Memorial Day Flight To KMOP

Today I decided to do a nice VFR cross-country flight.  I want to make sure I have more than enough cross-country time for my instrument rating, not to mention I wanted more flying time.

The weather was most promising and turned out nicely as forecast.

So I downloaded a weather brief and headed to the airport and got N8428S ready to go.

I wanted to fly rather precisely and try to interact with ATC as much as possible. I also figured it might be a busy flying day so having flight following helping with traffic wasn't a bad thing.

So, I took off from Pontiac and set course on the GPS for Mt.Pleasant, got on course and then contacted Great Lakes Approach for flight following. I got a squawk code, was told to maintain VFR and set to go on course at 5,500 feet.

The air was nice and smooth.

T

 

Then, after a bit I set the autopilot to NAV mode and let George do some of the flying as I need to be comfortable using the autopilot. No hands needed. Ok, I actually hand my hands near or on the controls at all times as one should never completely trust an autopilot.  It take take some of the load off while flying though.

Once I had Mt. Pleasant in sight, flight following was terminated and I then made a nice smooth landing on Runway 27.  No one else was around, but there were a few planes on the tarmac.

A nice Mooney.

An experimental

 The Mt. Pleasant VOR is located on the field and its due to be shut down soon as part of the move towards GPS.

The terminal building at Mt. Pleasant is rather nice.  It has a conference room, a flight planing  room with computers to look up the weather, nice clean washrooms and a comfy lounge.

Sadly the Mt. Pleasant Casino is only opening tomorrow, so it would wait.

After a brief stop, I got in the plane and headed homeward.

After takeoff I called up Great Lakes Approach and got flight following back to Pontiac, including entering Flint's airspace.  I was requested to remain at 3,500 while transiting through, which I did.  Then to Pontiac where I entered the right downwind for Runway 27R and did another very nice landing.

That's 2.2  cross country time and 2 landings.

Sunday Gardening And Smoking Corned Beef Day

Today was an all-outdoors day.

It was weeding the landscape time.  With the rain and sun there had been a  surge of weeds sprouting up and turning practically into weed-trees overnight.

Since we would be outside anyways, might as well smoke something for dinner.

 Since we had a flat of corned beef I was requested to make some smoked corn beef - otherwise known as Pastrami or Montreal Smoked Meat.

First I unpacked the brisket and let it soak in water for two hours changing the water every half hour to make it a tad less salty.

While it was soaking I prepared the smoker.

Hickory wood (found a box of hickory under the Pecan wood box which was great),  locally sourced of course.  I also filled the water bowl with boiling water and started the full chimney of charcoal. 

The brisket was covered in my brisket rub and placed on the grate.

 

 

Then the charcoal was added and the smoker closed up to do its thing.

Once the smoker was moving along, I began chopping weeds in the backyard. Many bags full of weeds were removed and the place looks much better now.

After 9 hours in the smoker, the brisket was ready for dinner.

To say it tasted great was an understatement.  The burnt ends tasted like candy. That's 2 for 2 in the Weber smoker so far.

Saturday Range Day

I took Abby to the range yesterday,  It's been quite awhile since she had come with me so it was a nice time together.

She really liked the M&P Compact 22 with the can on it and after a bit of practice did very well with it.

She could hit all three on demand, but occiasionally would rush herself and inevitabley shoot high above the plates, but once she settled down she could knock them all down.  I may even be able to talk her into trying steel challenge someday.

 She also tried the M&P 15-22 and thought it was a bit heavy but then she remembered shooting it awhile back as a kid and then she also got her hits with it too.

She said the Tavor felt too heavy for her but she would hit the paper with it (No plates with the Tavor as that steel is pistol-rated only).

I shot the Glock with the replacement Holosun on it and finished zeroing it.

Then we did a bit of shooting and (slowly) moving - first the rack of thre plates then moving to the other side with another rack of three plates for Abby and three plats and two poppers for me.  Good practice in teaching her how to move with a firearm while controlling the muzzle direction at all times, and she had a lot of fun doing it.

Overall a very nice and easy range trip.

Then we drove back and met up with the rest of the family for lunch and then got a lot of cleaning done around the house which was all good.  hen I headed out to a friend's 40th birthday party and had a good time doing that too. 

