If you hang around airfields, and especially those inhabited by seasoned pilots and instructors, you will have heard many memorable, some funny, and some completely inappropriate sayings and adages. It’s time to take a look behind the adages, and reveal the wisdom they contain.
In your own good time
“Time to spare, go by air.”
This expression is particularly appropriate in general aviation, especially for VFR pilots. And with what seems like years of La Niña weather in Australia, the frustration of not having blue skies on the weekends is widespread. Planned journeys by light aircraft have been delayed by floods, low cloud, strong winds, smoke, COVID, and even runway repairs.
Believe it or not, the word “get-there-itis” is now starting to appear in dictionaries, and a typical definition is “the determination of a pilot to reach a destination even when conditions for flying are very dangerous (in technical terms, a form of plan continuation bias).” One of the mitigation strategies for avoiding this often fatal condition is to have plenty of time spare. Need to get there tomorrow? Then you should have left a week ago.
And this is where the wisdom lies within the adage. If you must reach your destination to a tight schedule, you may be better off driving, or catching an airliner. Angela atAvalon, a fellow correspondent, reports that in the last year, she has used a rental car, her own car, a Boeing 737 and a train to get to an important appointment on time when weather closed in.
