| Time to check if ice has melted or not. | |||
| Day started as foggy and rather cold (just above freezing point), but better was to be expected. We didn't rush getting to hoverport as in the aftrenoon it was forecasted to be sunny and warmer weather and best of all no wind at all. | |||
| About 1:00PM we got to hoverport and as we drove there we got first rays of sun. River was already flowing free and had done that for two weeks but because of recent windy weathers we hadn't been able to do any hovering recently. | |||
| Engine started easily and it was much easier to operate the craft on water than it had been over a slippery ice. We drove to bay and checked the ice. Basicly there was still ice at the center of bays and where there isn't so much current. Ice hold the craft up in most places even if stopped but i guess load is distributed to such a big area. For someone walking it would be more difficult, i bet. Not that there was too much to walk on anyway. Starting from shore there was plenty of free water until remaining ice was strong enough to hold anything. | |||
| There wasn't any problems on our trip, not counting the few operator induced ones. We stopped once during the trip and of course i landed the bow too far to ashore and wasn't able to just back up without pair of extra hands pushing us back to water. And while approaching hoverport there was much more friction from grass than there had been from snow/ice and we slid sideways the small slope i was trying to climb. Had to stop the engine before propeller hit the closeby willows.... | |||
| Didn't have my GPS with me, but i guess we did 5-6km (3-4miles) and spend about 45minutes hovering. The weather was about the most perfect ever. By the time we where on our trip it was close to +10C (50F). And amazingly - there truely wasn't wind at all. | |||