21 September 2014 - Isle of Sheppey ,Canterbury, Rochester

This morning I was up early at Rochester Airfield hoping to get a flight down to the Dover cliffs but looking down to the south the cloud was fairly low so I decided to do a relatively local flight up to Sheppey and then down to Canterbury. Weather was better than it had been for some time due to a weather front that had passed through during the night. Wind was fairly brisk and the active runway was 02 although one wind sock was showing 02 and the other wind sock was showing 34. It was the first time I had heard the radio controller at Rochester give pilots an option as to which runway they wanted to use.

Brakes Off: 07:55 (Z) Brakes On: 08:55 (Z) Total: 1:00
Total Hours: 112:35

13 September 2014 - Isle of Sheppey , Faversham, Rochester

A sustained period of high pressure has meant generally poor visibility (muck, haze and mist/fog) to content with, and so a lot of flying had been cancelled over the last few weekends. These were the conditions that greeted me in the morning. Keen to get something in, I rebooked for 16:30 later in the day. 

The low cloud and mist fell away about 13:00 and so to my relief it was on.  I was back at the airport at 15:45 and waited for the plane (G-FLIP) to come back from a trial lesson. I managed to get rolling at 16:50 which gave me 40 minutes to play with. With the pressure of being back on the ground at 17:30 I didn't have much choice in destination really so headed over to Sheppey to blow the cobwebs off. 

Runway was 02 which can be a bit interesting when there is a fresh breeze blowing over the ridge, but nonetheless all ended well.

Video enclosed. This demonstrates upon the return to Rochester how bad visibility can be in haze when flying into the sun. This is typical after a period of sustained high pressure.

Brakes Off: 15:50 (Z) Brakes On: 16:30 (Z) Total: 0:40