I set some pretty lofty goals at the start of the year aimed at my flying. Fly more, fly to more exotic places, fly some different types and maybe try a new rating. I did get to take my niece flying for the first time back in August (header picture) and she loved it. That combined with taking my Dad flying at the start of the year has been the highlight of my year in flying.
Because, as things have turned out I’ve had less time than ever to fly this year due to the opportunity to change my career direction that I took at the beginning of this year. This has been a somewhat double edged sword as far as flying has gone. I’ve flown around 9 hours this year due to my inability to synchronise my availability with the weather. But on the other hand I have purchased my own aircraft and learned a lot about how microlight aircraft are engineered and how they work.
As the weather is still keeping me earthbound I’ve decided to take the time to write about that and am currently around 2500 words into that short story, which will eventually form part of my work-in-progress book. I will keep you updated on that as it develops.
Many of you have followed my posts and photos on Facebook and seen the ups and downs so far of me figuring out how to actually put together an aircraft that has been de-rigged and has fairly rudimentary rigging instructions in the pilots handbook.
Under the heading “Rigging” I found the following helpful statement.
“To rig the aircraft simply reverse the above steps”
Not that straightforward when you’ve never assembled an aircraft before.
But I’ve got Yankee Lima together now and even managed to figure out how to start a 2-stroke Rotax 503 engine eventually.
Choke, choke and more choke!
All this was done and dusted by the beginning of September but since then there has been precious little flyable weather in the North West due to a number of weather fronts and storms. What little there has been has either coincided with instructor unavailability or my unavailability.
I’m tying now to view this in the context of “what can I learn and gain from this opportunity?” Hence my decision to take the time I have to try and simplify my life in a few other areas.
I’ve sold my motorbike, a nice 2004 Suzuki SV650S. It was a lovely bike, low mileage nothing wrong with it. But it was just sitting on my drive. I never ride it. I never have time too, because what little time I have outside of work I have many other things I want to do ahead of riding my motorbike.
I was a little sad initially but after I thought about it I took the view that now that motorbike is going to make two people happy, instead of making me sad every time I see it on my drive not being ridden.
One person will sell it and make a profit out of it = a happy person.
The person they sell it too will get the joy of riding a superb machine in great condition = second happy person.
Maybe one day, when I have a little more time I’ll buy another, who knows…
Returning to flying, it’s been the first real long period on the ground for me since I qualified 3 years ago and I guess I’ve found it hard to deal with as I worry I’ll forget how to fly. Or that I’ll never do it again or, yada yada yada…
You know, normal, common or garden, human self doubt.
I’m sure loads of pilots have gone through the same thing from time to time and I guess I’m no different in that respect. But its taken a certain amount of time for me to realise that.
And lets face it, with the weather we’ve had in the North West lately and some of the wind speeds – I sure have been glad to be down on the ground wishing I was up in the air, than the other way round on many occasions, as the saying goes.
So, keeping with this perspective I am using my time on the ground more productively and biding my time for the right weather window. When I do get to take Yankee Lima to the skies, I imagine it will feel even more special having waited for so long (delayed gratification and all that..)
Copyright © 2017 Dan Roach
Dan Roach Flying Author 