It was raining heavily at home at daybreak but the forecast for the first day’s flight to Avignon was reasonable apart from the 30/40 kt forecast headwind. We arrived at Carlisle in good time to brighter weather and I thought I ought to check the oxygen bottle. I switched it on and there was a hisssssss, O2 coming out of the distributor mechanism. Luckily the local engineer had some O2 suitable ‘plumbers white tape’ and after several attempts at applying this, we managed to fix it but it did mean we were around 45 minutes late in departing.
Apart from the headwind, it was a lovely flight. There were a few build ups in the north but nothing significant and once over the Channel, the tops dropped significantly and it was all but CAVOK by the time we reached the Rhone Valley. We landed at Avignon at dusk having covered 770 nm in 5hr 35 mins. Refuelled and now about to have some dinner.
The forecast for tomorrow is somewhat problematical with another Mediterranean low arriving in the morning and the various different icing models all giving different results, some rather dire. We shall see in the morning!