creek Idaho again in my Cessna 140. Both trips single plane, 2019 we flew to Johnson Creek as a group of 7 birds. It really was a growing experience to do those trips this year as PIC not just of my bird but the travel itself.

I also met the girl whom I’m figuring will be my wife someday. She helps me work on the plane, loves pilot breakfast and coffee as much as I do and took a liking to airplane camping.

kinda silly but the minute I realized this is likely forever we were rigging skis and were in the process of putting the wheels back on... I had just run a slick of grease on the axle and turned my head to look for the shop rag and she was standing there with a paper towel extended... it wasn’t an act of submission to me- it was an act of partnership... A couple decades of scar tissue on the heart were melted right off in that moment in my hangar.

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While we missed our big planned trip to Europe, even had tickets to the main court at Roland Garros for the first two days of the French Open, we did get some traveling in. So much that I had my highest number of flying hours in a year. A big trip out west to go back country flying with Bob; from Atlanta to Oregon where he lives. On the way back I stopped at Rapid City and met up with my wife who flew in commercial, our only commercial flight of the year. We got to see the sights there for a few days.

The youngest graduated from college, but no ceremony. :( Moved her to Charlotte in July for her first post-college job. She has worked remotely the whole time, but having a good time as she has several friends from college near her, including one just doors away on the same floor in her apartment building.

We flew up to visit our middle daughter and help her move from an apartment to a townhome. Also flew up to get her and her two dogs for a visit in May.

Planned to do my first COPA Migration, but COVID canceled that. We kept our hotel reservation and so did about a dozen other couples/families. So, we did a Migration-lite trip and had a great time having dinners with them.

My wife and I have both worked from home everyday since early March. Normally we both go to the office every day. We've loved being together. That bodes quite well for retirement. :)

Our oldest had a civil ceremony wedding as her job went away at the end of the year and she needed to be married to get on her now husband's insurance. Their formal wedding is in April.

While we didn't get to do a fancy vacation for our 25th anniversary we did a week long trip seeing three nearby cities my wife wanted to see. We spent a few days in each at Louisville, Memphis and Nashville. We expected to like Nashville most, but we liked Louisville the most. The Mohamed Ali museum is very well done, although we may have like it even more due to virtually no one else there.

One thing we have noticed is that most places are much more enjoyable without the crowds.



Sent from my SM-G781U using Tapatalk
 
GRG55 said:
Wasn't there a thread about SkyChaser getting a date? :D
That should be enough information to meet the minimal standards around this joint.;)

Believe me, you do NOT want to tempt this crowd with that sort of offer...
Click to expand...

Let's just say, if a person looked hard enough, they could figure it out, so I'm not going to give any hints. :D

As for the original intent of this thread, thank you all for sharing! It's so cool to read your stories. :)
 
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Most fly-ins were cancelled, but the "Biplanes and Bands" event at Grimes Airfield (8N1) was a great time, flew the Hatz from CT to camp out there.

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There was also a fun fly-in breakfast at a private strip on eastern Long Island, with a lot of antiques coming over from Bayport Aerodrome...

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On another day a bunch of friends dropped into a bunch of private strips around the area, this was one of them:

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And several trips to N72 in NY near our cabin, a Hatz isn't exactly a great traveling machine but it sure beats sitting in traffic. This little lady isn't quite ready to fly with me yet but soon...

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ECTO-1 got a new battery, yoke ujoint, fuel drains, master cylinders, flex hoses, spark plugs, spinner, tiedown eyebolts, door latch...

Got lunch with @GMascelli, bunch of $50 PB&J runs with my son, took my dad up.

Looks like 71N and 8N1 are on the list for 2021...
 
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SkyChaser said:
Let's just say, if a person looked hard enough, they could figure it out, so I'm not going to give any hints. :D (That date thread, by the way, now has totally outdated information except as pertains to the original intent of the thread.)

