Best-laid plans

As the visit to Dayton, Ohio, approached, gusty forecasts whittled our weather window down until only a few hours looked promising for the photo flight. We’d need the platform aircraft and crew positioned and ready Saturday morning at daybreak. AOPA Senior Photographer David Tulis and I planned to fly from Frederick, Maryland, to Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport (MGY) Friday morning in a Cessna 182 to interview the volunteers of Wright “B” Flyer Inc. AOPA Editor in Chief Kollin Stagnito would meet us there in his Cessna 170, fly lead for the formation flight in the morning, and continue on to Erie, Pennsylvania, while Tulis and I conducted more interviews.

The evening before our planned departure, I scoured the forecasts for clues to whether the trip could proceed. The terminal aerodrome forecasts (TAFs) called for gusts to 25 knots directly across the airport’s one runway Friday and winds about 10 knots early Saturday. And now, a rogue model output statistics (MOS) update called for marginal VFR to IFR Saturday afternoon and evening, in conflict with the TAFs.

The trip was a classic example of the utility of general aviation: a mid-range flight to a non-airline-hub destination on a timeline that needed to be flexible. But now I faced the ambiguity that came with that flexibility. A dozen possible outcomes branched out before us: a better than forecast, smooth-sailing trip; a diversion to nearby Moraine Air Park (I73), whose runway was better aligned with the wind; a smooth flight to Dayton only to face an unforecast windy Saturday morning and a last-minute scrubbed photo flight. And MOS forecasts are typically less reliable than TAFs, but what if this one was right and the cold front would blow in early, squeezing our return trip? All I could do was sleep well and check again in the morning.

The TAFs stuck to their story the next day, and the MOS changed its projection to clear skies through Saturday evening. Tulis was a helpful co-pilot and good company as we bounced through stronger than forecast headwinds, occasionally checking for updated METARs at the destination on the Garmin GTN 750. When we picked up the automated surface observing system and heard “gusting 26 knots,” I set up for Moraine Airpark 5 nautical miles to the north.

At Moraine, we met the airport cats and a local CFI schooled us on the world’s first seaplane base, located just on the other side of the levee from the runway. Our hosts picked us up at the air park, and Stagnito made it into Dayton-Wright Brothers shortly afterward.

The next morning dawned cool and still. After a successful photo mission, Stagnito, Tulis, and I each had time to experience a flight in the open-air biplane. When Tulis and I departed that afternoon, a few raindrops flecked the windshield as we climbed away from the airport.

Back in Frederick, I loaded my bags into the car and sank into the driver’s seat. I was tired. Beyond two early mornings and busy days, I felt the mental fatigue of planning and reevaluating and adjusting course. So much had changed from the original plan: dates, destination, even the AOPA staff who were able to come on the flight. Yet in the end the important parts all worked out.

Scheduled airline service ostensibly delegates the mental load of travel to the pilots up front. But it doesn’t take away the uncertainty. I thought back to a recent commercial flight, from Maryland to Arkansas with my 3-year-old: taxiing back to the gate to wait for an hour and a half while I burned through every toy, snack, and coloring book in my Mom bag of tricks; begging the gate agent to let us onto our connecting flight, baggage or no baggage, as the doors were closing; driving back to the airport at 11 p.m. to reunite with said baggage; and circling over Virginia on the return leg while thunderstorms lingered over the Baltimore airport.

The utility of general aviation shines when I let go of the expectation that success is measured by things going according to plan. Change is a given. The vagaries of flying and life demand that we continually reevaluate our present reality against our goals and work toward what’s most important. As the adage goes, “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.”

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