Tampico - The Last Dance

Well, the last dance wasn't mine, as it turns out.

Last Thursday, I flew the Tampico up to Ohio State for its two year IFR check. The weather was marginal VFR, which is the FAA's way of saying, "is this trip really necessary?" The clouds were overcast at 1200 ft., so I knew I'd be flying up a a relatively low. but legal, altitude. There were also some nasty looking dark clouds coming up from the southeast. So, hoping to get the plane up there before the weather became unflyable, I rushed to the airport after work. To no avail. It wouldn't start. It wouldn't even crank. Some sort of electrical problem, I surmised. After a half hour of the mechanics fiddling with it, though, I was ready to go. It turned out to simply be a loose connector, so no big deal.

It was a pretty smooth flight, although I did have to fly through a little rain. It's been awhile since I've flown into Don Scott, but everything was right where I left it so I had no trouble finding the shop.

This afternoon I needed to go back up to OSU and bring the plane back to Bolton for its final preparations prior to departure for the left coast. My daughter wanted to ride along - she's been depressed over its sale and wanted a last ride. We stopped by Bolton on the way to OSU to pick up our headsets, and ran into the guy that's going to fly the plane to LA. That was fortuituous since I thought he might like to ride along and get some flying time in before launching off to cross the country. So, I rode right seat. Erika rode in the back and cried most of the way home. It was pretty weird being a passenger after four years of sitting in the left seat, and even more so for it to be my during last time in the plane.

So, some time in the next couple of days the plane will head to LA. I won't be on hand for the departure, so one day soon I'll come home from work and it will be gone, off to see the sights of California.