Tuesday 18th August 2026
Posted: 19/08/2026 21:36
Tuesday 18th. A moderate to moderate to fresh W'ly blew all day, with generally cloudy skies, so it was a mixture of ATs and winch launches off runway 24, with occasional landings on 20. Hill, thermal and, for some, wave lift, meant the majority of the day's flights were soaring ones, the 23 winch launches, 1 self lauch and 12 ATs leading to 26 flights of over 30 minutes with 12 of these over an hour. Those climbing to over 5,000' asl in wave were a more select group of 5, with 2 of these climbing to over 10,000' asl. The first flight of the day pointed the way for those who followed, with James Shaw/Rob Cruickshank in K21 KLW, finding contacting wave off tow over RAF Topcliffe and climbing to around 4,700' asl in their 37 minute flight, while the high flyers were Martyn Johnson in his DG600 and Clive Swain in his Kestrel 19, both climbing to around 11'600' asl. Martyn spent 1.5 hours of local soaring before contacting the wave over the site, while Clive contacted from a thermal climb near site not long after release, with both pilots spending time in a triangle bounded by Leyburn, Pateley Bridge and Ripon, amd climbing to their maximum altitude to the W/NW of Ripon. The other wave soaring pilots were Fred Brown in his Ventus 2ct, 7,000' asl over Topcliffe, Jim Mclean in his ASW24, 6,200' asl over Kilburn, Maxwell Miller in Astir DPO, 6,100' asl over Easingwold, and Steve Thompson in his Ventus bt, 5,500' over Ingleby Bowl. Steve flew from Sutton to Guisborough W via Tontine in hill lift but on the way back contacted the wave to make the return easy. Once back at site Steve repeated the O/R to Guisborough W, this time using a combination of thermal and hill lift to return to Sutton, his undeclared flight covering115 km. Most of the remaining >an hour soaring pilots used either hill lift on the home bowl or main W'ly ridge, local thermal, transient wave or a combination of two or three of these lift types Derek Taylor/Steve Ogden in Derek's Arcus M were thermal users as they flew to the NW of Northallerton, while James Shaw/Spencer Bailey in the DG1000 used hill lift to fly an O/R to Tontine via the main W'ly, Black Hambleton, Thimbleby and Osmotherly ridges on the first leg and the Osmotherly, Thimbleby, Forward and main W'ly ridges on the way back.
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.