Piece of Cake (2013)
“In July the skies were overcast on two days out of three; often there was fog or thick haze as well as low cloud. On half the days of July, rain fell. Usually it was only scattered showers but sometimes it was a heavy and continuous downpour. There were violent thunderstorms on five or six occasions.
All this was not good for flying.
At least one Spitfire got struck by lightning and knocked out of the sky. Another Spitfire dived into cloud and hit the ground. Bad weather concealed a hill from a... lowflying Hurricane: that pilot was killed too. And there were a dozen crashes in which mud or rain played a part. Meanwhile the air war went on, as and when conditions allowed. The bad weather was either a mixed blessing or a mixed curse. If it held off the Luftwaffe, it also slowed down the training of new fighter pilots. When raids came, the same poor visibility that made it hard for German bombers to find their targets also protected them from RAF patrols and from flak. Moreover, the German pilots could rest and recover between missions, but the front-line RAF pilots were under a constant strain.MoreLess
All this was not good for flying.
At least one Spitfire got struck by lightning and knocked out of the sky. Another Spitfire dived into cloud and hit the ground. Bad weather concealed a hill from a... lowflying Hurricane: that pilot was killed too. And there were a dozen crashes in which mud or rain played a part. Meanwhile the air war went on, as and when conditions allowed. The bad weather was either a mixed blessing or a mixed curse. If it held off the Luftwaffe, it also slowed down the training of new fighter pilots. When raids came, the same poor visibility that made it hard for German bombers to find their targets also protected them from RAF patrols and from flak. Moreover, the German pilots could rest and recover between missions, but the front-line RAF pilots were under a constant strain.MoreLess
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