Today I had plans for a ‘first flight’ with a friend at work. He’s scared of heights and a little uneasy about the idea of being in a small plane but wants to try it. Southern California has been having a bit of a heatwave and with that comes the afternoon winds, and sometimes turbulence. So a good feel for the weather was going to be important.

But it was obvious early in the day that the flight would probably not go ahead: two of the three runways at Montgomery Field were closed, as was the localizer. I doubted we’d care much for the approach being out of service but only one runway being available, and with one very small run-up area, the airport would be a circus on the ground.

So I decided to postpone for a day when conditions would be as good as they could be for a perfect first flight.