Missing the blindingly obvious

Just when I think I’m getting on top of all this stuff and might just be getting slight less behind my instructor than normal, Bob throws a curveball my way.

OK, so this time it wasn’t so much him being deliberately tricky more me missing the blindingly obvious!

I was doing my very best to visually spot the landmarks I’d identified for our trip to Muskoka. Some were easy, Claremont for example, I’m fairly familiar with and Thorah Island in Lake Simcoe is blindingly obvious even when the lake is frozen. Others are a bit more tricky, I always struggle to correctly id Uxbridge and I’m not convinced I ever really spotted Sparrow Lake.

One thing I did spot (with a little prompting from Bob) was Orillia airport.. With a single east-west runway ploughed straight into the snow it was pretty obvious*. Once we were both happy that I had it in sight and was sure of my position on the chart, I went back to the important business of enjoying the view. A minute or so passes.

“So WMAP, if your engine quit now, what’s your plan?”

Ha, I’ve played this game before. I take brief look around me. “There’s a nice field at my 9 O’clock. Flat and square, means I can come at it from any direction.”

“okaaaaay,” contemplates Bob. 

Damn, this means I’ve missed something. “or, perhaps…..” he prompts.

Ah Crap !!!

“Ah, yeah, ermm I guess I probably could make the airport from here.”

Yes, airports are better than fields for landing. I think that’s generally considered to be one of the earlier lessons in learning to fly.

Talk about missing the blindly obvious.

  

* which makes this report a little bizarre to be honest