So I havent posted a lot the last few weeks. It’s not because I’m slacking in Vegas eating really good food and enjoying the suites at my favorite hotel, although its been a while and I really need to get back to my 5 Vegas trips a year schedule. Nope, work has been crazy. On the bright side I have been able to see some really neat stuff. I was up at Yolo county airport last week while they were doing air-ops for the big California fires. I took a bunch of photos and then got a new phone so I don’t have them with me to post. This week I was up in Oakdale to rescue another of our planes and got pics on the new phone. It looks something like this.
I laughed at the other end of the runway though because its like they got most of the way done on leveling the area and then gave up and just paved it. There is an obvious change in the elevation on the last few hundred yards. Even better is that it’s the end most often used for landings. Wanna see what I’m talking about? Click on the picture to make it bigger so you can *really* see the thing.
One final pic of just how nice a day it was out there.
So, I am often asked ‘what do you do’? Most days I am in the hanger sorting parts and handing out work to the techs to try and keep airplanes in the air so we can keep teaching students. But on days we go out and recover an airplane that has been left by a student it usually looks something like this.
That is 08L, one of our fleet of Piper Tomahawks. It was left there because the student flew up there and then couldn’t get the airplane started again. So we load up the parts and tools and get on the road. Most of the time we will fly up, fix it, and then fly it back but lately the truck has made a handy tool bench and work surface. Turned out to be pretty handy for overhauling a magneto.
On a side note, I work with these planes every day, fly them, and have known some of them since I first started training for my license in 1990. I know their tail numbers, their quirks, even far enough to say each one has a ‘personality’. Many of them I have gone and pulled out of salvage yards, people’s backyards (see an earlier post), and even flew one back from Florida (90G, my favorite of all our Tommy’s). To me, and a couple other A&P’s here at the school, they aren’t machines anymore. They aren’t dispassionate lumps of metal to be used, abused, and thrown away. They are more like pets, each having it’s own set of markings and characteristics that makes that plane unique and special. Some are temperamental and some are tough as nails, and a few are ‘special’ like that dim-witted nephew that at 13 years old still says ‘airpwane’ and stares vacantly into the distance. But each one has a special place in my heart and I’ll do everything I can to get them home and keep them flying.