A series of heavy showers thwarted our attempts to get everyone airborne from a full flying list.  However, given that this was forecast it had been decided to focus our efforts on our Gen Z – three MEF students from Cosford and also Amelia, a visitor who had booked some aerobatic tuition with Ian G.

Dark skies and the showers fragmented the day and when we were not flying then refuge was sought either in the launch point caravan or in a cockpit.

So whilst our Gen Zerers listened in open jawed amazement as we waited for the showers to pass, they learnt an amazing amount about RAF pay and pensions, Vulcanised bomber runs over some remote Scottish loch in the last century, growing tomatoes and how to cook Spam fritters!

We placed Nathan, Oliver and Connor, three of our new RAF MEF students under command of (Army) Corporal Haynes for launch point procedures and in between the showers we managed to fit in two flights each.

In between launches there were a couple of distractions that kept folk entertained. On the East side of the airfield Trumpton & Co were squirting some water around and there was more than a hint of suspicion that some of the “rain” might have emanated from there.  Meanwhile, on the West side the Model Flying Club put on a tasty display of pure jet power.

With a break in the showers we managed to launch a coupe of the old lads in R66…..

…followed by Amelia.  Amelia is a very competent young pilot and, as part of her flying scholarship, had booked some aerobatics tuition with Ian.  Finding some holes in the cloud base they managed to achieve launch heights of 3 and 4, 000ft.

You can always tell when Ian is enjoying (Origin: A word inherited from Germanic. Enjoy, n, feeling or disposition of benevolent detachment from reality) himself when he pings us one of his in-flight cockpit pic.

Following Amelia’s exploits there was time for one of those “there I was at….” type debriefs.

Thanks to everyone who mucked in to wipe down wings and canopies and retaining a sense of humour whilst the rain thrashed down.  See you all next time.