Wednesday 26th to Thursday 27th January 2022
Posted: 28/01/2022 15:40
Wednesday 26th. The initially light W'ly slowly increased in strength while becoming WSW'ly, so AT operations were off runway 24 beneath generally cloudy skies. However, gaps in the cloud cover indicated the presence of wave and of the 7 flights on the day, neglecting the 2 for First Flight pupils, 5 contacted, recording maximum altitudes of 4,600' to 7,100' asl. The latter altitude was attained by Thomasz Rusin and Chris Handzlik flying the DG500 in their flight of 3:20, during which they explored the wave roughly on a line between Catterick and Ripon. Most of the other wave climbing pilots remained more local to site, with climbs abandoned and rapid descents made at times as the wave slots closed. Thomasz and Chris were the only pilots to exceed an hour, with all the remaining wave soaring pilots having between 30 and 47 minutes. Guy Hartland and Rod Brister climbed to 7,000' in the DG1000, with Andrew Bedford getting to 6,700' in the Discus on a very enjoyable day. Some photos and a video clip from Thomasz and Chris, Guy and Andrew are shown/attached below.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=adaf600eec&attid=0.1&permmsgid=msg-f:1723210484475532776&th=17ea12ce406495e8&view=att&disp=safe
Thursday 27th. A light to moderate WNW'ly strengthened to moderate from late morning to mid afternoon, with gusts into the high 20 kts, with the winch initially positioned at the end of runway 24. 9 winch launches and 1 AT were flown from this location before the winch was moved to the shorter runway 30 towards the end of the day with the intention of re-establishing this runway option for operations under WNW'ly hill soaring conditions. After a winch check flight by George Rowden and Clive Swain in K21 JVZ had established that the hill was working, the subsequent flights off runway 24 produced 4 flights of over an hour and a further 4 of between 30 and 60 minutes with the whole length of the main ridge to Boltby flown. The best altitude of 1440' QFE, achieved by Nick Gaunt in the Discus in his flight of 1:27, indicated that there was some thermal assistance to the hill lift, while the single AT of the day, by Bruce Grain and Laurie Clarke in the DG500, indicated that there was no wave present, as they were unable to improve on their release height of 3,000' QFE. The other > 1 hour pilots were, Bruce Grain/Dave McKinney in the DG500, 1:24, Bruce Grain/Andy Tyas in the same glider, 1:03 and Steve Thompson/Konrad Kawalec with 1:08 in K21 JVZ. Mid afternoon, the winch was moved to the ridge end of runway 30 and Guy Hartland/Chris Collingham were successfully launched in K21 JVZ, followed by first Clive Swain/Stuart Wallace and then Clive/Duncan Pask, all in the same glider, before flying came to an end as the sun set from what by now had become a clear blue sky.
This blog describes a snippet of life at the Yorkshire Gliding Club. Why not take a flight and try it yourself, or we can teach you to fly as a full club member.