Sunday 1st to Monday 2nd June 2025
Posted: 03/06/2025 14:42
Sunday 1st. A forecast for a bright start quickly followed by heavy, blustery showers led to flying on the day being scrubbed.
Monday 2nd. A light to moderate WNW'ly that slowly backed into the WSW, a high cloud base and strong thermals, led to a day of long XC's with 2 x 500's, 2 over 400's and 4 over 300's, as well as a Silver C Distance from the day's 25 ATs off runway 24 plus a self launch. In all there were 22 flights of over 30 minutes of which 1 were over an hour. Cloud base rose to over 6,000' asl with Fred Brown in his Ventus climbing to 7,900', while average peak thermal strength was around 5 kts, although Paul Whitehead in his Ventus 2cxt recorded 7.4 kts and Martyn Johnson in his DG600 6,9 kts. Fred and Paul both flew 400+ km, although intending to fly 500's, Fred abandoning his attempt but flying 439 km with TPs at Grantham and Tontine and then flying the local 100 km triangle. Paul revised his task due to a late launch and flew Oakham, Doncaster NW and Darlton the same distance as Fred, but later considered his original 500 task would have still been possible. Dean Crosby in his LS10t and Steve Thompson in his Ventus bt both flew 500's, Dean's 510 km being via an O/R to Royston and Steve's 503 km via Oakham, Gainsborough and Stretton. The 300+ km pilots were Andy Wright in his Nimbus 3 and Bob Calvert in his Discus 2ct who both flew a 304 km O/R to Belvoir Castle. Rob Bailey flew 325 km on an O/R to Sleaford from Sutton control point N and visitor Graham Bell in his Discus bt flew 338 km from Sutton to Lasham. The conditions also led to some high average speeds, with Dean and Steve in the mid 80's kph and Paul and Andy in the mid 90's kph. The only problems reported were areas of spread-out en route. Visitor Simon Maddison in his Pegasse landed from Pocklington and later returned there. Congratulations are due to Sanjay Nath who flew his Silver C distance in Astir DPO with an O/R to Burn and to Logan Briggs who soloed in Astir FSH.
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.