Reducing Number of Wasted Trips to the Airfield!

[Circuit Basher]

The very nice chappies (and chapesses :)) of Scottish Aero Club have recently set up a remotely accessible weather station at Perth (Scone) Airport. It is now available on the Web at Perth Weather (http://www.microlights.net/html/summary.html) and I've been checking it out (including having a look at the WAP site!).

As I do a lot of my flying from Perth and it's 55 miles from home, this should hopefully save quite a few wasted trips when the met doesn't finish up doing what the Met man said!

I may be biassed, but I personally reckon it's the canine undercarriage!! Last time I saw anything this good, it was for Eddsfield! :D

[edited for dreadful typing]

[Say again s l o w l y]

A good idea. Though there is an easier (and cheaper way of doing this) just ring the flying school before you leave. If you've got a long journey this may not be feasible if you are booked into the first slot of the day, due to the fact most schools only open just before students arrive! But it should work for the rest of the day.

I wonder how much it cost, might be sensible for all places to have one. We might get some accurate weather then!!

[Genghis the Engineer]

Certainly a good idea - although I can never understand why we don't operate US-style AWOS systems in the UK ?

Personally however, I've never had a wasted trip to the airfield, since I can clean the aircraft, do a few niggling maintenance jobs, catch up on the gossip, read the noticeboard without interruption and best of all - be away from the telephone since my mobile doesn't seem to work there.

G

[Circuit Basher]

SAS - the recent wasted trips have both been early morning slots, as you rightly surmise. There are also trips where the wx looks to be clearing and it's worth going fo it but then goes to rats during the drive up.

GtE - as you rightly say, a visit to the airfield is never wasted. Even once you've done everything you wanted to do in terms of aircraft cleaning, paperwork, etc, there's always the chance to roam the hangar and see what's around, chat to fellow club members, etc - all without the pressure of planning an imminent flight / tidying up after a flight / getting home to see Mrs CB to be assigned my next list of chores!!! :D