I had previously cancelled my booking for this morning after speaking with Rochester Airport control tower yesterday. The forecast was not good and with all the wet weather we have had recently it was almost certainly a no fly situation due to the poor condition of the taxiways. Anyway, low and behold the phone rang and it was Ashley at Skytrek who called to say the airfield was actually frozen and they had opened it. Within 30 minutes I was up there waiting patiently while they defrosted the ice off all the aircraft. It was very cold and my hands were numb doing the various external preflight checks. Took me back to previous winters. Lovely.
I had trouble starting to taxy due to a locked/frozen right hand brake but after some pushing by three of us we unlocked it and I was actually able to get moving.
Runway was 34 and we were instructed to use the right hand side of the runway. Unusually the landing instructions entailed leaving the runway on the second or third exit and rejoining the same runway at the first exit and backtracking on the left hand side. A first for me.
The flight was nice and smooth, visibility quite good and the landing all went well on runway 34. It was lovely to go flying. I've had so many cancelled flights recently due to poor weather it was a relief to be up in the skies again. I feel really lucky to be able to do this. I think I will always be grateful of the opportunity to go flying.
22.11.2015 - Brakes off 11:50(Z) Brakes On 12:35 (Z) Total: 0:45
Total Time 141:45
