Unfortunately, the location for the get together was Kemble, barely 15 miles as the crow flies from my homne base at Gloucester and yes, I was allocated two vets to fly them from Gloucester to Kemble.
All the previous week the weather had been glorious, sunny, warm and very little wind - ideakl flying weather (being churlish - perhaps a bit too warm when buttoned up). Of course it couldn't last. A weak cold front followed by an occluded front threated for Friday and Saturday. In the UK you can never be certain of the weather until the actual day (and even then not sure!).
Saturday dawned with horrible visibility and virtually nil cloud ceiling. Anyway, turned up at the airfield as the weather was predicted to slowly improve. Met Darren (the Gloucester ATCO) who was also flying and agreed to do a swap with his vet who was disabled and could not make it into Darren's plane, but could get into mine.
Met the vets and chatted and waited for the weather to improve. One of them was an ex-jet jockey with 4000 hours, many of which were on the Gloster Javelin (an example of which is gate gaurd at Gloucester), another chap told us how he was the only survivor of a crashed Anson).
Lots of calls to Kemble with dire tales of 400' cloud base and 2k visibility. I was pretty sure the weather would gradually improve enough for us to do a short 'scud run' into Kemble later on and offered to drive the vets there, then drive myself back and fly there later to pick them up. They decided to call it a day at around 12:30. A couple of chaps had meanwhile made it in from Turweston and one chap diverted in from Liverpool. At Gloucester it was 1200' ceiling and 9k visibility. Kemble finally gave 600' and 5k and we decided to get airborne and 'have a sniff at the ridge' - if it was no go, could do a low level local then land back at Gloucester.
By now without any vets to fly, but still keen to go along, I set off at about 13:00. Climbed to about 1400' on the QNH and wandered over the the ridge. Found a bit where I could maintain 1400' and crossed the ridge (est 900' QNH). Vis was OK and I was 'bumping into' the base of the cluds, but the ground progressively fell away as I approached Kemble. Got joining information and the QFE and I was 1000' AGL - just perfect for the circuit. Did a left base join for 08 and was marshalled to the Project Propeller tent.
Quite a few vets seemed to have made it and it was a reasonable crowd. I was told 120 aircraft were due, but only 35 made it - hardly suprising given the weather. There was an An2 (Huge single engined Russian biplane) giving the vets rides.
As I didn't have any vets to take back, had a bite to eat and decided to head for home at about 15:15.
Same in reverse really, low cloud, scud running, made it over the ridge at 1500' QNH, then given a crosswind join for 04 back at Gloucester.
The UK can be so frustrating weather-wise! I feel so sorry for the vets and other pilots who had much further to come and for whom the decision would have been much harder. It is a comfort to have the IMC rating since if it came to it, I would have headed into the clouds and run an instrument approach back to Gloucester (no instrument approaches at Kemble). Actually, it looked like a wonderful IMC training day to me!
I will volunteer again next year and pray for the weather!
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