Snow on the Runway, Ice on the Wings
I was supposed to be flying to Gatwick commercially today with a certain unhappy low-cost airline but as the country is currently gripped in the worst cold snap in 100 years my trip has been cancelled. This means that I am thrilled devasted to find that I’m stuck in sunny Spain with a free day.
Yeah, it’s heartbreaking. I think I just lost all my English readers.
I have a whole set of bookmarks for watching airfield webcams. Funny, it seems that it’s somewhat quiet on the runways at most of the UK airfields. But as I am resigned to not flying anyway, I have to admit that some of the views today are just beautiful. Just linking the webcams doesn’t show you what I saw (and you have a high chance of seeing nothing but black sky at the Scottish airfields at this time of year!) so I’ve taken a set of screenshots to share with you. Simply click on any image to get to the live webcam page for each site.
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Great wintery scenes: I think the CAA should make it mandatory for every airfield to have a webcam! I started to look to see if I could find any more but it’s already dark in Scotland and looking at black webcams isn’t quite so much fun.
Enough airport hopping. I guess I’ll just have to move away from the computer and look out the window instead. The view from here is very similar to this webcam, set up a few miles up the coast.
It’s a tough life, but somebody’s got to do it. ;)
Interesting. NavCanada uses webcams as part of their weather reporting scheme.
As a pilot I can look at the weather cams (as they are called) to see what the weather is like at a bunch of canadian airports.
Check them out at:
http://www.metcam.navcanada.ca/hb/index.jsp?lang=e
Be sure to enable the “reference overlay” on the image so you know how far objects are and what direction the camera is pointing in.
Wow, Blake, that’s a great reference. I’m not sure that Webcams give much weather information over the METAR but I certainly like being able to see current conditions at airfields before I go to them. It’d be great if the NavCanada system caught on.
Awesome! There was a satellite photo of the UK in the paper here in Australia this week-end, showing the entire country in white with a crisp outline along the coast, very beautiful. Enjoy your day in Spain, any chance you come visit Australia one of those days?
Nice to see Shoreham under the snow. Special place for me as it was one of the points on my solo cross country test from Croydon in a Tiger Moth in 1954. Looks a bit like Reno right now although I think the snow clearing equipment is a bit better here. Great article on Shoreham and it’s history in the American magazine Airways recently. I wrote to them and my letter is published in the Feb issue. One of the best things about living here in Reno is the great weather for flying. We have 300 days of perfectly clear skies per year. Plus of course the national Air Races in September each year. I do volunteer work there.
Julien: I would *love* to visit Australia – I’ve never been. If I could have a flying holiday, it would be just perfect.
John: Shoreham is the closest airfield to my son’s school so I fly in and out of there a lot. It was odd to see it snowed under like that. I never thought about Reno getting snow to be honest.
I’m looking at the possibility of getting a few hours on a Tiger Moth and I’m very excited. I don’t know if it’ll work out but if it does, I expect some tips from you :)
Wow, Blake, that’s a great reference. I’m not sure that Web cams give much weather information over the METAR but I certainly like being able to see current conditions at airfields before I go to them. It’d be great if the NavCanada system caught on.
Niseko, I’m sure you can’t rely on details from the camera but it’s great to be able to see the airfields – especially on no-fly days. I’d love it if the NavCanada system caught on, too.