Thursday 9th to Friday 10th April 2026
Posted: 11/04/2026 13:35
Thursday 9th. A generally cloudy, but bright day following the passage of a cold front, with a moderate SW'ly that slowly veered into the W, resulted in 12 winch launches and landings on runway 24, none of which exceeded an hour, but with 3 exceeding 30 minutes.. Most flights used the lift in the home bowl, but the main westerly ridge to Boltby and High Paradise Farm was also soared, while Conrad Thwaites in the Discus visited the Forward Ridge, Black Hambleton and back to Boltby before going north to Thimbleby and then returning to site after 53 minutes. Operating heights of between 700 and 1,100' QFE were the norm, with Ian McFarlane in K21 JVZ having the other two flights in excess of 30 minutes, first with Ian Miskin and the with Matthew Hill off the last flight of the day.
Friday 10th. A ridge of high pressure gave a good thermal soaring day, the wind initially being a light to moderate WSW'ly that backed into the SSE and increased to moderate. The first flight of the day by Simon Altman in Astir DSU was from runway 24, but thereafter, the rest of the day's 22 ATs and a self launch were off runway 20, leading to 14 flights of over 30 minutes, with 8 over an hour. There were 10 flights by private owners with most flying XC, with 1 XC flight over 400 km, 2 over 300 km, 1 over 200 km and 2 over 100 km, conditions providing a cloud base of over 5,000' asl and peak average thermal strengths of over 4 kts, although a mid day period of high cover threatened to spoil the day. Dean Crosby in his LS10t flew 416 km via a YoYo with TPs at Darlton, Sutton Bank Start W and Kirton in Lindsey, while the 300's were flown by Chris Handzlik in his DG300, with TPs at Tontine. Gainsborough Power Station, Thirsk and Rufforth, 301 km, and Les Rayment in his DG808, 304.3 km, via an O/R to Belvoir Castle that included a save at 1,300' asl near Strensal on the return leg. Neil Paveley in his Nimbus 2 turned Tontine and Kirton in Lindsey to cover 243 OLC km, while Fred Brown in his Ventus 2ct and Yuri Kozheurov in his PIK20D flew 197 OLC km and 123 OLC km respectively, Fred going 14 km SSW of York before returning to site as a result of the high cover, and then visiting Rufforth and Pocklington, while Yuri turned Pocklington and Market Weighton. Steve Scothern and wife Eileen vied with each other as they took turns to fly their Discus t, Steve visiting the Carlton Bank area and climbing to the day's best altitude of 5,800' asl, while Eileen visited the Tontine area and climbed to 5,600' asl. The longest flights in club gliders were flown by Simon Altman/George Scott with 48 minutes in K21 JVZ and Clive Swain/Stephen Morgan's 47 minutes in the same glider, while Nigel Dickenson had 53 minutes of local soaring in his second flight of the day in his Club Libelle.
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.