Tuesday, May 10, 2005

A fine Tuesday morning

I woke up this morning to a nice sunny day, clear skies with some scattered clouds. The UK metrology office website had forecasted scattered showers in the south eastern part of the UK where I would be training, but looking out of the window, I thought they had got it wrong.

Made my preparations, (lunch box, fly kit etc), and waited for 07:00 hrs to give the Green Dragons flight line a call.

At 07:05 I called the number it was ringing (normally goes straight to voicemail with the dreaded 'unsuitable weather' message so I had hopes it was 'ON' today), the duty instructor answers and I ask 'I was just ringing up to check if my hang gliding lesson was going ahead today'. Over the phone came the reply 'Un-fortunately the wind is not right, so all training is cancelled'. A check on the weather website shows an average wind speed of 10mph gusting to 17mph (so beyond trainee pilots).

With that I take my flight bag back upstairs, swap if for my briefcase (lunch box as well) and drive to the tube station where I catch the tube for work.

A fine day it turned out not to be.

ALUTA CONTINUA! The quest for a hang gliding Club Pilot rating continues British Weather 4 Shola Determined 0

The next training date is fixed for Wednesday 18th May at Green Dragons.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a killer mate. It is so hard learning to fly in the UK. I remember about 2 years ago now I took 2 weeks off work, figuring that would be enough to complete 8 days training in sheffield, in april... well I did three days of my EP, but had so many tasks left!

Now 2 years later I'm off to Bulgaria with www.skynomad.com to learn to paraglide. The course is 12 days... I'll be there 16... I hope their weather is better than ours!

Best of luck mate, I'm sure with a good summer ahead it will all come together! How is the sponsorship going? Been able to get hold of much kit yet?

enjoy! Liam

Shola said...

Yep, I've got the whole of summer to look forward to, but would rather spend it gaining experience than leaning to fly, but there you go, can't fight the weather can you.

I'm hoping to get an article in the paper soon to drum up some more publicity, then I'll push a bit more on the sponsorship.

My main concern at the moment is becoming a pilot, without that there is no MB Challenge.

Anonymous said...

Well I'm back now, and fully qualified! Great to be able to fly nearly everyday in a warm climate. Good lucf and maybe the best plan is more foreign training to get this back on track>?

Liam

Shola said...

Welcome Back Liam, and congrats on the qualification, hope you are able to do some flying in the UK as well.

I can't do anymore foriegn training due to family commitments, so I'll still have to struggle on.