Life has been hectic the last couple of months. We've shifted into release mode on the library I maintain, and we have a deadline this week, with a release in December. That combined with the shift to Standard Time means I drive to and from work in the dark. This last week offered a EAA chapter meeting, an airpark board meeting, driving Mom to a doctors appointment, etc..

I survived the worst layoff yet in my 19 year career at AMD. Gone are my direct supervisor David Huebel (my first boss out of college) and Doug Paulson, who I (well, me and Ricky) hired out of college, and who was a very productive engineer on my project. I'm quite upset to lose both of these guys.  So now it's just me here in Austin. It's been hard to concentrate the last couple of weeks, and we lost about a week of productivity because of this layoff. Since I'm trying to stay roughly on schedule (with some loss of scope), now I get to put in 11 hour days.

But this blog is about the RV-9A, and now I'll get to the main subject. The previous week I finished up an Instrument Proficiency Check with George Farris. I still need to fly a bunch more approaches for practice before I'm really sharp, and my personal minimums are still Marginal VFR right now. But at least I should soon be ready to file IFR and punch through a typical shallow cloud layer with a 1000 foot ceiling (the 3R9 takeoff mininmums), which I can now do legally.

Cav now has over 200 hours and I am closing in on 500 hours. Along with staying instrument current and building proficiency, I'm thinking about getting a tailwheel endorsement, and then starting on a commercial certificate. On Thursday this week I took a long lunch and took Braga flying. He had been up with me once several years ago in one of George's 172's.   I plan on doing more of these, with 2 or 3 people

This weekend I changed the oil, and went for two short flights. It was fairly windy and not the best flying conditions, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Now Cav is ready to do some serious flying. I might try to go to Pagosa Springs. Maybe I can get in a trip to Virginia over the Christmas break.