Friday 30th May 2025
Posted: 31/05/2025 13:00
Friday 30th. Low cloud and drizzle soon cleared to leave of day of hill, thermal and wave soaring opportunities as a moderate W/WSW'ly blew, the day's 34 launches off runway 24 being a mixture of 19 via the winch and 15 via AT. 9 flights contacted the wave, climbing to between 5,500' and 15,000' asl with 7 wave XC's and 21 fights of over 30 minutes, 15 of these being over an hour and 9 over 4 hours. In among all this activity the club 2 seaters flew 6 First Flight pupils. Some pilots spent a long time in hill/thermal lift before contacting the wave, with Fred Brown in his Ventus 2ct patiently spending around 2 hours in this modus operandi before contacting the wave just to the west of Thirsk. This, and the area around Knayton, were initially favoured for wave contact, but later, areas close to the W/NW of Sutton were the favourite spots. Only one pilot posted his flight on the ladder, Chris Teagle flying a 218 km XC with a start at Thirsk a finish at Sutton and TPs at Brough, Harrogate N and Leyburn, reaching 9,200' asl in the process. All the other XC distances were OLC calculated based on, in most cases, spotty traces due to poor trace coverage over the Pennines. Bob Calvert in his Discus 2ct covered 218 km with TPs at or near Kirkby Stephen Station and Wetherby S, reaching 10,300' asl, while Fred climbed to 10,200' asl in his 152 km flight with TPs at or near Masham and Aysgarth before returnng to some more local hill and thermal flying. Clive Swain in his Kestrel climbed to the best altitude of the day, 15,000' over Thirsk ,after a spell hill/thermal soaring as far north as Kepwick. After contacting the wave and leaving the Thirsk area, Clive covered 136 km visiting at or near Masham, Ripon and Boroughbridge, while Dean Crosby in his LS10t, oscillated between Ripon and Aysgarth, his distance being 129 km and best altitude 8,000' asl. The other wave soaring pilots who stayed local or flew more modest distances included Darren Lodge in his LS8-18 who climbed to 7,200' locally as did John Marsh in his DG303. Martin Newbery in his Ventus 2ct climbed to 7,900' asl with a 60 km O/R flight to the Masham area while Martyn Johnson flew to Thirsk and Tontine, mainly via hill and thermal lift, but with sufficient wave to climb to 5,500' asl. Most of the hill soaring extended as far as the northern end of the main W'ly ridge, but James Shaw and Mark James went somewhat further to soar Black Hambleton in the DG1000. Congratulations are due to Konrad Kawalec who made sure of his 5 hr Silver C leg by hill/thermal soaring for just over 6 hours in his Discus bt, in marked contrast to Andreas Rieder/Oliver Suggit who only found sink and landed out after 20 minutes in the DG500.
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.