Sunday 10th to Tuesday 12th May 2026
Posted: 13/05/2026 18:41
Sunday 10th. The passage of the cold front left the site in a good airmass, with cloudbase rising over 5,000' asl and peak average thermal strengths around 5 kts. Consequently it was a busy day at site with 36 ATs off runway 02, including 13 XCs and a number of Falke flights. XC's varied in length from Dean Crosby's 420 km to a number of pilots flying 100 km around the local Pocklington/Rufforth triangle including Conrad Thwaites in the club Discus. Dean's task was via Ambleside, York East and Sheffield East and he was followed in terms of distance by Steve Thompson's 311 km around Grasmere Church, Wetherby and Masham and Fred Brown's 305 km O/R to Belvoir Castle. Those flying over 200 km included Martin Newbery's 224 OLC km with TP's at Beverley, Garforth and Ripon, Martyn Johnson's 230 OLC km with TPs at Pocklington, Burn, Ripon, Masham, Ripon, Tontine and Ingleby Bowl and Kelly Teagle's 203 km visiting Scunthorpe, Mexborough and Carlton Bank. Yuri Kosheurov flew a 127 km O/R to Burn and Toby Wilson abandoned his Helmsley, Harrogate N, Carlton Bank, Masham task to cover 163 OLC km due to spreadout. Altogether a good soaring day with 27 flights over 30 minutes and 15 over an hour.
Monday 11th. The moderate to fresh N'ly slowly declined tolight to moderate with the day's 1st flight late morning and then a gap of 2.5 hours until the next AT off runway 02. A further 5 ATs followed, including 2 by Private owners and 2 Falke flights, but the longest flights were in K21s KLW and JVZ with the KLW pilots having 1:10 via a combination of a high tow, weak wave which enabled them to maintain their release height for a while over Wass followed by a thermal. The JVZ piloys had 35 minutes, indulging in a thermal climb to 3,900' asl.
Tuesday 12th, The wind had become a moderate to fresh so it was a winch day with 7 launches, 3 for Private owners, before the wind decreased and the Tuesday evening team added 8 ATs. A combination of hill soaring and weak wave over Easingwold enabled Fred Brown in his Ventus 2ct and Martyn Johnson in his DG600 to each have over an hour, but whereas Fred made it back to site, Martyn didn't, landing out 4 km SW of site. A mixture of hill lift, mainly on the home bowl and thermals, enabled the pilots of K21 KLW to have 53 minutes, Steve Scothern to have 51 minutes in his Discus bt and the pilot of Astir DPO to have 48 minutes, with the evening flyers having from 6 to 32 minutes dependent on release height and some residual hill and thermal lift.
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.