Some combination of uber surge pricing and a kind offer from Eric led to him and his cute little boys giving us a ride to the airport in the morning and saw us off for the final leg to Columbus KCMH where I would walk next door and get on Southwest heading home. As we approached the Ohio border we saw the first clouds of the trip. Almost exactly upon leaving Indiana behind we were flying on top of a 2 ft thick OVC/BKN layer. We discussed just going underneath it as bases were 2900 ft and we could easily get in VFR, but I thought it would be a good opportunity to get a popup IFR and shoot the approach to show Josh the instrument profile and also how to fly a coupled approach since he was unfamiliar with the STEC.
It was bumpy as heck from cloud entry to landing, but he got it all set up and flew down the glideslope and landed like a champ in 13 kts gusting 22 and 40 degree cross wind. We spent some time wiping the left engine down and trying to find the source of the oil leak on the left engine which is small but it only takes a little bit of oil to make a heck of a mess. From what we can tell it seems it’s coming from the upper case through bolts. Anyone have some advice on that? The broken layer had turned to scattered puffy clouds like you see on The Simpsons. I felt good about Josh flying home solo and we wrapped up the paperwork and he flew off on his own.
I’m told he arrived safely.
Overall a fantastic weekend and so great to make new friends sharing this crazy passion for these vintage Beechcraft airplanes. Amazing that we can transport ourselves across the entire country in comfort and style with so many interesting places to stop along the way. We sure lucked out with the weather too.
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