Life is Hard

The Wife and I were getting ready to fly to Pensacola yesterday for an afternoon of sun'n'fun with a couple of friends who live out there. Got the plane all ready to go, pulled out onto the tarmac, did my last minute checks, went to take off...and the plane felt funny. What the hell, right? So I stopped the plane, cut the fuel back, got the wife to stand on the brakes while I took a look outside (there's nothing like looking, if you want to find something). Turns out the nosewheel had gone flat sometime since preflight (in the last 5 minutes or so). So I notified tower, called the plane rental place, found out that it was going to be a couple of hours until we got our plane back. So I called our hosts, let them know we wouldn't be making it to Pensacola today, and planned to do some local flying once the plane got back on-line. Then the rental place called me back and told me the plane would be down at least the rest of the day. Oh, well. The Wife and I went and ate sushi instead.

Moral of the story: never, ever use a small plane for travel if you HAVE to be there.