Grounded

I was supposed to be flying today but 30-knot winds at the airfield put a stop to that. I won't pretend I'm not disappointed but got to take the bitter with the sweet, I suppose. Ever since I started flying I've found myself keeping a very close eye on the weather forecasts, something that I was never inclined to do before. The weather has been bad all week and I didn't expect to go up today. Oh well.

Moving on to better news, the Ulster Flying Club has taken delivery of its first Garmin 1000-equipped Cessna 172 (that's not ours but is very like it), which uses "glass cockpit" technology the way modern airliners do. Basically it means that instead of the many little "steam gauges" in the cockpit there are just two LCD screens. It's pretty cool and gives access to a whole lot of information, some of which we didn't have before, with the touch of a button. They were dropping hints that students would be flying them to prepare us for the modern airliners we hope to be in in 10 years' time, but I don't think I'll sit behind the controls of G-UFCI for a while as present Cessna flyers come in droves to get checked out in the glass cockpit. We're due to take delivery of another though, and I think they will be the only two in Ireland.

No flying next weekend either, I'm afraid, but I get off school on Tuesday 18th and then have lessons on Wednesday 19th and Saturday 22nd - flying on a weekday is unusual but it's a reschedule from one I was due to have on April 19th when I will be away hiking. Hopefully by that time this atrocious weather will have cleared.

Thanks for stopping by.

Dave