Desperation?

The weather/timing combination couldn’t be worse as far as I’m concerned. I’ve managed to scrounge a week off work (It’s October and I’m finally taking my summer vacation, go figure!) It would be nice to get some flying in during that time, let alone my first solo.

The weather is not cooperating, at all. Today I suspect that you could have pedalled a plane along the runway and the resulting gusts of wind would have flung it airborne. Despite this I’m still anxiously stalking the weather forecast in the vain hope that the winds will miraculously die, the clouds open and sunny skies will prevail. I think I might be showing signs of desperation, I got momentarily excited when I saw this in today’s forecast:

TAF CYTZ 101938Z 1020/1120 27015G25KT P6SM FEW040 BKN070
BECMG 1102/1104 FEW070
BECMG 1106/1108 27010KT
FM111500 24012KT P6SM BKN080

For those of you who don’t speak TAF, the above suggests that there may well be a period from 11:00 tomorrow where the winds will be from 240°T at 12Knots, which could just be barely within the acceptable limits.
Unfortunately the next line tells me all I should need to know

BECMG 1116/1118 23020G35KT

The only bit of that you need to see is the 20 gusting 35 knots from 12:00p.m. That’s nasty; put it this way a 35 knot headwind means I’m over halfway to taking off without even moving! A brisk taxiing pace could see me airborne.

Even knowing this, and this is where the stupidity comes in, for a brief moment I was contemplating if I could time a lesson so that I’d be airborne during that magic hour. Seriously, that’s how stupid people die. My first solo is not the time to be pushing the envelope and I’d reckon even a fully-fledged PPL would be looking twice at those numbers! Desperation is not a friend of sanity or safety.