Not a bad way to spend a Saturday.

Flying IFR - Lesson #5 - Going Actual

Today the weather was solid IFR - rainy. low clouds and winds gusting out of 040.  Normally that would be an easy call of a hard no for my go-no go decision to fly.

"We're going flying", says Kevin.

Yes, my first taste of flying in actual conditions as a licensed pilot.

Kevin had prepared and filed a flight plan, and we went over what we would do this lesson - fly to Flint, do some approaches including an ILS and an RNAV, and then fly back to Pontiac for an instrument landing using the localizer for 9R.

I preflighted N1869H in the hangar as it was raining.  Yes, N1869H again and yes the fargin' left seat keeps losing the detents, but the other plane I was set for was down for maintenance and this one was nearest the door so we went with it. I finally figured out that its two detent positions that it will always lose which include position 1 where I like to sit, so if I sit 3 settings back it will stay, but I feel a bit farther away than normal but it does work.

So it was a good preflight, good IFR preflight check and runup and then we lined up on 9L and we were off getting clearance from Ground and Tower and took off into the soup climbing to 3,000 and expecting 4,000 10 minutes after.

And soup it was.  Solid cloud and rain made for an interesting experience as your instruments are it as there's no point in looking outside - its all grey/white nothingness. Your body does start to lie to you so you have to focus on your instruments and instrument scan and keep trying to be ahead - which I gotta work on but its apparently normal for where I am in the process right now.

It's all instrument focused on getting to the required headings, trying not to overshoot, correcting for wind and  keeping at the altitude you need to be at at all times.  And change frequencies on the radio and ident the VOR you already had dialed in, and communicate with controllers.  Some nice task loading there.

So we contacted Detroit Approach and let them know where we were and they vectored us for the ILS and we then contacted Great Lakes Approach and I did the approach along with a course reversal to get onto the ILS.  Then once we werre established we descend and busted out a bit over minimums and I could see the runway right where it should be which was very cool. I did a low pass over the runway and went missed.  

Then we got vectored for the RNAV approach which went well, but they took us off course a bit to make room for other traffic.  Then following the LPV guidance I again broke out close to minimums right in line with the runway.  Intense, tasks loaded, focussed and a lot of fun.

They asked us to keep our speed up for a Royal Air jet also doing a practice approach and we did an early missed approach to get out of their way and then got handed off to Great Lakes Approach and then Detroit Approach for vectors to head back to Pontiac.

We then did the 9R localizer approach to Pontiac and again like clockwork the runway was right where it needed to be.  We did a sidestep to Runway 9L and I landed.

We did a debrief and looked at the flight tracks we made and went over the approaches and Kevin said I did quite well and am coming along nicely.  He commented that I was really paying attention and caught course deviations quickly but have a bit of a right turning tendency (It's funny how that is the case both politically and flying-wise). Some of that is due to N1689Hs yoke needing to be slightly left to be truly centered. I'll have to see if this occurs in the other planes too.

That was quite the intense flight and a really great intro to truly flying in IFR conditions.

That's 2.1 with 1.5 in Actual IMC, 3 approaches and 1 nice landing.

Gov Half-Whit's Jet Jaunt Story Changes Yet Again

One of the problems with lying is the inability to get your story straight.

Combine layers of lies upon lies and it becomes harder and harder not to dig yourself in even deeper.

It also makes you appear less than credible, as your story keeps changing to cover the consequences of your last lie in the series that you used to spin your tall tale and get out of the fallout from your prior lies.

The Detroit Free Press: Whitmer's campaign will pay for controversial Florida flight

The Detroit News:  Whitmer's Florida flight cost shifted to campaign after FAA concerns

Yep, her last explanation that her non-profit paid for it created all sorts of problems with both the FAA and IRS.  It wasn't legal for her non-profit to "pay" for the March flight -but recall that they only helpfully paid it in May after details of it came to light.  

Now, in the latest round of obfuscations, it's being shifted directly to her campaign fund which likely will be a campaign funds violation.  On the upside for Whitmer, this changes the crime from an IRS violation with the non-profit inappropriately paying for it to a state campaign finance violation .

That changes the enforcement agency back to the state rather than the feds which is most convenient. 

