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How much longer?

It's cold outside. It's currently 7:30pm and, according to the little weather widget in my Windows taskbar, it's17 degrees Fahrenheit outside. The weather today was nice enough to go flying, apart from the cold. It's also been snowing so it's likely that there is some snow on the paved 'driveway' between my plane and the taxiway. Even if the airport removed that snow, it was probably still icy and it would have been difficult if not impossible for me to pull the plane out of the hangar.

I don't know when the weather will permit me to fly again. It's very unlikely to be before the end of this month, and there's a good chance I won't be able to do so in January of next year. It's not impossible, of course. I was able to fly in January of this year after all. But here in the Northwest, the weather during a particular month one year is a very poor predictor of what it will be the next year.

Thing is, I'm over 50 years old now. I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to fly. I'm hoping it will be a good 20 years or more, but it's entirely possible that something will happen that causes me to lose my class 3 medical certification well before then. And when that happens, I'm done, unless I'm still capable of flying something that doesn't require a license, such as an ultralight or powered parachute. So I'm motivated to fly as much as possible while I can.

I had to severely curtail the amount of flying I did this past year due to the delays in having my plane's engine overhauled. Now that it's done, I want to fly it as much as possible both because I love flying, and because I don't know how much longer I'll be able to.

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