Sunday 30th to Monday 31st August 2026
Posted: 31/08/2026 22:27
Sunday 30th. A light to light to moderate S'ly blew all day under generally cloudy skies, thunderstorms bringing heavy rain to the area in the evening. Flying didn't get underway until 1200 hrs with the first of 6 ATs off runway 20, one of which was for visitors Burtenshaw/O'Flanagan in their Duo Discus t. Their 0:31 minutes was the longest flight of the day, including a brief climb after release and a 200' climb in a weak thermal. The next longest saw Bob Beck give the only First Flight pupil of the day 29 minutes in the DG500 by utilising some weak lift in front of the home bowl, while Andreas Rieder/Chris Chapman had 25 minutes in K21 JVZ via a couple of short thermal climbs.
Monday 31st. The wind had become a moderate NNW'ly but soon backed into the W and became moderate to fresh at times. The day's flying was interrupted at times by showers, some of which were heavy, but the day's launch total was 21, 18 via AT, 2 self launches and a single winch launchm all off runway 24. Lift was mainly via a mixture of thermal and hill lift, with maximum altitudes around 4,000' asl and average peak climb rates of around 3 kts. There were 10 private owner launches, the list including a Capstan and a Skylark 4, with 6 of these pilots having over an hour's flight, with an additional 5 flights of over 30 minutes. The > an hour pilots were Martyn Johnson in his DG600, 2:44, flying locally and finding some bit and pieces of wave, Fred Brown in his Ventus 2ct, 1:16 flying locally, Craig Laurie, who on his second flight in his DG 808, which was via the winch, had 1:48 which included an O/R to a point 6 km to the NW of Northallerton. followed by some local soaring. A similar flight profile was flown by Ian Bullous, also in a DG808, his 1:26 also including a O/R to Northallerton, the outward leg encountering bands of weak lift, while the unknown pilots of a Duo Discus and a Capstan had 1:14 and 1:10 respectively. The longest flight in a club glider was the 37 minutes flown by Guy Hartland/Graham Hayes in the DG500, again via a combination of 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.