Since she's best buddies with both AG Nessel and Secretary of State Benson, who would be the ones "investigating", you can predict the investigation will be duly done and found nothing occurred, or that at most there will be a minor slap on the wrist rather than a real penalty applied.

This likely still doesn't fix the FAA violation, but that only affects the airplane owner/operator and not Whitmer.

On the upside, we now learn that the 4-day (not 2 as originally claimed after the initial denial) trip included her daughters and allegedly a security detail.  Of course, it doesn't explain how the campaign can now pickup the bill.  After all a  Michigan governor doesn't typically campaign in Florida for re-election, especially as she's stated repeatedly the trip was for person reasons to visit her very sick dad who was "in failing health", and suffering form chronic illness" and had naught to do with her campaign.   Of course, the sick dad excuse has also been shown to be rather dubious as he was been seen in public back in Michigan quite soon after her trip being rather spry.

In short it's likely this was a massively hypocritical spring break trip out of state and she really needs to quit lying about it as she just keeps digging in deeper.

Expect further story changes as the consequences of the latest change come to light.

Of Course Not: Bar Where Gov Half-Whit Violated Her Own Rules Won't Be Fined

To no one's surprise, the powers that be have declined to fine the bar where Gov Whitmer was seen violating her own order limiting seating to 6 persons.

The Detroit Free Press: East Lansing bar where Whitmer violated COVID-19 protocols won't be fined or cited

Not unanticipated, that.

Republican members of the legislature then took the opportunity to introduce legislation to refund fines against businesses that were not so lucky as to have a governor be the one violating the governor's rules, including those rules later ruled unconstitutional by our state supreme court.

The Detroit News: House passes bill granting penalty forgiveness to some businesses fined under COVID rules

It's unlikely Gov Half-Whit will sign such relief, after all, it would apply the same standard - a warning for first time offenses rather than a fine - and it means a loss of revenue and gives relief to those other than her supporters. 

It will be interesting to see how after her own violaitons she justifies vetoing it, which is likely.

Gov Half-Whit Caught (Again) Breaking Her Own Rules

Verily, laws are for the little people, not for one so important as our governor, especially when it's her own rules that she's breaking.

So, what happens when you get caught violating your own Covid-19 restrictions?

Why, you just say oops, and then you drop the rule:

The Detroit News:  Michigan's 6-person restaurant, bar rule rescinded after Whitmer's violation

The epidemic rules released by the state Department of Health and Human Services Monday have dropped requirements that restaurant and bar tables be limited to six people, with each table being six feet apart. 

The governor told the media at a Monday press conference that the determination to eliminate the rule "was made well before the weekend" and prior to her Saturday visit to East Lansing's Landshark.

And if you believe that second paragraph, I have a nice bridge a bit north of here joining two peninsulae that I'd like to sell you. 

Looks like she had a nice time Saturday busting her own rule:

That's 13 people, over twice the number allowed under her 6 person rule that was in force, and enforced against others.

But, we'll have to give the Governor some partial credit here.  

Since she was openly caught violating her own rule on camera, she at least didn't try to brazen it out as she has done over her Florida jaunt,  and so far, she did not say "Who ya gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?".

On the upside, assuming this is now a precedent, then the more rues she violates, the more these arbitrary and unilaterally set rules will go away, so that's something at least.

Prop Gun

Take the opening scene from Top Gun, but replace the F-14s with a Piper Warrior.

The results?

Simply Awesome.

New Smoker Run #1

Today was the day to give the new Weber smoker a go.

Pulled pork was on the menu as Tash had bought a 6 pounder.

So I first prepped it last night with some rub and put it in the fridge.

 

Then I fired up the smoker for the first time with lump charcoal and locally sourced Pecan wood.

 The Weber being larger than the ol' ECB takes more charcoal to get it up to temperature than the Brinkmann, and the water bowl is also larger, so a little trial and error occurred until it was just right at temp and smoking along merrily. 

 A serious improvement of the Weber over the Brinkmann are the adjustable vents at the top and bottom of the smoker and a functional thermometer gauge.  The vents made adjusting and controlling the temperature a snap.  Serious improvement over the Brinkmann as a result - only disadvantage is the barrel body lacks handles for lifting it off the base which is good to have when you're refueling it with more charcoal, but there is a lip near the top that serves that function nicely.

