Wednesday 17th to Friday 19th February
Wednesday 17th. It was pointed out that my last blog included Wednesday in the title but not in the text. Not really surprising as Wednesday was another non flying day with the site in fog/cloud all day with very little wind. Josephine and the auditors were however busy with the annual accounts ahead of the AGM. The only other point of interest was the tracery of rime on the trees/bushes etc as the following photo shows. North is to the right in the photo.
- Winter tracery.
Thursday 18th. With the temperature just above freezing, a very light SE’ly drift kept the site in cloud all day, so no flying was possible. However, the lack of distractions meant the audit of the accounts proceeded smoothly.
Friday 19th. Snow overnight meant a return to another white covering, albeit not enough to rule out flying in the sunny skies and light to moderate NNW’ly that greeted the day. With the club K21 at the launch point a low (700′ QFE) overcast quickly developed so the erstwhile pilots retired to the clubhouse to await the better weather visible on the sat pics. This duly arrived and flying commenced around 1130 hrs, the usual turbulent conditions on the take off and climb being continued for the whole of the early flights. After a break for lunch and a chance to warm up, flying recommenced and George Rowden, flying the K21 solo, found some broken thermal under the mostly cloudy skies to record the longest flight of the day, 34 minutes. A snow shower again halted proceedings, before Derek Smith, again flying the K21 solo, looked to be on course to stay up for a longer time by maintaining around 500′ on the southern part of the main bowl. However, an approaching snow shower brought an end to the flight after 30 minutes. In between this activity the Rotax Falke was busy with 4 flights, David Watsham doing his annual field landing checks with Albert Newbery on one of these. In all, 6 ATs were flown off runway 02. Although the temperature briefly rose above freezing during the day, resulting in the snow cover melting, the cloudier conditions during the afternoon saw the temperature fall back below freezing, with the result that the accumulated mud around the K21 main wheel had frozen solid by the time the aircraft was brought to the hangar for washing at the end of the flying day. Meanwhile, in the warmth of the clubhouse, the auditors, assisted by Josephine, completed their work.