Friday 27th June 2025
Posted: 28/06/2025 19:53
Friday 27th. Another soaring day with hill, thermal and wave, as a moderate SSW'ly slowly veered into the SW, skies being generally cloudy, with rain visible over the Pennines. The day's AT total from runway 20 was 20, this including 4 for first flight pupils and 5 for private owners and only 1 flight in a club single seater. 12 flights of greater than 30 minutes resulted, with 6 of these over an hour, the latter split 4:2 in favour of private owners and the 5 significant wave flights split 4:1. The one club glider based wave flight was by Tim Bralsford in Astir DSU, Tim contacting the wave 3 km to the SW of site and climbing to 6,800' asl, returning to site after 1:59 of local flying. The 4 wave flying private owners were visitor Ed Oliver in his Libelle, Fred Brown in his Ventus 2ct, Chris Teagle in his LS8t-18 and Bob Calvert in his Discus 2ct with climbs to between 9,000' and 10,000' asl. Fred contacted just to the NW of Thirsk, after a couple of engine burns, before flying 135 km around Masham, Catterick, Masham, Ripon, Harrogate N and back to site via Ripon, staying between 6,500' and 8,000' asl. Ed, Chris and Bob all contacted straight off tow, Ed climbing to 9,700' asl over the site and remaining local, with Chris climbing to 7,900' asl over Thirsk, before visiting at or near Boroughbridge, Topcliffe, Harrogate N, Ripon (reaching 9,100' asl there) and then flying a Ripon/Masham O/R before returning to site via Harrogate N, an estimated distance of 115 km. With rain over the Pennines, Bob flew up and down the Vale of York after also contacting the wave off tow, going as far N as Darlington and as far S as Wetherby South and Rufforth, with visits to intermediate TPs, covering and estimated 280 km in the process and providing the following photo.
The presence of wave had been indicated by the 3rd flight of the day, when James Shaw/Tim Bralsford in K21 KLW were able to maintain their release height of 2,700' QFE for a while before descending to maintain 2,400' over Bagby before finally retreating to the home bowl to soar at 1,800' QFE and land after 57 minutes. Andreas Rieder/James O'Keeffe had a similar experience during their flight in KLW, but maintained their release height as they went N to Kepwick before returning to site after 1:03 and later, James had another flight, this time 58 minutes in K21 JVZ with Clive Swain, slowly climbing to 2,700' QFE over the home bowl from their 2,000' QFE release height.
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.