Thursday 14th to Saturday 16th December 2023
Posted: 17/12/2023 11:15
Thursday 14th. Early cloud eventually moved away as a light WSW'ly blew, and with operations able to be conducted off the airfield with care, flying commenced in the early afternoon, with 8 ATs flown off runway 24. There was some limited areas of lift, best utilised by John Carter flying K21 KLW solo, who extended his flight to 24 minutes and even managed a climb of 50' near Gormire and Roger Burghall, also solo , this time in K21 JVZ, who had 20 minutes, the two longest flights of the day.
Friday 15th. The high pressure was now firmly in charge and with a light to moderate SSW'ly blowing, 17 ATs were flown off runway 20 and later off runway 24. The hill was working fitfully, probably due to wave interference, but 6 flights exceeded 30 minutes, with 5 of these over an hour, the latter including some modest wave climbs and 1 significant one, Jesper Mjels taking the Discus eventually up to 11,700' asl just NE of Masham. Jesper first contacted the wave 7 km SE of Topcliffe climbing to 7,600' asl before progressing steadily westwards via a series of increasingly higher climbs around Topcliffe and to the south of Leeming, the wave length being around 5-6 km. Other pilots to fly for more than an hour included Steve Thompson in Astir DPO who had 1:19 initially hill soaring the main bowl and climbing to 4,200' in wave forward of Hood Hill, Guy Hartland/Dave Cockburn in K21 JVZ, with 1:10, Dave McKinney/Mark James in JVZ with 1:08, Steve Thompson/Marian Stanley in K21 KLW, 1:00, all via wave augmented hill soaring on the SW facing part of the main bowl.
Saturday 16th. The wind had become a moderate and at times moderate to fresh SW'ly so operations were off runway 24 with landings on 20, but increasingly on 24 as the wind freshened. Launching was initially via AT but later via the winch, 11 of the former and 15 of the latter being flown. Early low cloud, restricting the first few ATs to around 5-700' QFE, soon cleared to leave hazy sunshine with rather ragged low level lenticulars, the wave interfering at times with the hill lift, but resulting in some good climbs and, with the hill lift, giving 13 flights of over 30 minutes, with 6 of these over an hour. Jesper Mjels, flying Astir DPO, had the longest and highest flight of the day, 4:24 and 12,000' asl, the latter between Leeming and Topcliffe. Jesper first contacted the wave just to the SE of site near Wass and gradually progressed NW via a series of climbs but not before dropping out of the wave and the recontacting it near Boltby having descended to 2,500' asl on the forward ridge. Others to have wave climbs to or above 4,000' asl included Steve Thompson/Colin Troise in the DG500, getting to around 8,900' asl just to the NW of Topcliffe off a winch launch, after initially contacting the wave overhead Bagby and the using their altitude to explore as far west at Ripon in their flight of 2 hours, Steve providing the following photo.
Steve accompanied by Amelia Forrester in K21 JVZ had earlier demonstrated the presence of wave by climbing to 4,000' asl off the 3rd flight of the day in their flight of 1:17, while Bob Calvert in the Discus climbed to 7,300 ' asl just to the ESE of Dishforth, before visiting the Ripon area, Chris Handzlik climbed to 6,200' asl just to the SW of site flying the DG500 solo, Bill Payton got to 5,300' asl over the main bowl and Dave McKinney/Martin Joyce in K21 KLW reached 4,600' asl off the penultimate flight of the day, the climbs in the late afternoon being over the main bowl and slow steady ones. The end of flying was accompanied by an attractive sunset as shown below, glider washing and hangar packing proceeding under artificial light, again as shown below.
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