News: 4 Jul 2010, Wind

They told me last night that the weekly "international flight", a Boeing 767 from Lisbon, landed at the airport that morning in 38 Knots of wind, that's 70 Km/h, or somewhat faster than the FIB will fly. Basically, if I was foolish enough to attempt a backwards takeoff then my next stop would be somewhere like Brazil or the Caribbean. This is indeed a very windy place.

We went there to fiddle around with cameras and things with the optimistic view that it might be flyable early this morning, so early to bed for an early start.

Luckily I can sleep through just about anything, because there was a riotous graduation party with a terrific band of drummers in the park just outside my hotel window which was still going strong at 2 am when I last had a quick look.

Antonio phoned the airport at 5.30 when it opens and they reported 10 Knots of wind, which looked promising, so we all left the hotel at 6 just as it was getting light and the dregs of the party were just wobbling off home. Once we got to the airport they were reporting 14 - 20 knots, which might have been possible, I was ready to try a solo test flight anyway, but Christian, concerned that the FIB should survive for all 5 episodes wisely said perhaps better not. In any case we had to wait for the first flight of the day to arrive at 6.42 and by that time the tower was reporting 17 - 24 knots. The FIB stayed in its nice comfy home in the old fire station.

Christian decided he should perhaps shoot Stéphane and I discussing why it isn't possible to fly. While we stood out on the tarmac doing this it became windy enough for Bastian's furry microphone thing to cease to work properly and we had to be surrounded by people holding sheets of cardboard as a bit of a wind break. Antonio went to sleep in the cab of an aircraft steps lorry.

So I suppose we will try the same thing again tomorrow morning. In the meantime we've been given the rest of the day off which is nice. I should start work on preparing the scoring system for EMC 2010 but maybe I'll go and sit by the pool for a bit first. The town is now very quiet, I suppose they're all sleeping off last nights revelries. Apparently the Portuguese president is visiting on Wednesday. There's bound to be a major security operation at the airport in which we would almost certainly be an unwelcome complication, so that's the day we'll probably go Tuna fishing. Of course sods law says there will also be an unusually light wind...