Heavier than air

Well, Midlothian woke to snow today: heavy, sopping wet snow that fell lightly through the morning, to be replaced this afternoon with feathery light rain that wasn't enough to melt anything much.  I postponed my plan to visit Cameron Toll in search of thermal leggings.  Even though my old postie bike has been wearing its spiked winter tyres ever since last winter I just wasn't that keen to go out.  Instead, I photographed the birds feeding on my outdoor workbench bird table.  We had daddy and then mummy blackbird, the local robin that is a bit of a chancer and a bully, a couple of sparrows, and two of the local magpies.

After lunch I spent longer than was good for my eyes looking at maps and old photos of railways on the eastern side of Edinburgh.  Actually, I did that until I got cold, so put the heating on and jumped in the shower.

Friday Film Night on Saturday wasn't a film but a really good and long interview with Bryan Allen.  He was a self-taught hang-glider pilot and champion cyclist, and became the pilot (and engine) of the famous Gossamer Condor aircraft.  It was the first human-powered aircraft to successfully complete the required one-mile, figure-of-eight course to claim the Kremer Prize, in 1977.  In 1979, he flew the even more famous Gossamer Albatross across the English Channel.  I remember reading all about that in my 1981 Record Breakers Annual and being amazed.  I read that book so much the pages fell out!

When bestie and I visited the Solent Sky Museum back in April (after visiting the hovercraft museum that morning), we got to see another human-powered aircraft, the SUMPAC – Southampton University's Man Powered AirCraft – which dates back to 1961.  It was made of balsa wood and bits of plywood and riveted aluminium and weighed as much as Condor and Albatross put together.