Tuesday 1st September 2026
Posted: 02/09/2026 14:48
Tuesday 1st. A moderate WSW'ly blew all day, sunny morning skies becoming increasingly cloudy. It was a good soaring day, with hill, thermal and wave lift available, although all the experiences of the latter were confined to the flights taking off before 1130 hours and initially, contacting the wave was difficult, with persistence required. In all 10 pilots had wave climbs, 3 to between 5,000' asl and 10,000' asl and 7 to over 10,000' asl, with initial wave contact for all within a couple of km from site and peak climbs mainly in the Foston/Boroughbridge/Linton on Ouse area, Neil Paveley in his Nimbus 2 being an exception with his best climb to 10,300' asl over Leyburn. Martyn Johnson in his DG600, Dean Crosby in his LS10t, Neil Paveley in his Nimbus 2, Fred Brown in his Ventus 2ct and visitor Craig Lowrie in his DG808 all spent from from 1.5 hrs to 50 minutes of local soaring before contacting the wave, with later flights having contact straight off launch. The above pilots climbed to 12,000', 8,900', 10.300', 10.500' and 10,800' asl respectively, with Ian Bullous in his DG808 climbing to 11.000' asl and visitors Geoff Burtenshaw/Daryl O'Flanagan in their Duo Discus t reaching 10,700' asl. XC OLC distances of the above pilots ranged from Neil's 215 km to Craig's 101 km, some staying the above mentioned areas to the S of site, and some visiting Pateley Bridge, Ripon, Masham and Leyburn to the W. Those climbing to over 5,000' asl were Jim McLean in his ASW 24, 7,100' asl , John Pursey/Amy Playe, a quick climb to 6,100' asl being followed by 3,5 hrs local hill and thermal soaring, and Austin Harland, 5,600' asl in Astir DSU, all these climbs being local. Those using hill and thermal lift made use of the ridges as far N as Black Hambleton, with operating heights typically 700' to 1,400' QFE , with the day's soaring flights of over 30 minutes numbering 23, of which 15 were over an ;hour. These came from from the day's 18 winch launches, 16 ATs and 2 self launches with 16 private owners launching and 6 First Flight pupils flown.
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