Saturday, October 04, 2014

Well that turned out better than forecast

Sometimes it pays to ignore the weather forecast... and book the flight anyway.

Today's weather was forecast to be fairly rubbish... and for a while it was. While the low cloud and rain stayed away, the winds were there; up to 22 across the runway at times. This is a bit too much when you are at an airport that is surround by high terrain.

I was booked in at 12:30 but delaying the flight to about 2:30 meant I had fairly good weather for the flight. The surface winds were still dancing around a bit, but it was smoother than I had anticipated and the C172 [ZK-FLT] behaved itself. The trip around to the Palliser Bay and the Southern Wairarapa was not rough at all and even the lonely CB hanging around late downwind back at Wellington had moved on before we got there.

Anyway, that's another flight done. I'll be flying again tomorrow [if the forecast winds do not arrive], but if they do, then next weekend I'm off to Omaka for some strip flying training. That'll be loads of fun for sure!

Today's picture is from the Pencarrow Arrival procedure, approaching Baring Head. Rhys "Marshaller" Brown took the photo, so thanks Rhys! Wellington airport is located under the clouds in the centre of the picture.


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