Sunday 4th to Monday 5th June 2023
Posted: 06/06/2023 15:41
Sunday 4th The anticyclone to the NW of the UK continued to feed cloud in off the North Sea on a light to moderate NNE'ly, the resulting overcast restricting ATs to less than 1500' QFE, for most of the day, with the highest, 1800' QFE off the last flight of the day. As a result, there were only 10 launches off runway 02, 6 of which were for First Flight pupils, with only 4 flights achieving more than 20 minutes, of which one, the last one, was 30 min. This was by Nigel Burke with one of the day's First Flight pupils in K21 JVZ, who was able to use weak thermal to maintain 2,400'-2,700' asl for a while. Nigel with another First Flight pupil, this time in K21 KLW, had 23 minutes, again using a weak thermal. while Roger Burghall had 22 minutes flying KLW solo, climbing back to his launch height in another weak thermal. The Falke also had 2 flights for field landing and launch failure training.
Monday 5th. There had been little change in the synoptic situation but the air mass was somewhat drier so it was a day of scattered Cumulus, the skies tending to go blue as the light to moderate NNE'ly continued to blow. 17 ATs were flown off runway 02 into skies that were soarable at times, the tops of thermal climbs being around 3,500' asl, with generally weak thermals (<1kt). Bob Calvert was the only private owner to launch and flew for 3:11 as he first journeyed to the west of Ripon, returned to within 5 km of site, then went to 7 km to the SW of Sutton on Forest before returning to site, an approximate distance of 130 km. West of Ripon Bob made use of some weak wave to climb to 5,200' asl, providing the following photo from his flight.
Two other flights managed over an hour, Guy Hartland/Sue Aherne having 1:03 in K21 JVZ, climbing to 3,500' asl and spending most of their flight between 2,800/3,400' asl in weak thermals. Austin Harland was the other pilot to have an hour plus flight, his 1:05 in Astir DSU being similar to that of Guy/Sue's in terms of peak altitude and operating altitude, although the 2nd half of his flight was generally between 1,900/2,800' asl. 4 other flights had between 30 and 60 minutes, with Guy/Sansay Nath having 46 minutes in the DG500, visitor Eileen Scothern having 40 minutes in Astir DSU and the same time being had by Craig Scott/Steve Scothern in K21 KLW, all making use of the day's weak thermals.
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.