Nine hours later and after replenishing the water bowl once and the charcoal and wood twice it was done.

I then pulled it and it was awesome and did not require any BBQ sauce, but BBQ sauce was available for taste.

It was pronounced to be my best effort so far and was declared to be amazing.  

Even so, at six pounds, lots of leftovers remain.

The first run of the Weber is a success.

The Jett Abides

Jett taking it easy and considering the nature of the universe on a nice warm evening.

Flying IFR Lesson #4 - That's Rather Unusual, But We Took The Backcourse After.

Lesson #4 was in N1689H.  Sure enough, the seat slipped both during the run-up and then it slipped during landing.  Methinks I'm going to ask not to have this plane assigned to me until that's fixed as that's just not happy making.

Anyways, we headed to the northeast and began the work.

First we did steep turns while I was under the hood.  Those feel very different than when you're flying them visually, but I actually ended up doing them better by instruments once I got the hang of it.

Next it was time for unusual attitudes.

While wearing foggles I had my eyes closed and my head on my chest and Kevin had me do what I thought were standard rate turns and recoveries with my eyes closed.  

Without your instruments, or vision, what you think is a standard rate turn or straight and level isn't.  You're going to end up going up or down at some point, which can be especially compounded if he surreptitiously adjusts the throttle sometimes, which he did.

I then got to recover each time by figuring out if we were descending or climbing and do the proper recovery for each.  Not bad but that sure feels weird.

Then we did it without the attitude indicator so I only had the turn and bank gyro to be the primary instrument for wings level.  More fun.

Then we got the attitude indicator back on and we did the Pattern A procedure which is a series of timed turns.  Then we did it with a failed attitude indicator and heading indicator so I had to rely on the compass and turn and bank to do it.  Much harder.

Next we tuned in the Flint VOR and identified it and tracked it and did an outbound radial for a bit and worked on getting on a particular radial.  I need a lot more work on the getting on a particular radial part.  

 I got a micro-break from the foggles when he told me to briefly take them off so we could watch a nearby formation of A-10s heading to Selfridge.  Cool.

Then, for the piece de resistance and last act of the lesson, we did the localizer backcourse to Runway 27L.  My first localizer approach.

Got it loaded on the Garmin 430, dialed the Salem VOR in the second NAV loaded,  got the ATIS for Pontiac, and then contacted Detroit Approach and requested the backcourse for Pontiac via vectors.

Flew the vectors, maintained 4,000 feet, and intercepted the localizer just as I should and began the approach. Then we contacted Pontiac Tower and were cleared to land.  I had the foggles on all the way to the Missed Approach Point and then got to take them off and land.  That was a ton of fun.

Kevin seems happy with my performance and am making good progress, but man do I feel that I need a whole lot more work on this stuff.

That's 2.1, 1.9 simulated instruments, and 1 excellent landing.

Anniversary Trip Was Not A Cruise But It Was Still Good

We had planned to do a cruise for our 25th wedding anniversary yesterday but Covid kinda put the kibosh on that.

Instead we exchanged anniversary cards ion the morning and had breakfast and then we headed out on a drive to Elmore, Ohio. 

Why Elmore?  Because their Schedel Gardens and Arboretum is open to the public while Ann Arbor's botanical gardens are still closed - yes open air gardens are closed still due to Covid.   Covidiotic.

So we headed to Elmore, which is a rather quintessential American small town.  Strangers actually cheerfully say hi to you when you're walking down the street. We stopped for lunch at the Village Inn which was delightful.   While service was slow, as everywhere is these days as help is hard to find, the food was worth the wait.  I had the Buffalo Chicken Chink -0 basically chunks of lightly breaded fried chicken in a buffalo sauce which was great, and Tash had the Greek salad.  We also tried a Birch Beer which was rather tasty and sort of a wintergreen root beer in flavor.  Good stuff.

Then we went to the Schedel Gardens and Arboretum.

To say its picturesque is an understatement.  Multiple themed gardens and really a beautiful place.

The Japanese themed garden was very serene, peaceful, and beautiful.

They have a large selection of Bonsai trees including this one Ponderosa Pine dating back to 1941 that is still going strong.

