Thursday 10th to Friday 11th July 2025
Posted: 12/07/2025 12:29
Thursday 10th. A light to moderate SSW slowly veered into the SW, the air mass bringing very good soaring conditions, cloud base rising from around 3,500' asl to over 6,000' asl in places with average peak climb rates around 4-5 kts. As a result, the day's 37 launches off runway 20, including 7 for First Flight pupils, led to 27 flights of over 30 minutes of which 25 were over an hour, with five 500 km flights completed. YoYo's with TPs in the Grantham/Belvoir Castle area, Helmsley and the Gainsborough area were popular with those flying 500 km tasks and were flown by Steve Thompson in his Ventus 2bt, Chris Teagle in his LS8t-18, Derek Taylor in his ASW22 and David Latimer in his Ventus 3M. Paul Whitehead's 500 km in his Ventus 2cxt was also a YoYo, but with Tps at Rutland Water, Doncaster and Gratham, while Les Rayment flew a 314 O/R to Grantham in his DG808 and James Prosser in his Ventus 2ct flew 382 OLC kms with TPs at or near the centre of Nottingham, Tontine, Danby and Pickering. The rest of the XC pilots stayed within Yorkshire, with the local 100 km triangle around Pocklington and Rufforth proving popular with James Shaw/Steve Whalley in the DG500, Fred Brown/Amelia Forrester in the DG1000 and Guy Hartland in Steve Ogden's Discus. Clive Swain in his Kestrel 19, taking off at 1430 hrs, flew 161 OLC kms with TPs at Burn and Pocklington, Steve Scothern in his Discus t taking off a little earlier flew an O/R to Pocklington as did Rob Bailey in his ASG29t following a spell of local soaring, while Chris O'Doyle in his Discus t flew an O/R to Goole NE. Toby Wilson, after rounding Northallerton in his Std Cirrus returned to site and swapped XC options for a spell of aerobatics.
Friday 11th. With the Azores' anticyclone fully in charge, it was a hot, blue day, the maximum temperature near Thirsk reaching 31C and the relative humidity falling to 22% from mid to late afternoon. 10 flights of over 30 minutes from the 19 launches from runway 20 were the day's total, including 6 over an hour, with a light SSE becoming a moderate ESE'ly after the end of the flying day. Most of the soaring flights were done locally, but Neil Paveley in his Nimbus 2 and Derek Taylor in his ASW22 both flew XCs, Neil visiting Doncaster NW and Tontine with 188 OLC kms flown and Derek, 158 OLC km from a 1500 hr launch, with TPs at Burn and Carlton Bank. Neil climbed to 5,700' asl and Derek to 6,000' asl with average peak climbs of around 3.5 kts. Clive Swain in his Kestrel 19 also climbed to 6,000' asl in his 3:32 local flight, having earlier had a flight in the Falke, with other locally flying pilots being John Marsh in his DG303,1:10 and Charles Frenchville, 1:26, in Astir DSU. A late afternoon burst of activity saw some more local soaring, with Neil Armstrong having 55 minutes in DSU, James Shaw/Naomi Kennard 1:26 in K21 KLW and Andreas Rieder/Ryan Parker 57 minutes in the DG500 off the last flight of the day.
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.