6 June, from the crew dude

Hi all!

Yesterday proved too difficult.  The temperature actually dropped after gridding by a few degrees, and by the time it picked up again the wind had also picked up, to 20+ kts, thus ensuring that any thermals would get blown apart.

Today's looking pretty ordinary.  Looks OK right now, but there's definitely something rotten brewing - towering alto-Cu's in the distance, and forecast of possible storms.  Looks like a day for Eric to finish the bug-wipers!

Yesterday, we went to a store in nearby Forssa, which seems to be a mixture of Bunnings, Big W, Woolies and JB HiFi plus a motor scooter dealership thrown into one, in a humungous gigantic store where you could spend an hour just looking around at everything just once.  You can get pretty well anything there.

Last evening, when we were at a barbecue with some of the Finns, I couldn't help noticing how peaceful it was - lots of tall trees around, no wind apart from the odd gentle slight breeze, and I realised that I haven't ever described Finland during this trip!  Posted pics, sure, but not described the place.

Finland - at least, where we are - seems to be gently undulating, with no substantial hills, lots of lakes, even more forest with trees already shown in several pics.  Eric tells me that there are actually quite a few outlanding places, although several of those are criss-crossed by heaps of power lines.

The Finns are very friendly, and quite often we cook dinner at one of the barbecues in the campsite which they use a lot.  Wouldn't mind staying here for a good while actually!  (Although staying here during winter might be a different story…)

Anyway, let's see what briefing and the weatherman bring us.

Stay tuned…

Update 1100 - pretty ordinary weather, with showers in quite a few areas, but they've still set a task, 270 km out to the east which is supposedly in clearer weather.  Methinks it's optimistic!  First launch 1200.

Update 1150 - first launch 1300

1250 - first launch 1315. And apparently there's a CB developed in Estonia which is likely to head towards the task area.

1310 - first launch 1330

1327 - first launch 1340. There's a storm brewing to the south

1332 - day is cancelled

1420 - storm coming in thick and fast now…

Here's why it's cancelled...

It's been pouring.  Still raining strongly, and might stay that way for a while.  There's another storm cell brewing south-east of us, which could've gone right over the task area on return, so to cancel the day was I think a good call!  More bug-wiper installation time…

And not a breath of wind either...

2010 and barbecue time.  We can still hear the sound of the tug every so often, there are still training flights in progress! (We had a huge heap of rain during the storm, now it's quite humid.)

Oh, and the bug-wipers are now installed! Eric will test them tomorrow, if necessary flying even if the task is cancelled.