My name is WMAP and I’m a flight-aholic

It has been one month since my last flight.

Yes, seriously it has been that long since the weather cooperated enough for me to consider getting airborne.   You may be able to tell from my blog posts that I’m getting just a little tired of the cold, snow and cloud. 

Starting on about Wednesday each week I dutifully start stalking the long term forecast, scoping out which day of the weekend looks the most promising (or least terrible) for flying.  As we get closer to the day I start stalking TAFS and GFAs to get a handle on the likely hood of me getting into a plane. 

 Frustratingly the weather likes to toy with me. Right up until the night before the forecasts like to look marginal, usually with lowish ceilings. Mentally I’ve been finding this hard to deal with. As I mentioned, I really am addicted to this and after literally weeks of having my hopes raised and dashed, raised and dashed, I was starting to get a little disillusioned with the whole process. I couldn’t seem to catch a break and there didn’t seem to be an end in sight.

To be honest, I got so tired of the constant am I? aren’t I ? aspects to this. My flying morning routine became a litany of “going through the motions”, get up, check weather, phone Flight Services, text Bob, procrastinate over the decision before inevitably deciding not to go.

This week didn’t look to be any different, the forecasts showing marginal ceilings, no good for upper airwork that really I’d already resigned myself to the groundhog day described above. To protect my sanity, I'd pretty much convinced myself that we'd either call a no-go or at the most I'd get to fling it around a few circuits.

And that is how I found myself woefully unprepared mentally for the flight I was actually about to embark on.