Ah, Saturday. I was semi-conscious, thinking about sleeping in. Then the mind kicked in. Oh yeah, ground school for a pilot's license. I wonder how smart it is to commit to something like this. Oh well, I did commit, so I better be getting out there.
I slid from bed and did the bathroom stuff, coming from the shower to meet my big beauty. She gave me a wonderful hug, telling me that the girls were going shopping out at the Quality Wear factory store today. She said Sue and another lady she met were going to help find clothes for them. She asked if I wanted anything, and I suggested that I wouldn't mind having some camo fatigue pants or possibly some shorts from the same material.
While Bobby was showering, I dressed and made breakfast for everyone. It was still early, but there's no sense in getting used to sleeping in. I made the trip around the rooms to find the three all sleeping together in Wanda's bed. I asked them if they wanted to get up for their shopping expedition and they bounced right out of bed.
We ate together and I said I was going to ride the bike out to the air park since it was such a nice day. The girls told me to be careful and learn well so I could fly them to the moon. Very funny.
The bike was running well, but it let me know that I needed gas. Thank goodness for the reserve on the tank fuel switch. I filled up and rode serenely out to the airpark. It was a very nice ride, with much less traffic, since it was early Saturday morning.
I was there just before eight, possibly an hour early. I thought I might check out the planes some more, but when I signed in at the operations building, an older guy that identified himself as the teacher said, "I think everyone is probably going to be here by eight fifteen, so we can start early and learn more. You're the one who wants to try for the test tomorrow right?"
I nodded.
"I'm not saying you can't do it but there is a lot to learn for only today and tomorrow. I'll make sure you have all the information, but you'll have to study tonight to catch up. Here's another binder like you were given yesterday. Go in the classroom and start on page one. I'll shift us to the correct page when the class begins."
Ten minutes later, the classroom was full. The instructor said, "Let's begin. You all have a lot to learn before your exam tomorrow."
We were taught for almost two hours before we got a pee break, then two more hours before we broke for lunch. The school had a huge stack of hoagies and soft drinks for us, and encouraged us to eat quickly so we could get right back to class.
We started back at twelve thirty, and at two-thirty the instructor said, "That's the information I wanted to cover for today. I'm going to jam through last week's information for our new student. Any that wish to stay to go over the material again are welcome. I'm told that I can cram as fast as I can with this guy, so stay quiet and just listen, okay?"
From two thirty to almost six, the instructor had me going through the earlier chapters, and using visual aids, and taught me the items about flying that you never think about. Every time you go somewhere, you have to calculate weights, quantities of fuel that must be included in the weights, plus weather and wind conditions. There was a lot to remember, and he reminded us that was why almost everything having to do with flying an airplane had checklists involved. If I wanted to be a perfect pilot, I should make up my own personal preflight checklists that didn't have anything to do with the plane, but prepared me to fly. We did several sample calculations for weight and balance, and then he threw in a problem about density altitude and the differences it made.
When the instructor called it a day, my head was spinning. I could use some food and a beer. I called Bobby to see where they were. If they were near food, I wanted to join them, especially if the food was accompanied by beer.
When Bobby answered, I asked, "Hey Babe, I'm finished for today and I'm starved and need a beer. Where are you so I can meet you?"
The surprising answer, "We are back at Sue's place actually, having barbecue and beer. Come on and get here. There's enough food here for an army."
"Are you sure we're not intruding?"
Bobby was smiling, "No Honey, I think it's the way this place is, one continuous gathering of family and friends. Come on before we eat up everything." She hung up on me. Huh!
I rode to the trailer park and was passed through the gate as if I was expected. When I parked in front of the trailer, I parked among a bunch of really nice bikes, and a bunch of various kinds of golf carts. I noticed that there were kids running around doing things everywhere I looked. There were a bunch of redheaded kids that must belong to the cute little redheaded twins.
My ladies all greeted me with enthusiasm, all talking at once telling me about what they had found today at the factory outlet. They were praising Sue and the ladies that had gone to the store to help them find sizes for all of them.
Mercy brought me a beer with a smile, "You look like you would enjoy a beer. Have some ribs, Tiny is doing a great job on them today."
