Tuesday, May 27, 2003

 

Day 32 and 33. Tuesday and Wednesday 27-28 May 2003. Lay Days

On Tuesday we just had a quiet day and did nothing but laze in sunshine. Come Wednesday we first cleaned the house and vacuumed through until everything was spic and span for Vicky's homecoming on Thursday.

Then I lazed in the sun again and spent most of my time reading and watching the planes leave their vapour trails in the sky.

Many planes presumably from Heathrow were flying not too high in and northeasterly direction and presumably to the eastern USA and Canada on this path. On the same compass bearing planes were flying very high indeed but in the opposite direction to-wards the south east and presuming again going to southern Europe from the USA and Canada.

Occasionally I would see planes flying high on a northeast to southwest direction and thought these planes might be from the Scandinavia flying to the Caribbean and South America areas.

Air traffic was very busy over Cricklade especially in the mornings, planes coming in a steady stream and when they produced vapour trails were easy to spot.

There were a number of RAF airbases in the vicinity of Cricklade, the 2 main ones are Fairford and Lyneham and both bases handle large transport planes as well. Fairford has the longest runway in the British Isles. This base is the backup for the American space shuttle in case its home at Edwards Air-force Base is closed by weather. Periodically I could hear a mighty roar as unseen aircraft took off, probably from Fairford.

The Concorde is due over this week on a low show flight, the last flight I think. As I sat reading my book I could hear a loud roar building up but I could not see anything. I thought as I looked around that it could not be anything else than the Concorde probably to the south of us to-wards Swindon.

The weather is getting warmer now and with it humidity, the sky pale blue from the haze.

posted by OldEric 9:16 pm