They also have a species of redwood tree, the Dawn Redwood that were thought to be extinct until rediscovered some valleys in China during the Second World War. 

 

Lots of things to see, though the peonies have yet to fully bloom and their vegetable and flower gardens are just starting to grow.  It was a very nice time.

After that we headed home, narrowly missing getting into a car wreck as a fellow made a left turn right into a car approaching straight down the road at high speed. Both had a green light but the left turn definitely lacked the right of way.  massive bang sound and just missed us.  Not fun.  Both cars had airbags deployed but they seemed ok and a sheriff's car was right there. 

We got home safely, rested and changed and then headed out to a nice restaurant, It's a Matter of Taste on Union Lake for dinner on their Patio.  Excellent food, service, and atmosphere.

It made for a very nice anniversary day indeed.

Happy 25th Anniversary To Us!

Today marks 25 years since I tied the knot.

25 years of marriage.  Kinda hard to wrap my mind around it.

25 years ago we said "I do", and we did.  We haven't done too bad a job so far, starting from little in a studio apartment and student loans to a home and two great kids and careers.  Ups and downs as you may imagine, but it's been more ups together than downs, so it all evens out positively.

More than 50% of my life has been spent being married to the most wonderful woman I know.

While we were going to do a cruise to celebrate our anniversary,  the world shutting down has kinda got in the way of that plan.  Maybe next year.

So instead, we'll be hanging out closer to home. 

I'm going to take her out during the day to a botanical garden she likes, then to a nice lunch, and then out for dinner to one of her favorite restaurants where we will eat outside on a patio overlooking a lake.  Not as nice, nor as memorable as a cruise, but we'll make do.

At Least Someone Is Asking Very Pointed Questions About Gov Half-Whit's Trip

There's at least one reporter not afraid to call Gov Whitmer out on her layers of lies about her Florida trip, and that reporter is the venerable Charlie LeDuff, 

Deadline Detroit: LeDuff: Come Clean Gov. Whitmer -- Who Flew from Michigan to Florida with You? 

Go read the whole thing.  He succinctly sums up the sordid tale and how Gov Half-Whit and her team's obfuscations and lies are just sucking her in deeper.  Deeper in that with the latest story she and her non-profit have likely committed some nasty tax code violations from her non-profit per the latest story about who funded the trip, "buying" her flight for her. 

Of course, having the non-profit charter the flight (again the story is dubious as the expense of the March flight only suddenly appears on their books in May while she was looking to spin what happened and claimed the non-profit had chartered the plane) violates the FAA rules for the operation of the aircraft - this can lead to severe sanctions against the pilots and owners of the plane.

In short, Gov Half-Whit has thrown the plane under the bus.

She's also setup her non-profit for one heckuva nasty audit, assuming the IRS decides to investigate a Democrat Governor's slush fund's doings. In addition, this may have also caused some campaign finance violations.

Here, the governor's coverup may indeed be the crime.

Totally Unexpectedly, Biden Met The Local Hamas Supporters In Dearborn

Yep, while visiting the Ford plant he manged to get some time in with Rep Rashida Tlaib (D-Hamas).

The Detroit News: Biden pressed by Tlaib on Gaza as Arab Americans urge intervention 

Moments after President Joe Biden landed in Michigan on Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib pressed him to do more to protect Palestinian lives amid continued bloodshed in the Middle East.

Instead of telling her to quit her lies, Biden expressed support for her:

During his Tuesday afternoon speech at a Ford Motor Co. truck plant in Dearborn, Biden publicly responded to Tlaib, a fellow Democrat and the daughter of Palestinian immigrants: "I want to say to you that I admire your intellect, I admire your passion, and I admire your concern for so many other people.

"And from my heart, I pray that your grandma and family are well, and I promise I'm going to do everything to see that they are on the West Bank. You're a fighter, and God thank you for being a fighter."

 A bit of a word salad there Biden, but we get your drift.  Interestingly, if Tlaib's grandma is living in the West Bank then she's only in danger of being hit by Hamas rockets coming out of Gaza  (A quick clue - Gaza is on the opposite side of Israel than the West Bank).

