I took Toddie down to Linton on Sunday but unfortunately forgot to take my camera. Definitely no flying but it was a glorious sight under three or four inches of flat, even snow cover. Flat that is except for the rabbit paw marks of which there were hundreds and Toddie was soon in his element following all the scents. I left the car off the field and entered on foot so the rabbits didn’t hear us coming and as we turned the corner a couple dashed off through the hedge and another seemed to shoot out of a small gap under one of the hangar doors and disappeared off in the distance to join the others.
The reason for my visit was to check that MYRO was OK, remove the snow from its wings and tail surfaces, which I did with a small broom that I took with me, and place a wooden prop under the tail. The reason for this was that when we had a much larger amount of snow a couple of weeks ago, Bob noticed that the weight distribution caused MYRO to settle back on its tail skid. This was not a serious problem in itself but the nose is tied to a tyre that’s weighted with concrete and when it lifted it also lifted the tyre as well. The fuselage is strong enough to take the weight but there’s no reason for it to do so if it can be prevented, so that’s why I wanted to put a prop under the tail to prevent it dropping down.
A length of timber that I found in my garage proved to be just the right length without any need to cut it, although I’d taken a saw just in case, so the job was soon done. The wing tie-downs on one side had come loose but it only took a couple of minutes to re-tension them. A walk-round after brushing the snow off the wings and tail, of which there was a surprising amount actually, showed that with the covers I made, MYRO is perfectly OK out in the open in these weather conditions. I think that heavy rain will actually be far worse than snow, so I don’t have too much to worry about for the time being.
Except for the lack of flying that is. I’d hoped that I’d be able to use the time off between Christmas and New Year to get a decent bit of flying in, but it doesn’t now look as though that will be possible. The forecast is that this ‘cold snap’ could last for a month or more which would take us well into the New Year and if it stays this cold throughout, we could keep the snow cover for the whole of that time. Indeed, the chance is that we could have even more, in which case Linton could be a ‘no fly zone’ for quite a few weeks to come, unfortunately 🙁