I spent a few hours at the airport yesterday, finishing off an inspection under the cowling. I had planned to go flying after getting it all back together, but the wind had come up much stronger than forecast. There is no anemometer at Smiths Falls, but based on the wind sock, and wind reports from other local airports, the gust were probably over 30 kts. I had issues in the past with strong winds catching the bi-fold hangar door, so I elected to keep the door closed and cancel the planned flight.

The winds were much lighter today, so I took advantage this afternoon and had a very nice one hour flight doing practice instrument approaches at Ottawa. I’m starting to think about flying to Sun ’n Fun in Florida in late March, so I wanted to make sure all the IFR equipment was working properly, and that I had knocked the rust off my personal IFR skills.