Wednesday 17th to Thursday 18th September 2025
Posted: 19/09/2025 11:25
Wednesday 17th. A cold front brought low cloud and rain from 0600-1200 hrs, with the clearance allowing flying to get under way from mid afternoon, with initially 3 ATs and then 5 winch launches from runway into a moderate and at times moderate to fresh WSW'ly. Hill lift, with some wave augmentation plus wave for some, resulted in all flights exceeding 30 minutes with 4 an hour. Martyn Johnson's 2:22 in his DG600 was mainly hill soaring based, including a trip to the forward ridge, but also some weak wave over Gormire that took him to 3,900' asl, with Fred Brown in his Ventus 2ct climbing to 3,600' asl in the same area during his 1:08 flight. Later flights by Paul Bulmer in Astir DPO, James Shaw/Mark James in the DG1000, and Andreas Rieder, first with Steven Carroll and then Ryan Parker, were hill soaring based with operating heights of 1,000' to 1300' QFE, as the whole of the main W'ly ridge and further to Kepwick and forward ridge were flown. Attempts to fly westwards were met with heavy sink and a low points down to 300' QFE. Bob Calvert in his Discus 2ct soared locally at around 3,000' asl for a while before using his engine to contact wave to the south of Thirsk, climbing there to 10,00' asl. Bob then flew W to Masham, with another climb there to 9,700' asl before returning to site via Wetherby South, having covered 140 OLC km.
Thursday 18th. A moderate WSW'ly/SW'ly blew all day, providing some good wave in the morning that was easily accessed from release by all 7 of the private owners who launched off runway 24 , but it was a different picture in the afternoon with none of the 7 launches, including 2 by private owners, contacting and having to be content with hill soaring the home and main W'ly ridges at 600' to 1,300' QFE. This may have been the result of the wind backing from an initial WSW'ly to a SW'ly. The 7 private owners who contacted wave met strong winds at altitude, with Steve Thompson in his Ventus 2bt reporting 59 kts at 12,000' as he flew an 227 km XC with a start at Sutton Start W and TPs at Ripon and Haydon Bridge, abandoning his declared task due to the strong winds and increasing cloud cover and twice utilising the services of the Newcastle ATC. Steve climbed to a maximum altitude of 15,900' asl and provided some good pictures which I wasn't able to copy into this report but can be seen on the BGA ladder. The other pilot to add a XC task to the Ladder was Chris Handzlik who flew 132 km with TPs at Ripon and Barnard Castle climbing to 13,200' asl in the process. Chris and the other wave soaring pilots with the exception of Steve, all climbed locally to 9,000-10,000' asl and then independently visited Ripon and Masham, with most finding their best climbs in the Masham area, Martyn Johnson in his DG600 climbing to 13,400', Dean Crosby in his LS10t, 11,500', Bob Calvert in his Discus 2ct, 10,400' and Derek Taylor in his ASW 22, 11,000', all asl. The exception was Fred Brown in his Ventus 2ct, who climbed to 14,100' asl just to the south of Topcliffe. After independently reaching Masham the pilots diverged, with Martyn returning to site, Dean going north of Hawes and then just NNE of Rufforth, Bob to the Leyburn and Grassington areas and then back home via Ripon and Masham, Derek to Leyburn, north of Hawes and then a return via Boroughbridge, and Fred back home via the Sutton on Forest area, with XC OLC kms ranging from 86 to 200. The day's 14 launches provided 12 over 30 minutes with 7 over an hour, with Paul Bulmer in Astir DPO having 59 minutes and Andreas Rieder/Steven Carroll in K21 having 50 minutes to record the longest flights in club gliders.
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.