Not flying – What I don’t miss
I’m not flying for the time being, to save money for the Flying Across America project. I’ve been in similar situations a couple of time and it’s never easy to stop flying, be it because of budget and time constraints. I miss flying a lot… well, most of it. There are some part of flying I miss less than others, the less glorious part of it.
Towing and playing hangar Tetris
Most of my flying was in a flying club having a hangar for its whole fleet. On the plus side, there was no need for aircraft covers. I hate aircraft covers, and if you already tried to put one in a 20 knots wind, you know why. But this hangar was quite deep, and I often had to tow two or three other aircraft out, on top of the one I was flying. We also used to tow the aircraft to the fuel pump. Not that far away, but towing a PA32 is a lot of effort.
Short term flight cancellations
Canceling a flight is never fun, specially at short time. There are many reasons to cancel, and this is possible at any time. The latest of my cancellations was during the take-off roll, as the heading bug was blocked. But the worst is to cancel late on the day before because the weather forecast for an early flight is looking clear, and find glorious VFR weather the on the next day.
Weather suspense
Spending lot of time checking each and every weather report, building scenarios and alternatives is not always fun. This can create interesting discussions, but I hate spending half a day of hardly gained overtime to end up non flying because of fog dissipating later than expected, or thunderstorms building earlier than expected.
No plane – no fun
Rental pilots know that one: a perfect day, a short-term plan for a great flight but no plane available. An even more frustrating variant is when the guy having the reserved the plane before is not back on time, whatever the reason.
Staying current
National and club regulations require a certain number of flights per year or even per month. Keeping all privileges current (aircraft types, single engine, multi-engine, night VFR, IFR, …) is sometimes a source of intense worries.
I hoped that writing a post about the less funny parts of flying would help me dealing more easily with my non-flying situation. It does not.
5 Comments, Comment or Ping
Julien
I had a few night flights cancelled at the last minute recently for my Night VFR Rating, but I only have myself to blame. Because I always delude myself into thinking that the weather forecast will get better once I’m at the airport, I always make the 45-minute drive to the airport, sit around, and eventually decide with my instructor that we won’t be flying tonight. If I strictly believed what the weather forecast says, I would have saved quite a few hours spent in traffic over the last months.
As to the previous guy not returning the airplane on time… Once the guy before was 30 minutes late, and blamed it on headwinds on the way back. Sure. For a local flight of about one hour. I’m sure if a 100kt wind had been blowing anywhere in the area on that day it would have made the headlines of national newspapers.
Oct 25th, 2009
Matthew Stibbe
The thing I like the least about the winter is putting covers back on a plane in the cold early evening. Especially with the wing covers we use on the Cirrus. My fingers get very cold. Ergghhh. Matthew
Oct 25th, 2009
Sylvia
I will say that staying current is causing me major issues lately.
I like the description of hangar tetris!
Oct 27th, 2009
Julien
A further level of optimisation and complexity is added when you mix low-wing and high-wing aircraft in the same hangar! Lots of fun. I saw an ad recently for an elevator system that doubles up the capacity of any hangar with a high enough ceiling. Surely a good idea, but this somehow makes me feel very nervous. I prefer aircraft suspended in the air under their own power.
Oct 27th, 2009
Max Trescott
Vincent,
Don’t despair–you’re foregoing some flying for what should be a great flying adventure. In some ways it may be similar to our friend Monika’s FlyAbout trip she did circumnavigating Australia. Regarding the airplane currency problem, one of the side benefits of getting my CFI was that the club rules don’t require individual aircraft currency for CFIs which makes sense except in extreme cases (e.g. I wouldn’t teach in a DA42 if I hadn’t flown it for a year–but I’d have no qualms about doing so in a C172RG). Definitely consider getting your CFI sometime.
Oct 29th, 2009
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