Tuesday 26th July 2026
Posted: 29/07/2026 14:34
Tuesday 26th. The wind continued to blow from the W'ly quadrant, being a moderate to fresh WSW'ly, again providing lift via hill, thermal and wave. The latter proved to be more readily accessible than on previous days, with the result that 4 flights climbed to between 5-10,000' asl, 5 to between 10- 15,000' asl and 2 over 15,000'asl. Fred Brown in his Ventus ct and Clive Swain in his Kestrel 19 were the highest climbing pilots, both getting to 16,500' asl in the Harrogate/Masham area, with Fred posting a 136 km task with TPs at Masham, Harrogate N, Wetherby and Tontine, having been deterred from progressing further N by cloud cover. Clive stayed more local in the Northallerton, RAF Leeming, Masham area to cover 102 OLC km. The > 10,000' asl pilots were Nigel Burke in his DG808, 10,400', Maxwell Miller in Astir DSU, 10,100', Martyn Johnson in his DG600,13,600', Neil Paveley in his Nimbus 2, 14,000' and Dean Crosby in his LS10t, 14,500', all asl. While most of these pilots had relatively straightforward flights, Nigel spent 3 hours locally between 3,5-6,000' asl before firmly getting established in the wave and proceeding to the Ripon/Pateley Bridge area. He then dropped out of the wave and resorted to his engine when down to 1,700' asl between Ripon and Masham. Nigel then became re-established in the wave and climbed back to 10,400' asl near Topcliffe before returning to Sutton. Maxwell Miller in Astir DSU flew 133 OLC km as he visited the Leyburn, Darlington and Tontine areas, with Martyn Johnson initially visiting the York area and Wetherby, before spending 40 minutes near Harrogate at 5,500' asl before he got a climb to 12,100' asl and flew back to site via Ripon and RAF Leeming, covering 149 OLC km. Neil Paveley in his Nimbus 2 and Dean Crosby in his LS10t both had long flights, Neil flying 393 OLC km with TPs at Melmerby (13 km NW of Penrith), Wetherby, Barnard Castle and Ripon, while Dean flew 348 km with TPs at Croglin (17 km SSE of Carlisle), Pateley Bridge, Brough and Harrogate N, starting and finishing at Ripon. Chris Teagle in his LS8-18t, with 8,600', David Triouse in Astir DPO, 7,000', Steve Thompson in his Ventus bt, 7,100' and Andreas Reider/Neil Amos in K21 KLW,6,100' were the remaining wave soaring pilots. Andreas/Neil and David remained local while Chris and Steve flew XCs. Chris flew 195 km with TPs at Appleby and Pateley Bridge SE, while Steve initially visited the Ripon, Masham and Leyburn areas before falling out of the wave S of Masham and spending the rest of the flight below 3,500' asl in thermal.
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.