Will it, won’t it?

When I got up and looked out of the window this morning, I couldn’t see the hills on the other side of the valley where Galinat is because of a thick layer of gloomy ground-hugging mist. The sky was already cloudy and over the next half an hour it became even more overcast, so when Wim rang shortly after, we agreed that it would be unlikely that I’d be able to do much with the Savannah today.

But since then, things have been undergoing a dramatic change. The sun keeps appearing in longer and longer bursts and the cloud and mist seem to be slowly burning away. But it looks as though the problem that won’t go away is the wind, which seems to be picking up and looks as though it will attain, or possibly even exceed, the forecast of 12 gusting 16-17 mph from the north. And that might remain the fly in the ointment.

And that could also remain the problem for the next few days. There’s a remote chance that it might be flyable tomorrow morning, but I doubt it because it’s likely to be misty at the very least, if not drizzling, with heavier rain forecast later on. Sunday should then be dry and bright but the wind could be gusting as high as 20-30 mph from the south-east, which would rule out flying yet again, and then we have rain forecast for much of next week. And so it goes on.

Although I’ve managed just under 6 hours in the Savannah (2 hours of circuits at la Ferté and 4 hours on the flight down), I’ve only got in one flight in the X-Air, back in January, so the whole of March this year has been a wash-out for me. This feels pretty disastrous, so I’ve just been looking back at my log book to see how previous years have compared.

After the final flight for the year on the last day of December 2013, my first flight in 2014 was in March, and that was it for the whole month. However, things then perked up and after six flights in April 2014, by the end of that month I’d managed a total for the year of just under 6 hours. So still not good and actually even worse than this year if only total hours flown are considered.

But last year was a bit better. I managed to get in a couple of good flights in January 2015 with good continuity in February and March. However, by the end of April 2015, my cumulative total for the year was still only 6 hours, so although I’m frustrated with the way things have gone so far in 2016, things haven’t been any better in previous years. Slightly worse actually!

I think that my main frustration has been due to the fact that I’ve had the Savannah parked up and ready to go but haven’t been able to. Although I now see that it’s been almost the same in the last couple of years, I’ve just felt it a bit more strongly this year, I think, because it’s a new aircraft that I desperately want to be flying!

So how are the prospects now looking for today? Not too good unfortunately. Although there are still weak flashes of sunlight, the breeze is bending the trees a bit and there’s still a lot of clag about making it impossible to see the hills on the opposite side of the valley. I can’t see it improving very much, but I’ll keep watching, just in case.