Foggy Cancellation

Flying Hours Today 0:00, Total 3:00

On Saturday the sky was glorious - clear blue sky everywhere. A really perfect day for flying, although perhaps a little bit humid. Unfortunately for me I wasn't booked for flying on Saturday, I had a lesson due first thing on Sunday, and having now completed Trevor Thom's book 2 - Air Law & Meteorology I forecasted that Sunday would start as a gloomy day.


Sunday morning - 0800hrs: fog. Not even mist, but fog. I tried to call the flying school but couldn't get through. It is about 30 miles away from home so I set off in hope.


After driving for 20 minutes I called in and this time someone was there.


Unfortunately the lesson was off. So I turned for home as the sun started to break through. However the sky remained misty for most of the morning until early afternoon so there really was no opportunity to fly.


Late afternoon and the sky broke, to about 5/6 oktas - perfect for a BBQ. As we were eating a GA craft came very low over our house - well below 500 ft - banking sharply to the left. At first I thought it could be a pilot in distress having just taken off from Crosland Moor airfield (EGND) - locally known as Huddersfield International Airport - about 2.5nm away. I could clearly hear the throttle changes for more power, then I saw the aircraft come full circle at much greater height and then it headed off directly east. There were no reports of anything untowards in the press on later days so I must assume that everything was OK and that perhaps it was a pilot who had descended for a closer view and then climbed away.


As a side note, I received Trevors Thom's book 5 (Radio Navigation and Instrument Flying) on the previous weekend as a birthday present. The set is now complete - with lots of reading to do. At this rate of 3 lessons in almost 100 days there is plenty of reading time available between flights.