Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Getting tired of weather delays

This morning I got up early and headed out to the airport. The forecast was calling for some low cloud early but clearing later. I figured I would get loaded and ready and wait for the weather to clear. But I've been here almost 4 hours now and the clearing seems to have slowed in the direction I want to go. I do see patches of blue sky off to the north, but there's still a fair bit of low cumulus nearby (broken at 2600 ft).

I'm waiting for the next observations at the airports farther north on my route. I'm planning to fly from Sault Ste. Marie up around the east and north side of Lake Superior and on to Dryden, or else down to Thunder Bay if the next wave of crappy weather from Manitoba looks like it will beat me to western Ontario.

Speaking of crappy weather, Pete originally picked this 4 week window because it historically has the best flying weather. Apparently not this year. Just look at the 8am GFA for the Prairies. Way too much weather for me. It's coming in wave after wave from north of Edmonton. Nothing to do but wait it out. But I will start taking Cameron's suggestion to keep moving whenever safe, maybe one airport at a time and early in the morning, rather than wait for the ideal opportunity to fly ~600NM in 1 day. I figure if I had done that, I would already be in Dryden and worrying about the weather in the Prairie.

We had originally planned to leave July 17. Either Pete or me has flown the plane every day that the weather was suitable, yet that has only been 8 days out of 21.

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