Lesson No Go

I was scheduled for a lesson at noon today but awoke to strengthening winds out of the north. Other than that it was a beautiful sunny day, light jacket weather.

I didn't hear from my instructor and I knew he had a lesson just before mine so I went ahead and collected my things and drove out to the airport. Parking I could see most of the planes tied down including 729SP, mine for today. Sure enough, when I opened the door C was sitting behind the desk leaving me a voice mail on my cell phone.

Well, my old cell phone. Two days ago I got a new one, a shiny Motorola flip phone ... I finally get to retire the Ericsson brick I've been carrying around.

Anyway, back to the story, C just shrugs his shoulders and says, "I don't know. You tell me if the wind is too strong."

Well, twice this morning I had checked the METAR reports online and the winds had gone from 10 kts sustained/20 kts gusting to 18 kts sustained/32 kts gusting. And driving up I noticed the flags all flying very stiffly straight out. So, yeah, if it was me alone I'd cancel.

"What about the winds aloft", he asks.

Ummmm I don't know.

"Why don't you call and get a local weather briefing and be sure to ask if there have been any pilot reports for North Dallas."

OK, so I have to admit something here. A couple of lessons back C had mentioned in passing, "Oh I want you to start getting a briefing before each flight. We'll talk about the weather." But then he'd never mentioned it again.

So, I all I had been checking the weather reports on the NWS - Aviation Weather Center web site, but I had not been calling the FSS for this area. I'm not clear yet on how all that works. And I hadn't gotten around to asking C about it. But I did know the phone number -- I'd programmed it into my shiny new cell phone. Did I mention I got a new cell phone? Ahhh gadgets.

Anyway, I wondered off into a corner and called. First up was a recording telling me all about the Prohibited area P-49 (otherwise known as Crawford, TX) and that I should check for the latest NOTAMS. Then I press the option for a briefer. She answers and asks for my registration number.

My mind goes blank ... oh yeah, 729SP.

"What time is your departure?"

Noon.

Then there's an uncomfortable silence. So I throw out, "I'd like a local weather briefing for the North Dallas area. I'm at Addison Airport, ADS."

"OK" she says. I can hear her typing for a second and then she starts talking a mile a minute! And here I am without a pencil or paper. Doh! But having been outside I already know what the general weather is like so I just concentrate on listening for wind speeds. She basically read me the latest METAR for Addison (which is same one I got on the computer before I left the house) and then gives me some winds aloft readings of which the only one I really catch is 3000' and 20 kts.

When she's done she asks me if there's anything else I'd like to know and I ask her about PIREPS. She says there hasn't been anything new today but that earlier this morning there was a PIREP for moderate turbulence under 5000'.

Thank you!

Wow, that wasn't so bad. But next time I'm going to be prepared and have something to write on.

I go back over to C and tell him what I found out and he tells me that a couple of instructors that went up this morning reported back turbulence as well. About this time Addison updated the weather report and the winds had strengthened a little. So we have a definite no go decision. That wasn't so hard.

I'm already on the schedule for Sunday at 4, but C also schedules me for 9 am. We're going to have a ground school session and talk about the written test, the FARs, the AIM (I'm to bring my book and a bunch of page flags, I already did this actually), and we're also going to go out in the maintenance hangar and meet the folks there and hopefully poke around the engine of a Skyhawk. I know that 729SP is scheduled for some maintenance in the morning tomorrow. Oh, and we're going to take a look at the Dallas sectional and terminal area charts so I'm to review the legend. This is easy ... I'm a bit of a map nut and when I started playing around with MS Flight Simulator a couple of years ago I went out and bought a set of sectionals to use.

So, no flying today but I still got a lesson!