The president's reference to the fighting in Gaza came as Amer Zahr, comedian and president of New Generation for Palestine, led a crowd of more than 1,000 people outside the Dearborn Police Department on Michigan Avenue. A sea of red, black, white and green Palestinian flags waved across the majority Arab American city on the south end, which was blocked off to protesters during one of three Tuesday rallies.

We will note that Amer Zahr is an anti-semitic bosom-buddy of Tlaib, who notably removed Israel from the map in Tlaib's office on the day Tlaib was sworn into Congress.  Charming liar that he is.  When he says "free palestine" he means destroy Israel and kill Jews and he knows it.

More lies also came from former governor candidate Al-Sayed when at the demonstration he stated:

“I’m here today as a doctor, as a human, as an American,” said El-Sayed, adding Palestinians were denied COVID-19 vaccines by the Israeli government. “My government dollars are being spent today to kill innocent children.”

Lies again, Palestinians were never denied Covid vaccines by Israel. Indeed, all Arabs living in Israel were vaccinated same as Jews were.

This blatant lie comes up from Palis and their supporters claiming Israel is required to provide Palis in the West Bank and Gaza with vaccines when instead the Oslo accords clearly require and place that responsibility on the Palis to be in charge of their own healthcare and have their own health department and indeed the Palis after delaying ordered their own vaccines from Russia.  El-Sayed knows this, but he figures you don't.

So yes, Biden met with the Hamsa wing of the Democrat party yesterday.

Flying IFR Lesson # 3: A Flight Plan So Cunning It Graduated From Embry-Riddle With an Advanced Degree In Aeronautical Cunning

Verily, a cunning plan was hatched.

All DCT flights filed VFR flight plans to get out of the TFR, do the maneuvers that needed to be done, and then contacted Detroit approach to come back in.  In this way we complied with the TFR and still were able to get out and do the scheduled training.

Ground/Tower basically said they were good with that but for everyone not to call in at once so they could get it setup and ready for us, this was rather nice of them.  We really do have an awesome bunch of controllers at KPTK.

So after the preflight of N6288J, another old flying friend,  I called ground and activated the VFR flight plan that my instructor had already filed.  The flight plan was filed to fly to D95/Lapeer which is north and outside the TFR. We got a squawk code and then called Detroit approach to check in, and then were handed off to Great Lakes Approach and as we reached Lapeer we cancelled the flight plan and were then told to squawk VFR.

Then the fun began.  I already had my foggles on after takeoff so we started working on holds and hold entries.  Basically its about flying certain courses for a certain amount of time.  In practice it wasn't bad and I could do it rather well while maintaining heading, altitude and, doing timed turns.  The holding pattern tracks ended up looking rather nice in Foreflight.  Conceptually I'm still a little hazy on "where" the hold is exactly, but we'll work on that.

Then we did holds with partial panel without the heading indicator, and then holds without the attitude indicate and just had to rely on the altimeter, turn indicator and compass. Add in some really nice thermals banging us around and it was even more fun. Did I mention the added in  really nice thermals banging us around?

Yes, I got to see all the various compass errors occur in real time. In short, navigating a turn via a compass kinda sucks due to those errors. The compass - she lies, at least she does until you are in straight, level, and unaccelerated flight. 

Did I mention those really nice thermals banging us around? Yep, as you might guess, that made it even more fun when you get a sudden uncommanded 1,000 feet per minute climb out of nowhere and you were flying straight and level or in the middle of a timed turn.

Then back to Pontiac, first I got their ATIS and while still north of Lapeer contacting Great Lakes Approach and getting a squawk code. Then we headed for Pontiac using GPS direct with the foggles still on.  

We got cleared for 9R as 27R/9L is currently closed so we got the big runway and were told to report a 2 mile downwind entry.  Flying in and still 6nm away, they then cancelled the request to report and gave us #1 to land.

Still in foggles I got on the downwind, and flew the pattern by headings as given by my instructor and only got to take the foggles off when we were at the DA on final representing a breakout at minimums.  Then I landed with a nice gusty wind out of 130 degrees.  Lots of fun, though quite a task loaded lesson.

Apparently I did it all well, which is good.   Kevin is happy with how I did and he tends to be a very positive and thorough kind of instructor, which I like.  I think I'm developing a good instrument scan now I've got standard rate turns down which is a good foundation.

