Things I contemplate in the bath.

Winter is most definitely here. When the temperature dips below the minus twenties it’s time to defrost frozen limbs. A luxury I have access to in my Canadian home is a bathroom big enough to hold a bath tub. Back in the UK we made the decision to rip out the miniature bath* in favour of a proper shower cubicle. I miss our nice power shower that we had but the one here is adequate for the task in hand.

I’m not a big bath person, unlike RTH who is capable of near steaming himself like a lobster, but they do have their uses. One of them being time for relaxation** and contemplation. Whilst soaking away an aching knee the other night (curse those icy sidewalks, twisted the damn thing getting off the bus!), my mind turned (as it usually does) to things aviation based.

Given the unstable weather at the moment I mapped through in my mind, exactly what I would do if I found myself out at the practice area with deteriorating weather conditions. I started thinking through what would constitute deteriorating weather, what my escape routes were, how I’d get us there and what I’d do once we arrived. Once I started thinking about this kind of stuff, I started getting a good handle on what info I need to have available and close at hand.  I realised that I may carry the info I need but is it there in a way I can access? I’ve already complained that I don’t think it is possible to map read and fly at the same time.

Mentally I went through the steps of figuring out which way the weather was moving, and finding an escape to keep the weather behind me. I mentally imaged getting my chart out and finding the nearest airfield in that direction. Then I went through in my head the steps needed to get a rough bearing to that airfield and figuring out how long it would take to get there. I went through the kind of radio calls I would need to make, what I’d need to say, who I’d need to ask for help potentially. I quickly realised that there were things I would need to know that I currently don’t.

Still better to be aware of your short comings than not. I’ve started working on some of the things I need to do. I got out a fresh VTA chart and did the following (with a little assistance from RTH)

·         Highlighted the major towns I use as navigation markers

·         Drew on*** land mark features that I use to determine the end of the control zone and other waypoints

·         Highlighted all the airfields with usable runways

·         Looked up the tower frequencies for all the above strips and wrote them next to them

·         Folded it in such a way that its reasonably useful and accessible

·         Organised my kneeboard****

There are things that I still want to do that I feel will be useful including

·         Copying the section from the CFS which lists all the frequencies you can contact Flight Services on

·         Pulling the airport diagrams of the most likely diversion airports off the internet and printing them so I have them handy (I may really indulge myself and laminate them!)

·         Remind myself what my maximum fuel burn is so I can have a rough idea of what my endurance is (IE how long I’ve got before I need to get it on the ground)

·         Figure out just what Flight Services can and can’t do for me.

All of this stuff is helping me feel slightly more empowered to tackle the massive hurdle that is general navigation. I realise that there is more to this flying stuff than being able to pass the exam, written or practical. I have to enable myself to be able to make good decisions and if that means I spend some bath time going through worse case scenarios in my head then so be it.

Bob’s helping by introducing this stuff in baby steps. I’m getting an amazing sense of achievement after every lesson even from doing what seems like the most mundane things like finding an airport!

If I can find a way to get around my being “spatially challenged” (Bob’s delicate way of describing my habit of switching North and South!) and manage this navigation stuff, then I genuinely believe I can do anything!

In a totally perverse way, despite the fact that this is truly the thing I find most difficult and daunting, I'm having an absolute blast doing it.  I'm back to the early days of my flying where every little thing i managed was a huge achievement. Every tiny thing accomplished left me feeling like I could take on the world.

Now,not only can I take on the world, I've a hope in hell of being able to find it on a map!

* The bathroom was so small we discovered that the previous owners had actually sawed a hole in the wall in order to fit the bath in

** maybe this is why I don’t usually do baths, my mind never switches off. I find “relaxation” almost impossible

*** mentally this is a really hard thing for me to do. I’m a big book lover and you never ever write in books, bringing myself to sully my pristine charts by drawing on them was really hard!

**** Now I just have to get used to wearing the bloody thing