Apart from May and a couple of glorious days that I enjoyed on the west coast of Scotland at the beginning of June, the rest of the Summer, so far, has been a complete wash out. Many flying events have been cancelled – rained off until September. Our Auster has been sat in the hangar since I had that brief window of opportunity for a flight down to Perthshire a couple of weeks ago – just one good day amidst a background of almost constant rain. It has, in short, been miserable.

My only consolation to this, is that it’s been true for much of the country and not just Scotland, for once. In fact, while the rest of us have been getting soaked ( and up here, chilled ) to the bone, the west of Scotland has been enjoying mostly clear skies and even temperatures up in the mid – twenties! If this is global warming – I’m going to re-locate.

A couple of us in the Auster syndicate were hoping to get to Breighton’s ‘Wings n Wheels’ hangar bash at the weekend – a fantastic gathering of vintage aeroplanes and cars,  with flying displays and a hangar party, but looking at the weather forecast, I think there’s little hope of being able to make it. Even if the clouds should miraculously clear come Friday, our strip is now so water-logged, we’d need to fit floats to JT to stand any chance of getting airborne.

Flying light aeroplanes, especially vintage ones,  for fun, is difficult in the UK – more so in Scotland and I’m often envious of those carefree pilots across ‘the pond’, enjoying not only seemingly endless sunshine, but cheap fuel prices and free landings wherever they go! It’s a wonder that there is still an active  GA community in the UK left at all, faced as we are with rising prices, increasing bureaucracy, tighter airspace restrictions and of course, lets face it, crap weather.

Maybe that’s part of the British spirit – still managing to remain optimistic despite the odds. Maybe that’s part of the eccentricity that characterises the GA community in the UK – that ‘make do and mend’ attitude. Despite all the things up against us, we still manage to make the best of what we have and that’s what I admire so much about light aviation in this country.

It’s true that I often envy the freedom and lack of hassle pilots enjoy over in the States. I’m not sure they know how good they’ve got it. It’s GA heaven. Still – you often don’t appreciate fully, that which comes easy, and maybe all the rain we have helps us appreciate those occasions when, the clouds cleared and the sun shining, we can play amongst the cumulous or drink in the sights of this green and pleasant land that we live in. We are lucky enough to be able to fly above a landscape that is amongst the richest and most varied in the world. The UK, and Scotland in particular, is a great place to fly and there’s a great community of pilots and enthusiasts dotted all over this rain soaked land. You can’t have your ups without your downs, they say, so lets keep hoping for that ‘Indian summer’ we hope for every year and lets keep that spirit of light aviation that we know and love, alive and well in this small island of ours.

Come on sunshine!