Washed out

I was scheduled to be duty pilot today, but the weather forced us to cancel flying. Even though it's a long weekend, there weren't many folk who had put their names down on the flying intentions page. Two students and one AEF, so it would have been a quiet day. Here's the process I went through.

The club has a member who is a meteorologist and he has developed his own section on the club's forum where he makes predictions for upcoming days. Given I live 45 minutes from the club and weather conditions at Camden can be vastly different from home, I can't really look out of my window and work out what the day will be like. I called the Automated Weather Information Service for Camden just after 6.00 am, but it was inconclusive.

Sydney Weather 2 October 2010

I waited until 7.15am but the gliding forecast on the club's forum hadn't been updated, so I had to head out to the club. I got there at 8.00 am to find a grey day, cloud from 1,500 feet to 3,800 feet, and gentle rain. Our tame  meteorologist had updated his forecast and indicated that 25mm (1 inch in the old money) of rain had fallen in the past 24 hours and a NOTAM was expected that would close the grass strips that we operate off (too boggy).

However, as Duty Pilot I can't make that call alone, so I had a series of phone calls to make to the Duty Instructor and to the AM tug pilot and the two intending students, as well as the man who had booked the Air Experience Flight (AEF) before wending my way home through the rain.

Disappointing.