High maintenance, high anxiety.

Finish work, grab food (chicken wrap; high protein, easy to eat one handed on subway), jump on streetcar, buzz down Bathurst, hop on ferry, arrive at airport.

That’s how you end a work week in style. Gorgeous weather, wind straight down the runway, not a cloud in the sky. The recipe for a perfect solo flight.

The first blip comes from the fact that 08 is the active. This wasn’t unexpected. I’d been stalking the winds all day.

The second blip is unexpected; I look at the sign out sheet to see if JES is down yet, she should be as I’m not as early as I usually am. I see no sign of her at all on the sheet. Dispatch informs me that she’s still in maintenance. She’ll be done soon.

I suppress a wince. I know that maintenance is kind of essential and that I should be glad that it is being done but there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to be the first person flying a newly maintained plane. With images of slack cables and loose fittings flashing through my head I briefly wish for a moment that I didn’t read quite so many accident reports or have such a vivid imagination.

I make a note that my preflight needs to be very thorough. More so than usual. I’m not sure at this point what the exact nature of the maintenance is. I’m checking for silly yet obvious things; are there any screws missing, do the bits move the way they are meant to? It has been known for cables to get connected back the wrong way. I move every piece that I can, checking how it feels. I’ve done this a million times before, does it still feel the same or is something amiss?

The next blip is the fuel status. She’s at half tanks. Normally I’d prefer a little more. The owner sees the look on my face and says “Oh come on WMAP, how long have you been flying these planes? How far does half tanks get you?” I realise that he’s right. I didn’t even use that much fuel on a 3 hour cross country but I still make sure I dip the tanks before I get in. The stick shows a slightly more optimistic ¾ so I’m happy.

The final blip comes from the position of the plane on the apron, she’s in a proper parking space but one of the more awkward ones at 45 degrees to the normal rows. There’s a nice shiny 182 parked nearby. It’s tight. Not impossibly so but enough that I’m concerned. Ground manoeuvring has never been my strong point.

Biting the bullet I start her up, noticing that there are three other planes with instructors and/or students getting settled in. Great I’m going to prang the plane with an audience!

But I don’t, I get her out and clear, no hassle. Not even a worried glance from anyone.

Despite my anxiety levels rising with each blip, they all turned out to be total non-events. The flight uneventful.

Again it makes me reflect on just how far I’ve come. Not once did I even consider “running to Bob” with my concerns. I was PIC, these were my decisions to make. My blips to deal with.

And I did and that's all I need to do.