Saturday 30th to Sunday 31st August 2025
Posted: 01/09/2025 20:10
Saturday 30th. A moderate, and at times, moderate to fresh S'ly blew all day as front approached from the W, with its rain arriving in the early evening. Conditions before that meant that 9 of the day's 12 ATs and 2 self launches off runway 20 flew for more than 30 minutes, with 8 of these being over an hour. split evenly between those flying club gliders and private owners. Cloud base rose to around 5,000' asl, although Bob Calvert climbed to 6,900' asl while visiting the Ripon/Pateley Bridge area, having decided to use his engine to proceed westwards after 45 minutes of hill soaring the home bowl. With a return to site for some local soaring via Boroughbridge, Bob covered 133 OLC km, with Fred Brown in his Ventus 2ct and Les Rayment in his DG808 flying 106 and 100 km respectively on their XC's. Fred visited Tockwith and the Rufforth area before returning to site for some local soaring, including on the hill. Les flew to near Stamford Bridge, then East Yorks, before having to resort to his engine on returning when low near Oswaldkirk. Craig Lowrie/ Geoff Burtenshaw in their Duo Discus t, visited Rufforth and York before, like Bob and Fred, returning to site for some local soaring. Ian Bullous in his DG808, Sam Batchelor in the Discus, Andreas Rieder/Phil O'Keefe in the DG1000 and Chris Collingham/Alex Nicolai in K21 KLW were the other > an hour pilots, but all stayed local, utilising the 2-4 kt average peak thermals, although Sam did find a 5.9 kt one and the day saw 5 First Flight pupils flown.
Sunday 31st. A moderate and at times fresh and gusty S'ly slowly veered into the SSW, a sunny morning transitioning into a day of isolated showers, so that flying came to an end around 1400 hrs after 7 ATs and one self launch off runway 20. Craig Lowrie/Geoff Burkenshaw in their Duo Discus t, had the best climb, to 5,100' asl and best average peak climb, 3.5 kts, during their 2:36 local flight, with all the other 5 flights of over 30 minutes, of which 3 exceeded an hour, also staying local. Fred Brown in his Ventus 2ct, Ian Bullous in his DG808 and Yurii Kozheurov in his PIK20D had 2:47, 1:39 and 3:34 respectively, with best climbs from 3,900' asl to 5,000' asl and 2 kt thermals. Ian McFarlane and one of the day's 4 First Flight pupils had 35 minutes in the DG500, during which they hill soared the White Horse ridge.
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.