A typical flying day (part one)…

Usually starts the evening before with either a phone call or a text conversation with Bob regarding our flying schedule.  Sometimes this conversation happens a little earlier in the week. The familiar pattern is Bob asking me what my schedule looks like, me telling him that I’m fairly flexible or pleading for a later start because I’d like a glass of wine or two the night before*

Anyways, let’s suppose that I’m flying at 9:30a.m. I’ll probably surface from the bedroom at around 8:00a.m. (approx. 2 hours after RTH). I like my weekend lie ins! If I’m lucky RTH will have heard me surface and already have the kettle on. If not then he soon will have. I’m not much of a morning person but I try to have something to eat, just to keep the blood sugar going.

Next I grab my phone. I’m looking for 3 things, any messages from Bob that our schedule may have changed, and the two things below

The top picture is the current runway data, it tells me what direction the winds are blowing, how strong they are and what the crosswind component is. It is updated every couple of minutes. Occasionally it doesn’t work and you wonder why the winds have been consistently at 270° @ 8 knots for the past 3 days.

The bottom one is the METAR (current conditions) and TAF (forecast). The METAR **can be up to an hour old. It gives you a general idea of what is meant to be going on.  Like any forecast it is of dubious reliability. But it’s the best I have to hand. My final weather check comes from looking out of the window.

If I’m meeting Bob at 9:30. I’ll probably leave at around 8:45. My walk takes me along the lakefront where I get a pretty good view of the airport. So I can take a final look at the winds. If there are any light aircraft taking off or landing I can see what they are up to. If they seem to be struggling in a crosswind etc.

 

I enjoy my walk down to the airport. I get a fantastic view of the lake and the city

Next I have to contend with the ferry ride. This is my least favourite part for any number of reasons. One the pedestrian access to the terminal is not existent, so you have to play chicken with insane taxi drivers. Two, the ferry only runs every 15 minutes and you inevitably just miss one. Three you have to contend with tourists and their massive amounts of baggage which they seem incapable of steering.

Once I arrive (usually before Bob), I wander on down to the flight school and then the fun starts and I’m going to save that for another post!

 

* Judging by our conversations, Bob must think I’m a raving alcoholic! While it is true that I enjoy a drink or several with my friends, I’m actually really conservative when it comes to alcohol consumption in that I leave it a minimum of 12 hours between even having one drink and flying. If anything ever happens, if I ever screw up, no one will ever be able to even think that alcohol was a factor.

** METAR and TAF data comes in its own shorthand language. If I’m feeling lazy I can just hit the “decoded” button at the bottom and get a plain text version. I like to practice on the raw data though. Often if I’m in a boring meeting I’ll pull up the METAR for anywhere and try to decode it on paper. It makes it look like you are furiously taking notes!