Having faith

A couple of conversations I had this weekend have left me in a different frame of mind with regard to my upcoming cross country flight and the seemingly endless cancellations.

The first was with one of the new instructors at the school (there seems to be a whole lot of them at the moment), we were chatting about flying in general and the fact that I’d just called a no-go on my cross country. “winds?” He asked. “Ceilings,” I replied “2500 and below.”

“That’s doable.” He replied. “You can do that trip at 2000ft”

Technically he’s right, there’s even a name for it. We call it “scud running.” Flying low level over the terrain to avoid cloud and weather. It can be fun, it can be deadly.

The next conversation was with a new person manning the dispatch desk. Recent turnover seems to include dispatch. I was making polite conversation about their flying plans. They are working towards their PPL. I caught myself before asking the hated “how many hours?” question.

Turns out they haven’t started flying yet. They explained that they were waiting for the summer so that they could get as much flying in as possible and thus get their PPL in minimum hours. I have my own opinions on that as a learning methodology but refrained from commenting.

But it got me thinking. Why am I doing this? The person above sees getting their PPL as a means to an end. Something to be gotten out of the way ASAP.

That's not my motivation at all. But what is?

It’s not to conquer fear anymore. I’m no longer afraid of flying. Even with the recent massive-workload-I’m-totally-out-of-my-depth-and-making-lots-of-stupid-mistakes flight to Waterloo, I wasn’t scared. I found it a little bit humerous in places to be honest.

I’m doing this for FUN.

And scud running in high winds isn’t fun.

So I can afford to wait until it is going to be fun. I don’t need to accept marginal conditions. Especially when Bob is doing his very best to keep it fresh and enjoyable while I’m waiting out the weather.

I need to have faith.

Faith that the weather will cooperate eventually.

Faith that Bob will keep it challenging and interesting.

Faith that I’m making the right decisions for ME.