Decision made

Albeit reluctantly. I’ve decided that it won’t be possible to fly 24ZN over to its new home in France this side of the new year. Although there may be a weather window next week, another wave of rain has lashed most of England including the south-east with more to come over the next few days and even if the weather improves enough to make the flight possible, the ground will be far too waterlogged to take off.

I went over to Clipgate this afternoon and was extremely dismayed by what I found. 24ZN is tied down in a position that’s fairly sheltered from the northerly winds that we’d usually expect at this time of the year. However, it’s very exposed to winds from the south-west and that’s what it was being buffeted with, together with sheets of rain.

And because I’d tied it down with its nose into the wind, its covers were billowing up in the wind, the force of which had lifted its nose so it was standing on just its main wheels with its tail skid touching the ground. This hadn’t caused any damage and wouldn’t do so but it was still not a desirable state of affairs.

Tomorrow I shall see if anything can be done to find a more a sheltered location as when I’ve returned to France, I won’t be able to pop into Clipgate as I would normally like to do to make sure that everything’s OK – the aircraft will have to remain in a safe condition until I can get back. However, in the meantime I turned it round and roped its covers down in order to reduce the billowing so they won’t be ripped by the wind. I also found a heavy truck wheel that I tied its nose wheel down with that is not shown in the following pics that I shot.

I don’t like roping the covers down because several years ago I came across an AX3 to which the same had been done and the buffeting winds had caused the ropes to abrade its wing covers causing quite severe damage. However, unless I can find a more sheltered spot tomorrow, I don’t think that I have a great deal of choice.