Other fliers at Rissington.

(This Merlin image is linked from www.miltary-airshows.co.uk)

Better flying conditions today, but by the time Tony & I were ready to fly, there was only about half-an-hour before an RAF Merlin was due over Rissington Airfield.

The Merlin is a rather big and heavy helicopter and hence has a significant downwash, easily sufficient to overturn a little gyro which might be underneath it, so due warning is given to fliers at Rissington when the RAF are expecting to perform maneuvers over the runways.

After just three take-offs and landings we had to abort as the Merlin was due shortly, so we taxied back to the hangar. Annoyingly, the Merlin didn't actually arrive on this occasion, but better that than to cause him to abort as had happened recently.

While I was waiting, a fine example of the local pheasants was strutting his stuff near the hangar with his somewhat dowdier mate, so I thought it would be nice to capture him for posterity in a few million digital bits:

While we'd been taxiing, I'd noticed that we hadn't been able to turn left quite as tightly as we had on previous occasions. There didn't seem to be an obvious reason for it, but I made a mental note that something might have changed.

I needed to get home so we left it at that for the day.