The elements are conspiring against me.

Yesterday the weather was bright and sunny at my house in the morning, so I headed up to the glider field to try to get some flying in. On the way, I got sprinkled with a little bit of rain. I was on my way anyway, so I kept going. There were a bunch of people up there, perhaps 15 or so, but nobody was flying. We sat around and watched the weather, and decided that it wasn't going to get any better so we abandoned flying that day. Of course, once I returned home it was bright and sunny again.

Today the weather looked marginal again, with low ceilings and lots of cloud cover. When I arrived at the field, operations were just starting with one glider and the tow plane out of the hangar. I was the third student in line for the club glider. A new student was first, he did three quick flights (there was little if any lift). Then two more private pilots took off (and ended up staying aloft for a couple of hours).

When the second student went to take off, the climb rate of the tow plane was very shallow and not anywhere near what it should have been. The tow pilot knew something was wrong, and took the glider back to the other end of the field so he could detach and land. The tow plane landed, and taxied back to its hangar. The tow pilot ran up the engine, but it didn't seem that anything was wrong with the engine. Once he shut it down it was clear, though - there had been a prop strike (where the propeller hits something, such as the ground) and both ends of the propeller were bent forward! We aren't sure exactly where or when it happened, but that definitely put that plane out of commission for a while.

The other tow plane, a Cessna, had some sort of battery problem so it was inoperable today. Unfortunately, I hadn't flown yet so I was out of luck! Although the weather started out marginally, it certainly seemed to be getting better as the day progressed. So I missed what could have been a good flying day.

I just noticed that I need a "flying" LJ icon.