Hi! I know it’s been a while since you last heard from me. Unfortunately I haven’t been flying due to the smoke caused by forest fires. The fires have been raging in my province as well as neighbouring provinces for the last couple weeks which has resulted in a significant loss of visibility, preventing me from safely flying. I wish I could have a more exciting update for all of you, but one thing that I’ve learned from this is that aviation teaches patience.
Attached is a photo of what the air quality looks like from the plane. The safety issue comes from not being able to see the horizon.
I ask all my students and renters, “on a scale of 1 to 10, how important is it for you to make this trip?” If their answer is 5 or above, I tell them, “then don’t fly.”
Patience was never one of my virtues. I’ve always grappled with it. My first long dual cross country flight as a student was from Orlando, FL to Fort Worth, TX. Weather grounded us in Albany, GA for what seemed like eternity. Then, a couple hundred miles from our destination, we nearly ran into a wall. Landed in Jasper, TX and waited until the front passed only to have to call it quits in Palestine, TX – 110 miles short of our destination. My instructors wife drove out to pick us up. That was a trip that solidified, to me, what “Get-there-itis” was all about.