When the chatter settled to a roar, I went over to say hi to the men at the bar, watching Tiny and an older, much shorter, man cooking on two huge built-in grills under a giant hood. When my beer looked low, Steve pointed at a refrigerator with a Bud handle on it. "Pour your own, Chuck. That's the advantage of having a keg that's always full."
I went back to the table to satisfy my hunger, listening to the multiple conversations from the various groups. The famous Glenda was introduced to me while we were eating. I told her how great her meatloaf sandwiches were. She smiled proudly. While pointing to the bar, she said, "My Martin loves my meatloaf and says all men love good meatloaf sandwiches. I think men just like to eat." Martin was the little guy helping Tiny cook.
As I was filling up with food, Steve came over and said, "I know you have to study this evening, but we're taking a little ride up to Dade City. Want to come? If all your ladies want to come, we have enough single riders that everyone can get a ride."
Bobby looked at me pleadingly. "I would love to. My bike isn't anywhere as nice as those out front. Kind of a plain Jane."
"Hey," said the big burly guy with the redheaded girlfriend or wife, "you get your knees in the breeze. You ride. From what I hear, you even ride with a fake leg. Some of us have time to fool around with our equipment, and some of us don't. If you keep your bike running well and clean, no one will ever fault you."
We did ride up to Dade City. They had some kind of festival or fair at their fair grounds. We had some more beer and a sausage sandwich then loaded up and rode back to the trailer park. There were several women who were single riders. Some took my ladies and one of Steve's women rode behind one of the ladies. The tall lady with Steve, Kathy, was talking to one of the short redheads about when her bike was going to be ready. She was anxious to get it on the road. She did seem to enjoy being behind Steve while he rode a big bike with a sidecar. Sue was in the sidecar, while Mercy was behind a tough looking lady with a gentle smile.
As a group, we said our goodbyes and thank yous for the hospitality, food, and beer. The girls were now all old pals with the women here and promised to call this coming week. They all were easy to know and like. There were a lot of them, though. Hard to get all the names right and who belonged to whom.
Marie rode back to the house with me, while Wanda and Jan went with Bobby in the Escalade. As soon as we were home, I went into the office and studied hard until ten. I took a shower and had a beer, then sat with the girls as they were still looking over their purchases from today.
After a while I announced, "I'm going to bed since I need to be up early for class in the morning. I think I've progressed enough to take that exam tomorrow. The instructor said it wasn't that difficult, so I do want to try to take it."
I was hugged and kissed before being sent to bed. Just as I lay my head on the pillow, a naked Wanda slipped into bed. She kissed me for several minutes before allowing me to progress to enjoy her magnificent goodies. We made love for a lot longer than I should have, but it was too good to stop. When we were still wrapped up with each other, gently kissing while lying in a giant wet spot, I slipped into sleep. Sometimes guys just can't stay awake, can they?
Chapter Twenty-seven "B"
Wow, six thirty already. I was up showered, dressed, and had some cereal, while the rest of the house slept in.
The weather forecaster was expecting some afternoon showers, so I took the car and arrived at the air park about seven forty-five. The instructor said, "Eager, huh? I noticed you going for a ride with the bunch out at the park. Did you have time to do any studying?"
"I got in three solid hours and was able to go through everything up through what we did yesterday. I went ahead and read the rest of the information too, so I should be up with the rest of the class."
"So you think you might want to take the exam?"
"Yep, I think I should be able to pass it."
The instructor said, "Hopefully everyone will get here early again today so we can get started early again."
The class was convened by ten after eight. We had one very short pee break between eight and noon. The instructor said, "All those taking the exam today, go have something to eat quickly, so we can begin the exam. You'll have two and half hours to complete the questions. You are not really expected to finish all sixty, but you are graded by how many you do finish."
After we ate, I had already figured out that two and half hours was nine thousand seconds so I had to read and answer every question in two and half minutes or less. I should be up to it.
I did finish all of the questions in only an hour and forty-five minutes. I'm sure I missed some of them, but I don't think I missed many. My retention is pretty good and I'm used to reading and comprehending fast. It took longer to fill in the little circles and look back and forth between the test and the answer sheet, than it did to read and think of the answer to the question. I went back over the test, satisfied with my answers.
