Flying to Kankakee

Dave, Laura and I flew up to Kankakee IL or Con-cocky as Dave pronounces it. It started off as a beautiful morning, clear skies and calm winds. Dave flew out there and as we started getting closer it started to get a little bumpy but not too bad. As Dave sets up to land, one of the two planes in front of us reports wind shear on final and warns us to be careful. Neither Dave nor I really took much interest in that because we’ve been up in far worse conditions than this. The guy in front of us lands and we watch him as we turn final. It looks okay at first and then you see the guy drift all the way over to one side of the runway. As he’s rolling out, he starts talking on the radio to the previous aircraft and says “Wow that was a difficult landing. I had full right rudder in and i barely got it down.” Dave and I look at each other like “What is this guy talking about…the wind is almost down the runway?!” By this time, Dave is just about over the runway threshold and the previous guy is so busy talking on the radio that he’s not getting off of the runway. Now technically, he was far enough down the runway that we could have landed and he wouldn’t have been a problem but a good pilot never takes that chance so Dave hits the throttle, mutters some expletives and goes around. The next time around Dave plants it on the runway. No big deal, no need to get excited or worried. So we go inside and take their courtesy car which is a Ford Taurus from the 80’s. The damn thing pulled to the right like a shopping cart. Anyway, we drove to Burger King, had lunch and then I flew us home. On the way back, Laura sat in the front seat and I let her fly a bit. It was real bumpy at this point but she still had fun. Dave on the other hand was in the back seat not feeling too hot. I think he had a bug and the bumps and swaying of the plane just made it worse. I landed back at Purdue which was VERY busy because of the Illinois Vs. Purdue game that day. Quite a few people were flying in to attend the game. That was the extent of my weekend.