St. Patrick's Day

I think I'm the only Stay-At-Home-Mom that didn't do something special for their kids for St. Patricks Day. I really didn't know that it was such a big holiday. If only I'd known then I would have done something....okay, I wouldn't. I look for any reason to make cookies though so we did make some but I didn't have a shamrock shaped cookie cutter and the dough was way too soft to roll out. Anyway, they had green frosting and pink sprinkles (my girls will find a way to add pink to anything, even a day of green).
I felt so left out of the festivities that I had to post about our nothingness. Do you think my kids will be psychologically damaged when they find out that a leprechaun never visited them as kids, their toilet water and milk were never green, and their mom never made clever green foods for them to eat? Probably, but what am I to do? :)

I really do think that all these things that other moms do for their kids are cute and secretly I'm jealous that I'm not that creative or motivated. Hats off to you all.

Emergency Landing #2

No I am not kidding. I wish I were though.

Last Tuesday I got a phone call that started with, "Everyone's okay". That immediately makes me think that it's NOT okay. This time him and his student were out doing an instrument cross country out to Prescott, AZ. On the way there the engine failed. (Turns out that the fuel line broke and starved the engine) Cameron takes over the controls and starts looking for a place to land out in the middle of the nowhere (also known as Wikieup, AZ). He decides on a few places but as he gets closer to the ground he sees that his first two options (that were paved) have power lines. So he goes with his third option which is a dirt road. He lands the aircraft fine (dodging brush and rocks) but comes up on a wash in the road. They were going pretty slow by this point but he took his feet off the brakes and tried to lift the nose over the wash. It started out well but as they came back down the nose wheel hit the edge and tore off.



You can see the wash and the nose wheel in the background. Anyway, some workers were out and saw Cam's plane come down so they were there by the time he stepped out of the plane. They drove him and his student to a diner and not long after they got there people were coming up to him asking him if he was the pilot and if "this" was his aircraft (showing him a picture on there phone that WAS his aircraft. This is a VERY small town). People gave him a round of applause for his landing and compared him to the guy who landed in the Hudson. Crazy!
The FAA has since been out to look at the aircraft and the accident site and they only have good things to say about Cameron's landing. Apparently he picked and nailed the ONLY landing spot that would have worked out there. He talked with one of the guys yesterday and after he got done questioning Cam he told him that they may just send him a letter of recommendation, or something like that, to send in with his resume to other companies. A letter from the FAA telling a future employer what a great pilot he is? Yeah, we'll take it! All in all Cameron did everything right and has received nothing but praise.
On a better note, Sheble Aviation is losing a few instructors. This leaves a couple key positions open like a seaplane instructor. Cameron has already put his name in and with any luck he'll get the opportunity to start working with the current seaplane instructor before he leaves.
Hopefully, this is the last of the emergency landings. If not, I'm going to urge him VERY STRONGLY to consider dentistry again.

Cameron's First Emergency Landing

And his LAST, I hope! I can honestly say that him telling me this story didn't strike fear into me. He's an amazing pilot and is the most level headed thinker I have met. He's the only person I know that doesn't give into his adrenaline and fear, even when, lets use this as an example, HIS PLANE IS ON FIRE! Regardless, I still don't want ANYTHING to happen like this AGAIN! I'll recount what he told me as best I can and be kind with me as I try and use aviation "lingo".
He was out with a student and the weather has been ridiculously cold lately so she wanted to turn on the heater. Cameron was fully aware that the heaters in these things are a "ticking time bomb". But he assured me that if use properly and ventilated they should be fine. Well, all was not fine. They entered the pattern and were getting ready to land when white smoke started filling the cabin. (It think)Cam turned it off and hit the button that was suppose to ventilate the heater (or something) and that's what the black smoke started filling the cabin. His student gave the controls over to him. They couldn't see so they opened a small window that started sucking the smoke out. He used that little gap that the window was making while sucking the smoke out to see the runway. He throttled up to 140 knots (which is a very fast speed to be coming in for a landing). His feet were getting really hot, but he never saw any flame (just assumed that there was). He could still hardly see when they came in to land (and Cam doesn't really remember this) but his student told him that he "greased it on". That means that it was a nice landing :) While Cam was preparing to land his student ripped off their headsets and undid the seat belts so that as soon as the aircraft was stopped they could jump out. They put the brakes on hard and as soon as they stopped they jumped out. A fire truck was on its way to meet them but at the rate and speed that Cameron descended to land the fire was already put out. Shaken but safe. The funny part was that the firefighters were disappointed that they had got all dressed up and there was nothing to do. They did get to ride back in the truck though so it all ended on a good note and he was back in the air the next morning (not in that aircraft, or course).
I'm sure I'm missing details that Cameron would have thrown in but that's the story I remember. This experience has only increased my confidence in his skills as a pilot and reaffirmed to me that the only place for him to be is in an airplane.