Prior planning prevents poor performance.

Today’s flight was an excellent example of this. I’d read all I needed to about Oshawa airport. I’d studied the route. I’d figured out the frequencies I’d need to use. I’d mapped it all out in my mind*, what calls I needed to make, where I needed to make them and at what point I’d be transiting between the various control zones on the way there. Those words are bolded for a reason, we’ll get back to that in a moment.  Consequently, despite the fact that I was mildly freaking out about the bumpy weather enroute, I wasn’t freaking out about the workload. I was one step ahead on my radios; I was positionally aware and happy with the general jist of the flight on the way there.

Yep those four words again. You see what happened was fairly simple. I’d obsessed about very minor detail about the journey there, but neglected to think about the trip back. I wasn’t landing at Oshawa (just did a couple of touch and goes), so I didn’t have any on ground time to think about the return journey. I’d neglected this in my planning, consequently I wasn't as ahead of the plane as I should have been ( this might be a polite way of saying I wasn’t in front of it at all!). Thus the journey back wasn’t as  smooth as it could have been. I let my altitude drop and made a couple of dicey radio calls. I also appeared to forget how to land the plane, but that’s for another post!
 

Don’t get me wrong, nothing terrible happened and I was always fully in control. It just wasn’t as smooth and painless as it should have been. A valuable lesson was learned though. As well as getting there, you also have to get back!



* One of the few areas in life that my mild OCD is an advantage (maybe!) I actually semi flew the flight in my sleep the night before. I was literally dreaming about it. My mind screwed up the local geography a bit but the general principle seemed to work.