As for the original intent of this thread, thank you all for sharing! It's so cool to read your stories. :)
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You wouldn’t be the first PoA couple, but my wife and I currently hold the title as the first and only (to date) PoA marriage. ;)
 
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In the future, someone is going to ask about first flights and this little girl is going to post this picture. :)
I wish I had a picture of my first flight but it was in a Stearman crop duster.
 
Timbeck2 said:
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In the future, someone is going to ask about first flights and this little girl is going to post this picture. :)
I wish I had a picture of my first flight but it was in a Stearman crop duster.
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If a two-holer biplane like a Hatz or Stearman off the grass doesn't get one excited about learning to fly, I don't know what it would take.
 
With all the bad things people have been facing in 2020, I haven't wanted to brag too much about my year, out of respect and politeness. But this seems like the thread to do it, so...

May/June/July were really slow months for me for flying and flight instruction. Now, I do have a full-time (non-flying) job, but I wasn't making progress toward my various flying goals. I was doing very little contract flying and only had a few recurring training clients. I realized I needed to do something different or nothing was going to change.

I have had several people over the years ask me if I can provide multi-engine rating training, but my answer had always been "sure, I can. Do you have a multiengine airplane we can use?" Needless to say, their answer was always "no". So I decided to see about changing that. I ended up working a long-term rental deal with a company that leases aircraft all over the U.S. They had a Seminole coming back from a multi-year lease to a flight school, and had no real plans for it. Right place, right time for me. I brought it back to OKC at the end of July and have been flying it here ever since, building my reputation to where I actually have a slight backlog of clients. I've put something about 110 hours on it since then, taking several people through various multiengine checkrides, with another one coming up next week. (I've also had several start training but never finish, some who just wanted to get current again, as well as some who have no intention of getting their ratings, just want to "see what it's like" - mainly what it's like to shut an engine down in flight.)

It has been professionally very satisfying, rewarding and productive. A friend likened it to "Field of Dreams" - "if you build it, they will come". I honestly figured I'd have the plane for a month or two, do a few ratings, fly maybe 30 hours in it, then return it. But it's taken on a life of its own, apparently I'm filling a gap in the local training market.
 
I guess 2020 is over,, I took the Christmas lights down today..
started replacing fabric on 34V's wings, a new project, a new year..:)
Life goes on.
 
I've been amazed how much my personal happiness depends on being able to sit in a worn booth or table, and overpay for someone to bring me iced tea to drink. I miss restaurants. I'm actually down in weight significantly due to their absence from my life, though, so maybe it's a mixed blessing.

My tech contracting has mostly evaporated. I've resorted to taking a W2 job and feel stifled by the 9-5 routine, but it's a safe harbor and likely temporary.

I know lockdowns made a LOT of winners and losers of us all, some worse than others, so I try not to judge people's antics too harshly. But, man, the dramatic hand-wringing and moaning and complaining (at least in my social media circles) makes me think we could all use a world war to regain some perspective, or maybe a pandemic with some real teeth and not the current softball thing we're all hiding from. I hope we get neither. :eek: I don't really want any more perspective. :D

My travel jones has been insane, which I think is mostly because there's nowhere that will take us at the moment.

Somehow pulled out 95 flying hours in 2020, so that's not too bad.

I'll be happy if 2021 gets us back to a constructive mindset. I hate that SpaceX is my main "wow we're a pretty cool species" news source lately. Everything else seems like a dumpster fire. :D
 
Actually, I don't mind working. What I got really sick of was working 14 hour days to make someone else rich...:lol:
 
2020 started out fine. Shortly after the first of the year I rode UA to DC for a couple days of meetings. Then my wife and I spent 4 weeks on Kauai. The end of February we drove to Arizona and southern CA for a couple week trip to the Grand Canyon, spring training and Disneyland. Got home just in time for Disneyland to close.