When the tests were all gathered, the instructor said, "You should all receive your exam scores by Wednesday. I'll work on them right away. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday."
As I got up to stretch, the instructor said, "Chuck, hang on a second, will you?"
He took an answer sheet and put a template over it and began going down the answers. He went to the next sheet and then the third answer sheet. He raised his eyes to me and smiled. "Ninety-eight, excellent."
I must have looked confused as he said, "You passed your exam. Looks like you missed one question. Come on; let's get in your first student pilot hours. Steve said that if you did well and I wanted to, I could give you your first hour or two of in-flight instruction. Let's go get a plane.
We walked over to the charter office and checked out a little Cessna and I did the preflight inspection under his supervision. He had me get into the left seat. That made me a little nervous, but he could fly the plane just as well from the right seat.
We were soon in the air; with him giving me little hints how to handle the plane. He directed me toward some clouds, saying that he wanted me to feel the buffeting that would occur under these bigger cumulus clouds. We were at about four thousand feet, probably five hundred feet under the clouds. It was noticeably cooler under the big cloud and there were downdrafts and updrafts all the way under it. The whole time I was trying to keep the plane level beneath the clouds, I could see the instructor with his hand on the stick with me. What bothered me were the worry lines he got on his face a couple of times as the plane bounced like a basketball.
I was amazed when he said, "Let's get back down; you've been up two hours. We'll get low on fuel pretty soon if we stay up much longer."
Wow, wonder where two hours went.
I landed the plane while being talked down all the way. He said my next lesson was going to be all up and down. Lots of landings, which meant lots of takeoffs.
He handed me a neat little leather book with my name embossed on the front. "This is your log book. Your teaser time is logged, so let's log your time today to get you started."
I made appointments for two in the afternoon everyday this coming week. Hopefully, I could do my work and still get out here to fly two or three hours a day to fulfill the requirements to learn. It could be difficult to flex around the time needed to finish.
When I got into the car, I called Bobby to see what we were doing. "Come to Park Place. We're in the bar, shooting pool with the people from the trailer park. Tommy and Zena are here, too. Come on, I'm starved and we've ordered a bunch of pizzas and calzones."
At the crowded Park Place, I had to park at the end of the diner's parking lot. I could see into the diner as I passed and saw that it was packed. The bar was full, with people at every pool table, and people at the dart games and foosball tables. It looked like every seat at the bar was taken, and all the tables had people.
Bobby stood up and, of course, towered above everyone. She waved at me. I got a hug, a kiss, and was handed a long neck. "The food just came. Sit, I saved a chair for you." Tom and Zena were meeting Steve, Sue, Mercy, and Kathy for the first time. Wonder where Juanita was? There were a bunch of kids, so the trailer park folks didn't ride. Tom and Zena thought the group was a lot of fun. Steve asked how today was, knowing that since I was so late, I had passed the test and had gotten my first in-flight instruction. I talked about flying under the cloud and how my first landing had been.
Bobby asked Steve, "Do you think he's going to be able to fly me? I'm so big, I may weigh too much."
"You'll be fine, Bobby, Chuck will learn to fly the 172 and if you can get into the seat, it will carry you fine. If he wants to fly all you ladies he'll have to learn to fly the 205 or 206 we have. It will carry all of you."
"That's a ways off, Steve," I said. "I have to learn a lot and have a lot of practice to do before I fly someone with me."
"You're doing it now, Chuck," Steve said. "Even though the instructor is with you, you're flying him. It's the same."
"Yeah, sure."
"You'll see, you'll soon have confidence."
It seemed like I had just gotten there when Bobby said, "It's nine-thirty, we should leave soon."
Where did the time get to? Sue said, "We should have had these kids home an hour ago. Juanita will be all over us."
We got kisses, hugs, and handshakes from the trailer park people, then a nice kiss and handshake from Zena and Tom. Amazing, we have met a lot of people in the last couple of weeks.
Wanda and Bobby had ordered a huge box of calzones to take to work tomorrow. I was planning on a late night snack, as I knew how good those things were. We made it home in time to relax, have our snack, enjoy a leisurely swim, then hop into bed for a good night's sleep, after some cuddling with my big babe first.
Primary editing by Pepere
Proofing by Sagacious