24 Sep

I have flown test flights every day for the last five days. You would think that only flying four aircraft a night the odds are pretty good that one of these nights they will all come back good. Or at least not require a test flight since most of the maintenance we do doesn’t. After putting over ¼ million dollars worth of parts into 081 it was finally good enough to put back onto a mission. It’s not perfect but it is safe – at least it doesn’t try to fly into the ground on every turn. On its first night out it didn’t even get off the ground before another AFCS (advanced flight control system) part failed (one of the few parts we didn’t replace). I test flew it again today and it is going out for another try tonight. We think it might be scared of the dark. Today I did a test flight and a ground run in the morning then I was able to come back to the room for five hours – four of which I slept. I even made it to the gym this evening. I really need to get back into exercising. Another thing I need to do is make it to church. I have ended up working every Sunday since getting here so I need to figure out a way to rearrange my schedule. They only have one service which is 11:00 – right when test flights are ready.

Clear H 100 L 72