Fog. Nuts. The last thing I need. As I look out of my B&B window near Carrickmore, NI, I see a slight sliver of blue above but the sun is still hiding behind low lying fog and stratus. "It'll be fine" I think as I head to breakfast. My eternal optimism takes a slight dent as a snow flurry passes through. I head to the airfield and the fog gets thicker, completely obliterating the faint yellow ball in the sky. It may take longer than I thought to clear...

Both the gyros were out and had been prepped for flight. I am looking to purchase a gyro in order to complete my instructor qualification, instruct and preferably move into data gathering or wildlife monitoring from gyros. It's a pretty long road to full Flying Instructor (FI) status, but, have FI - will travel...

I have a good crawl over them both. Pretty much the same aircraft but one has double the airframe hours (but a new engine, non turbo) and the other has the older rotor system but a turbo engine and has been meticulously maintained. Eventually we strap in and as we start up, a flexwing takes off and rapidly disappears downwind and comes back into land. More fog blowing in but we see holes and it is pretty clear underneath so we "press to test"... 3 minutes and 1 sporty circuit later we decide to have a cuppa and wait a little longer for the clearance.

20 minutes later and we are lining up with big blue gaps around and good vis. Upwind is a large expanse of clear air and we are soon tooling around, throwing the gyro hither and thither and seeing how it performs. Back for a quick practice force landing and a normal circuit to land. Job done. A little bit of stick shake when flying but this could be taken out with some rotor tuning and all said a pleasant 40 minutes of aviation.

The next trip is shorter due to time pressures for my civvy flight back, but a similar sort of trip. Pros and cons to both aircraft and decision time really. First real trip would be to fly it back from Carrickmore to Chiltern in Oxfordshire (if they still have hangar space) and then start building a few hours before my instructor upgrade flights. Not that I don't have a barge to renovate and a Masters dissertation to write. Oh well. Who needs sleep eh?