Hubby wrote up a weekend report.
How to Wash an Airplane
10 June 2012
Ragged chunks of milky blue sky punctuated a field of hazy brooding cumulus. Trees stood mutely without any leaf-rustling breeze and their deep shadows gradually lightened without boundary into the street. Barely June, the air already had the sweet, damp smell of late New York summer. By 9:00 I was not uncomfortably warm but looking forward to washing our airplane in cool water.
We were not in a hurry to load buckets, brushes and cleaners into the car; this was a lazy day. Peggy called ahead so we were assured of hangar space and then we headed into tolerable traffic on I-95. With one eye on the road and the other on the sky Peggy hoped for a higher ceiling to practice slow flight after the wash. The National Weather Service forecast improving weather throughout the day but the Weather Channel warned of a few thunderstorms in the afternoon.
Finally arriving at the airport I checked the weather computer while the Line Guys dragged a dirty airplane into the hangar. Ceilings around 5,000 feet for the rest of the day, it told me. A student pilot returned from a solo cross country reporting ceilings around 3,000 feet. "It's only bumpy when you get close to the clouds," he volunteered.
Sun-hatted Roger was out at the "swamp," our shared tiedown area, battling weeds poking inexorably from subduction zones between shifting plates of World War II concrete. His partner was feeling around his airplane looking for an excuse not to fly and not finding one.
--Continued next post
How to Wash an Airplane
10 June 2012
Ragged chunks of milky blue sky punctuated a field of hazy brooding cumulus. Trees stood mutely without any leaf-rustling breeze and their deep shadows gradually lightened without boundary into the street. Barely June, the air already had the sweet, damp smell of late New York summer. By 9:00 I was not uncomfortably warm but looking forward to washing our airplane in cool water.
We were not in a hurry to load buckets, brushes and cleaners into the car; this was a lazy day. Peggy called ahead so we were assured of hangar space and then we headed into tolerable traffic on I-95. With one eye on the road and the other on the sky Peggy hoped for a higher ceiling to practice slow flight after the wash. The National Weather Service forecast improving weather throughout the day but the Weather Channel warned of a few thunderstorms in the afternoon.
Finally arriving at the airport I checked the weather computer while the Line Guys dragged a dirty airplane into the hangar. Ceilings around 5,000 feet for the rest of the day, it told me. A student pilot returned from a solo cross country reporting ceilings around 3,000 feet. "It's only bumpy when you get close to the clouds," he volunteered.
Sun-hatted Roger was out at the "swamp," our shared tiedown area, battling weeds poking inexorably from subduction zones between shifting plates of World War II concrete. His partner was feeling around his airplane looking for an excuse not to fly and not finding one.
--Continued next post