I had three planned business (standards committees) trips to Europe cancelled. I was on the committee for my professional society's international symposium in Reno. That got converted to an on-line event. One trip to PV in May cancelled. One trip to Hawaii in June cancelled. One trip in October to Playa del Carmen changed to Cancun. If that trip had been totally cancelled this would have been the first calendar year since 1994 where I hadn't left the US at least once. As it was the trip to Cancun got extended by a couple days due to a hurricane that cancelled our flight out on Monday and we had to wait until Wednesday to leave.

Obviously we didn't make any trips across the state for WSU home football games. Donated the cost of the tickets and parking to the athletic department.

Mom moved from independent living to assisted living in her retirement complex in August. We joined my brother to dispose of some of her stuff as she moved from a 2 bedroom to a 1 bedroom apartment. The last day we were unable to deliver her last box to her as the place had gone to total lockdown that morning (the retirement place took to box and delivered it to her). I haven't seen her face to face since then. Talked to her on the phone this morning, so there's that.

I hope 2021 is better. We'll see...
 
It was a busy and wild year for us too... In Jan/Feb, my SR22 developed a crack in the POS continental engine block. With two little kids (1 and 2 yrs old) who can't use O2 cannulas and family in pretty far flung locations that were impractical at 200 kts, I had not been flying much so the need for a new engine sealed the deal and I sold the Cirrus. I then changed jobs and we moved from sunny San Diego to NorCal. After 5-6 months of not flying, I was really missing it and a former co-worker turned me on to a local outfit that rents a bunch of Citation Mustangs so I jumped on board, did some training and in one grueling day, flew down to Long Beach, did my multi engine checkride in a DA42, another long(er) oral, then the C510S type rating in the Mustang, then flew back home.. We took one of the Mustangs to Missouri for Christmas and while our kids still manage to make any trip chaotic, it was a lot easier in the pressurized, quiet, roomy cabin of the Mustang and was <4 hours flight time (at least Eastbound) which isn't bad for 1500NM.

2EDD9661-7164-4527-92D6-2D8C7512DB0E.jpeg 87AAFC7F-4CAC-471B-8935-0F2CFDC8A43C.jpeg
Oh, and also there was a virus or something...
 
Let’s see:

February - last flight at my regional airline
March - started class at my dream airline/went on vacation to Mexico
April - June - was basically a blur and didn’t do much lol
July - went to Atlantic City for my birthday
August - got a new non flying job
September - got engaged
October - vacationed in Montauk
December - vacationed in Miami

Looking forward to 2021!
 
RudyP said:
It was a busy and wild year for us too... In Jan/Feb, my SR22 developed a crack in the POS continental engine block. With two little kids (1 and 2 yrs old) who can't use O2 cannulas and family in pretty far flung locations that were impractical at 200 kts, I had not been flying much so the need for a new engine sealed the deal and I sold the Cirrus. I then changed jobs and we moved from sunny San Diego to NorCal. After 5-6 months of not flying, I was really missing it and a former co-worker turned me on to a local outfit that rents a bunch of Citation Mustangs so I jumped on board, did some training and in one grueling day, flew down to Long Beach, did my multi engine checkride in a DA42, another long(er) oral, then the C510S type rating in the Mustang, then flew back home.. We took one of the Mustangs to Missouri for Christmas and while our kids still manage to make any trip chaotic, it was a lot easier in the pressurized, quiet, roomy cabin of the Mustang and was <4 hours flight time (at least Eastbound) which isn't bad for 1500NM.

View attachment 92954 View attachment 92955
Oh, and also there was a virus or something...
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sounds like you're really roughin' it. also, I think @Skyrys62 wears the same diapers.
 
Well the lady wears the pants around here so that's what I'm left with.
But my diapie don't sag that much. I'm not quite that gangsta..... maybe when I get a little too old, who knows..

And look, they're giving huggies in their Huggies.
 
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Just saying,, it is a good thing pressure washers were not invented yet, when our kids in diapers.
 
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