Thursday 26th June 2025
Posted: 27/06/2025 10:28
Thursday 26th. A moderate and at times moderate to fresh WSW'ly that slowly veered into the W, was accompanied initially by generally cloudy skies that brought a few showers with skies brightening later. The day's flying was via 17 winch launches off runway 24, these leading to 12 flights of over 30 minutes with 4 of these over an hour. The 3 private owners who launched accounted for 3 of the > an hour flights while Bob Beck/Simona Latimer in the DG500 had the other, 1:03 flown locally, using a mix of hill, thermal and some weak wave, gaining to 5,500' asl and having a best climb rate of 4,2 kts. Clive Swain in his Kestrel 19 had 3:28, also using the same mixture of lift, but having to return to site to hill soar a couple of times when forays out to the west encountered strong sink. Fred Brown in his Ventus 2ct and Chris Teagle in his LS6t-18 both contacted wave, Fred in the area between site and Thirsk, and Chris between the A1 and Topcliffe. Fred climbed to 10, 400' asl 10 km to the SW of site before setting off to areas around Ripon, Leyburn and Richmond and then returning to site to do some local hill and thermal soaring, landing back after 3 hrs and an estimated 130 km of XC. Chris climbed to his maximum altitude of 9,300' asl just to the NNW of Ripon and from there visited Leyburn and Knaresborough before returning to site after a extension north to Cowesby, flying an estimated 155 km during his 3:37 flight. Ian Pattindale/Eamonn Dowler in K21 JVZ, and Andreas Rieder, first with Henry JJang in K21 KLW and then with Paul Bulmer in JVZ, all had 50 minute plus flights predominately hill soaring based, with operating heights of 800' to 1,800' QFE.
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.