Sunday 2nd August 2026
Posted: 02/08/2026 21:37
Sunday 2nd. A day of light/moderate winds starting in the SW and then backing into the S and finally the E and strengthening as a sea breeze reached the site in the late afternoon/early evening. It was generally a blue day with some Cumulus over the Dales, with cloud base there around 6,000' asl and average peak climb rates of up to 5 kts. Locally, climbs to around 5,000' asl and 3 kt climbs were the norm, but with the added bonus of an active sea breeze front to the east of site which was utilised by a few pilots. The day's 30 ATs and 2 self launches off runway 20 resulted in 22 flights of 30 minutes or more, with 11 of these over an hour, these being complemented by 4 Falke flights. 7 pilots completed > 100km XCs and 5 First Flight pupils were flown. The XC pilots were Peter Crawley in his ASH 31M who flew 347 OLC km with TPs at or near to Wetherby, Settle, Sedburgh, Richmond, Pocklington and Tontine completing his 4:23 flight with a 69 km glide from 5,400' asl just north of Foston via Tontine to Sutton without turning, thanks to the handily placed sea breeze front. The front was also used more briefly by Dean Crosby in his LS10t during the Carlton Bank/Castle Howard segment of his 224 OLC km flight which initially took him to Pateley Bridge and Staindrop before skirting the SW/SE boundaries of the Teesside Class D airspace. Andreas Rieder in his LS6 was the other pilots to engage with the front, again in the Carlton Bank area having previously visited Easingwold and covered 104 OLC km in total. The other XC pilots included Steve Thompson who flew a declared 303 km Hawes, Gainsborough Power Station task in his Ventus bt, finding good conditions with some Cumulus over the Yorkshire Dales and reliable blue conditions elsewhere as a high overcast slowly developed in advance of an Atlantic depression. Rob Bailey in his AS33E declared a very similar task but, after turning Hawes and heading for Gainsborough Power Station, ran into weakening thermals and a lowering cloudbase near Sherburn in Elmet and returned to site after covering 203 km of his 308 km task. Les Rayment in his DG808 and Eileen Scothern in her Discus t were the remaining XC pilots, Les flying 177 OLC km on a Burn, North Duffield, Sutton on Forest, Ripon task that included a 1,600' asl low point at Burn, while Eileen flew 142 OLC km also visiting Burn after turning Pocklington. As ever with gliding, it wasn't a straightforward day for everyone. Chris Teagle in his LS8t-18 flew into the Dales but ran into a bad patch near Pateley Bridge and had to resort to engine power to avoid a land out before returning to site. Those flying club aircraft also made use of the day's lift with Clive Swain/Sam Stimpson having the longest 2 seater flight, 1:04 in the DG1000, and David Sculfor having the longest club single seater flight, 52 minutes in Astir DSU. Towards the end of the day, James Shaw/Maxcell Miller flew the Falke down to Sherburn in Elmet where they landed and later returned via Pocklington.
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.