Theory vs reality

It’s Friday, here’s what was meant to happen in theory:

I had a plane booked for a solo flight. I was going to finish up at work and round up a semi-frustrating week at work by heading straight down to the airport. I was looking forward to it. I enjoy the solo flying now; I was going to head out to Claremont and work purely on my forced approaches. I was going to nail those suckers. I have a flight with Bob booked for the Saturday afternoon. I was going to wow him with my prowess. At the appropriate point I was going to spiral gracefully down to my chosen field as if I’d been doing these all my life.

And here's what happened in reality. 

It was looking promising, if a little breezy. That morning the winds were a little higher than forecast but I was confident that they’d settle down and I’d be off on my way.

The day rolled on, I kept an eye on the weather. The GFAs looked benign, the TAFs what I’d expect, the winds a little sporty and getting sportier. The crosswinds on 26 gusting up to 19 knots but then dying down to something more reasonable.

The winds were marginal, but in my opinion on the doable side. Being as they were from the North, I always had 33 as an option for landing.

I’d not heard anything from Bob, but I wasn’t really expecting to. At this stage in my training he shouldn’t have to be prompting me to look at the weather and make an appropriate call. I finished up my work. I’d head down and give it a go for sure.

About 15 minutes before I needed to leave in order to grab some food on the way, I happened to glance up. Even out of my tiny basement window I could see big fluffy vertically developed clouds. Hmmm, that doesn’t look right*. I pull up the weather again to see if I’ve missed something.

No convective activity on the GFAs, cloud base reasonable on the TAFs but I happen to see that Muskoka to the North is reporting Cumulonimbus clouds. I puzzle over the conflicting information I have in front of me and dial up Flight services for their take on it.

The general tone of the conversation is that there is instability bubbling up, fed by Lake Simcoe. How far West and South it is going to come is anyone’s guess. He advises me to keep a watchful eye out for embedded thunderstorms. I enquire about the winds, he tells me that they are not so bad, but I know he’s reading from the METAR and my Live Runway data is showing a good 5-10 knots more than he’s reporting.

This is not sounding good. We’ve had a lot of sudden rainstorms and squalls lately, seemingly benign conditions going nasty very quickly. I’m not sure that constitutes “fun flying”. I’m re-evaluating my options and let Bob know as much.

Finally I call the flight school, enquiring as to the winds. They’ve swung around a little bit and are more down the runway. Less crosswind but still gusty. I ask if people are still going up. “Yes, but not solo,” is the reply I get.

I’m officially out of the flight school limits for gusting winds it would seem. I’d actually forgotten about them, and although there is some discretion in those limits, this doesn’t seem to be the time to push them.

I cancel. In my text to RTH, I explain what Flight Services had said and told him “ I don’t need to be flying in that crap.”

Some might call me a “fair weather flyer” but you know what? They are right and I’m OK with that. I’m doing this for fun after all.

*I’m beginning to realise that this is one of the most powerful feelings in aviation. It gets you out of a lot of trouble.