Normally I just post picture without much of a writeup, but this time I've got more to say then the pictures will.
I got invited to fly with my neighbor to pick up a ferry pilot and drop him off in Rockford, Illinois so he could fly my neighbor's new T6 home. After waiting for some weather to clear, we flew to Jackson in the T-Goose and picked up the ferry pilot; a pilot I've long considered to be the god of all that is aviation. Some say he's sold his soul to the devil, all I know is that looking at his licenses and logbooks would make even John and Martha King jealous. He is one of the few people I've ever met or even heard about, that can truly fly any airplane by the way it feels. I once heard a story about when he trained a pilot to fly another incredibly rare warbird. At the end of the checkout, the pilot asked our friend how he learned to fly such a rare beast, he answered "this is my first time". God I tell you.
We got Rockford and my neighbor and him looked over the T6 and did some paperwork. After a while, ''god'' took off in the T6, and we followed behind in the Goose. After navigating the tricky Chicago airspace with only a sectional, he decided messing with the sectional and the breeze due an open cockpit was too much. The normal pilot would probably close the canopy, he however was is so talented that there was another option. So he put away the sectional and flew from Gary, Indiana back to Pontiac, MI - no gps, no vor, no ndb's, no planned headings, etc, etc; just by "what felt right". We were right behind him with two GPS's, and he was dead on. We asked how he did it, "I'm a messenger pigeon".
I can not decide if knowing him makes me depressed because I know I'll never be 1/8 the pilot he is, or if knowing him motivates me to be 1/8 the pilot he is.
Regardless, here are the pictures...
On the ground at Rockford. Two planes originally built within a year of each other. One's a piston pounder, and the other's a turbine.
The ferry pilot asked if anyone on our plane had a camera. I did, so he brought it in ''a little closer". No zoom here:
and a healthy amount of zoom:
The hangar was very tight, but it should work.
)
