A couple of mine, never thought keeping a jounal at studentpilot.com would ever get any use
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It was the day before I was leaving to do my glider training and also the day after the last day of school for the summer. The other pilot had left the '83 Navajo Chieftan at Martin State, MD (MTN) for the night and drove the airport car home. Me and mom drove over (3 1/2 hours) to pick up the plane and the boss. Weather was beautiful on the drive over and I thought we were going to have a nice flight. I asked my mom what the weather was supposed to be and she said we'd have some storms to play with, Yee ha. I loved playing with the lighting and red on the stormscope and radar. We got there and ate a Chiliis. Then got to the airport and I talked to all my buddies over there. A bunch of airport folks hang around the FBO and I'm their 3 days a week 12 hours a day in the summer so I know 'em all well. I looked at the radar and was stunned, NASTY looking yellow and red was all over D.C. and approching Baltimore; FAST. I walk out side and can hear the thunder. I hear a jet and look to see what it is. Turns out it's a couple buddies I know from my area dropping the boss off in his Beechjet. They land and I poke my head in and say hi, but they're in a rush to get out ahead of those storms. My mom comes out and says the boss is comming around the corner and to hop in the airplane. The plan was to fly over to Bay Bridge (W29) and pick up the other boss. Then fly the two of them back to our home base. We take off with lightning at our 6 and a colorful radar screen. I fly this leg and make a nice smooth take off then up to 3,000' and talk to Patomic. W29's only 15 miles away so we're there in no time following a Baron on the visual to 11. We're on final and I give the airplane to my mom (short runway don't want to mess up here) and she puts the gear down. Red light and the handle doesn't fall. Uh oh, not good. Storms on our tail, marine helicopters diveret to W29 the WX was so bad. We try three more times, and still a read light. Mom decides to make a low pass and ask the marine chopper pilots if the gear is down. They say it looks good so we try the handle 2 more times. Nothing happens so we decide to try to land. Mom greased it in and took the last taxi way. We hop out of the airplane and I take a look at the gear while my mom opens our next flight plan. I noticed some thing different, but couldn't tell what it was. Turns out the gear doors were down. How the hell did I miss that? A hydrolic line to the gear doors busted and left the doors down while the gear was down. Some how the right main indicator was tripped causeing the airplane to think the right gear was up. We pick up the other boss and hop back in the airplane. The storms were once again just comming over the airport so we got the hell out of there. Had an uneventful flight home, except for the gear horn going off for the whole approch (annoyying as hell). Had a great time with the gliders the next day, and now have one hell of memory in that pretty old Chieftan....
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It was race day at Dover Downs here in Delaware and I was working the office at the local FBO making $9 an hour and loving every second of it. We must have had 30 jets and commuter aircraft on the ramp belonging to the race teams. A couple of my buddies are in a partnership in an Mitsubishi MU2 (long body) and one of the owners (a very experienced pilot) was in the FBO. They had just purchased an old 30,000 sq' hanger and were spending a lot of time cleaning it up. I was talking to him and asked him if he was doing any flying that day. He said he was taking his wife and daughter over to BWI to catch a flight to AZ. I asked if I could ride a long and he said no problem. He picked me up at 6 and we drove over. I hadn't looked at the weather and it looked nice to me. Turned out it was the first BIG thunder storm for the NE. Level 5 and 6's were about 10 miles to the NW of BWI as we lifted the fully loaded MU2 off the runway. Turned on the radar and saw absotlutly nothing but red and yellow. I he looked over at me and said,"Holy [expletive deleted] Alex, what are we supposed to do?" Of course he was just playin around. It was race day so Dover approch was crammed full of people trying to get clearences so we departed VFR and picked up IFR with Patuxen. Flew around a lot of little cells and then we saw the big one. Now it was only 2 miles NW of the airport and most flights had just shut down on the taxi way. But hey, we still have time to get in. So we fly the visual for 10, then the wind (like steady at 20) changes to 33, so 33L, over to 28. We turn final for 28 get wind shear alerts and I'm scared as hell, but I have complete confidence in Jack. He makes one of the nicest damn landings I've ever felt. We taxi down RWY 4 to Signiture and shut down. Jacks wife, step daughter and their friends jump in the van to the terminal as me and Jack walkn into the FBO. About 15 feet from the door it starts pissing down rain. I take off in a sprint and so does Jack. We get in and lightning is every where. I look out the window and watch the tower get struck. I look over at Jack and say," You ready to roll?" He starts laughing and says, "Hey look, free ice cream." Signiture had 6 different types of ice cream there for the pilots and 4 different types of coffee, and pop corn. It's now around 7 and Jack says we'll be there till atleast 10 till it clears up enough for us to get home, Remember it's now moving straight towards home, so we'd have to fly through it. He decides to treat me to dinner and we go to this great Italian place, and both get big Steaks and free salads and bread sticks. Get back to the airport and watch some movie with a couple Falcon Capts. waiting for thier hotel van. At around 8 we watch cops then at 9 we watch Americas Most Wanted then finally we hop in the airplane and go home. It's a nice flight home, weather had gotten a little low but no T storms. We fly the VOR to 4 at GED then make a nice landing and put 'er away. He drops me off at home at around 11 pm. Next morin' I'm up at 5am. to work at the FBO. Boy I love that type of life style........
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