All good, no busting of the TFR occurred, and a very solid lesson completed.

That's 2.0 with 1.8 simulated instrument time, and 1 excellent landing.

Curse You Red Biden!

I was going to go flying today.

The weather outside is delightful.

But the damn TFR is frightful.

Yep, right during my scheduled lesson time, Biden is visiting his Hamas and Hizb'allah supporters in Dearborn, Michigan [He's apparently going to  visit a Ford EV factory and talk up his spending bill for subsidizing Unions and electric vehicles].  The TFR includes Pontiac airport and stops flight training cold.

So, no flying for me.

 As much as I'm a fan of airshows, I don't want to have a starring role in causing one.

Governor Half-Whit Just Dug Herself In Even Deeper

As it is often said, it's not the crime its the cover-up.

Here, the cover up may indeed be the crime.

As you may know, Governor Whitmer, after admonishing everyone else not to travel outside the state -- and especially not visit Florida! -- then flew to Florida for 4 days - and she got caught doing it.

She's been denying, accusing, ducking, and confabulating ever since.

Then the question as to how did she get there was asked.  Turns out she traveled on a private jet that happened to be owned by some wealthy Detroit businessmen.

A further question then was: What was the quid pro quo when a private jet owned by Detroit Businessmen took her there?

Now her newest lie to dig her out of the prior lies and omissions is that she claimed her non-profit Michigan Transition 2019 doing business as Executive Office Account paid for the flight.

So what is Michigan Transition 2019?  Allegedly it was formed as a non-profit designed to pay the costs of her 2019 inauguration but now does "other things" - So, can you say slush fund? 

So Michigan Transition 2019 paid for the flight and she claims to have reimbursed them $849, which is awfully generous of her considering the flight cost either $27,521, or $40k depending on who you ask.

There's a few problems with that.

The Detroit Free Press: FAA: Company that flew Whitmer to Florida not authorized to operate charter flights

This is a big deal.  The company that owns that plane can't legally operate charter flights and she and her minions have now just described the activity as a charter flight.

Ooops.

This can lead to serious sanctions against the company, and the FAA takes this kind of line-crossing rather seriously. You can lose your certificates over this sort of thing. 

You could say that Whitmer just threw the the plane under the bus.

Digging them in even deeper that that, their latest cover story is alleging that Michigan Transition 2019 paid the costs and received Whitmer's payment of $849 back in March when the trip took place.  

But, the organizations books only reflect these payments occurring in May,  and is dated after the details of the private jet came to light and people started asking how she got their and who paid for it. 

All that cover up and they forgot to backdate the books first?  How sloppy of them.

Anyone really believe her latest story?  Anyone?

Wayne County CPL Case: Unfortuately, The Judge Ruled Exactly As We Expected

Well, Wayne County Clerk successfully mooted the case by snatching all the named plaintiffs and moving up their appointments and giving them their CPLs before the hearing.

By a complete and astonishing coincidence, I'm sure,  all 3 of them had their appointments moved up on the very same day, 5 days after we filed the complaint with the very same Wayne County Clerk.

Since they all got their CPLs or applications accepted  -  the judge reasoned they can't ask the Clerk to do anything more, and the advocacy groups do not have standing for mandamus relief.

Well crap.  We did good for our named Plaintiffs, but everyone else will still be delayed and waiting interminably for the clerk to do her job now.

Assuming we get some more Wayne County residents who are stuck waiting for their appointments to happen, we're going to have to caption it John Doe and Jane Doe to stop these shenanigans.

Great Customer Service From Holosun

My Holosun 509T developed a problem during the MDFI Low Light Handgun class.

I don't know precisely when or how, as, after all, it was pitch black at the time, but the rubber over the - button tore or ripped away, leaving the circuitry open to the elements.

  I didn't notice when it happened, as the sight kept right on chugging along, but noticed it when we had finished and were putting everything away and reloading our carry ammo for the trip back.  Even with that open it did not have any issues.

So I contacted Holosun and they immediately sent me an RMA and a priority mail label to return it.  They received it and immediately sent a replacement priority mail, and I got it back fast and it is now installed back on the firearm.

That's a very quick turnaround, and some great customer service.