Back in the saddle

My last flight was waaaay back at the start of December. Sucky weather and other stuff has gotten in the way of my flying since then. As I mentioned this leaves me out of currency with the flight school, as well as itching to get back in the air.

I booked a reasonably generous time slot, the plan being for me to whizz around the circuit a few times with an instructor on board and then head off for a sightseeing flight somewhere.

The TAF on Friday afternoon/evening looked promising, I sent out a text inviting a friend to join me and had a nice little jaunt out to the east planned.

The weather, of course, had other ideas.  I woke up to conditions that were looking kind of marginal.  Reasonable visibilities, but light snow and questionable ceilings.  A phone call to flight services didn’t shed much light on the matter.

I resorted to the ultimate old fashioned method of gauging the weather and stood at the window peering intently out. To the west I could see the odd cloud dropping some of the white stuff but I also noticed a couple of Cessna’s taking off from the flight school. I waited until I was sure that they weren’t staying in the circuit and headed down. Figuring that by the time I got to the airport they’d have landed and I could get a PIREP of the conditions out east.

Well I got one, not what I wanted to hear though. Apparently by the time you got out to the two towers, you couldn’t climb any higher than 2000ft. So east was a no go.

I’d dragged my passenger down here early on a Saturday morning, I really wanted to take her flying somewhere, but at the same time, now wasn’t the time to be trying stuff I wasn’t comfortable with. It was quiet and dispatch had time to chat through some options with me. My passenger, A, being content to look at shiny planes and probably shiny pilots, knowing her!

Their suggestion of a city tour was a reasonable one, but being that low over the city is kind of intimidating and I was starting to have second thoughts. Out west was another option, but another call to flight services put paid to that idea. Snow over Hamilton, extending to Oakville. Confirmed by the local radar feed and leading to a whole host of instructors sitting at the computer bemoaning “where is this stuff coming from?”

Eventually we threw our collective hands up in disgust and just decided to get the circuit check out of the way, stick my passenger in the back and maybe do a quick city tour afterwards. That way I could pick up some of the finer points of orbiting the downtown core with an instructor on board and A would still get her flight.

Which is how, after over 3 months, I found myself in the familiar situation of having Bob back  in the right* hand seat.

Déjà vu anyone?

* yes I put left to start with :(