Windy work day

Although I spent the day at the airport, I didn't fly today. Our club had scheduled both a morning ground school for student pilots and a work day. It was a post-frontal day with lots of cumulus, and presumably good lift, but lots of wind. The forecast was for increasing clouds and possible rain in the afternoon. I pretty much planned on not flying because of the work and the weather. We private pilots vacuumed, washed, waxed, buffed, installed, painted (and repainted), took off tires, put on tires, sanded, hauled away... but didn't fly.

On the plus side, after all the recent rains, the field is covered in flowers:

If we had not had work to do, the day would have been flyable. The wind was strong, from the left about 30 degrees. But it was pretty well shredding the clouds, so we figured the lift would be iffy.

The students finally got out of class about 2:00. (I guess there was a lot of wind indoors as well.) The instructor was willing to fly in spite of the wind. He just said "it's a challenging day" and proceeded to train students on crosswind takeoff and landing procedures. Notice how low he's holding the left wing compared to the right: