Saturday 27th February

Posted: 28/02/2016 15:32

Saturday 27th.  A predominately cloudy day with a light to moderate NNE,ly blowing did not promise much in the way of soaring, but did suggest a smooth introduction to gliding for the weekend’s visiting group of Scouts and 3 First Flight pupils.  5 Scouts flew on the day, with the remainder due to fly on Sunday, these flights making up a 1/3rd of the total ATs of the day.  Early flights seem to confirm the non-soaring nature  of the day, these being of the up, round and down variety, but Stuart Heaton flying P1 with a visitor reported a small climb in wave and shortly afterwards, Roger Burghall took a 3,000′ tow solo in the DG1000 and contacted a band of  N/S orientated wave over Thirsk which, although never stronger than 2 kts, propelled him gently up to his maximum altitude of 5,300′ asl as well as providing him with the longest flight of the day at 56 minutes.  Jon May, flying one of the Scouts in K21 KLW, also contacted the wave at 1,500′ QFE and managed a climb, but to a lower altitude than Roger.  Later in the day, the cloud started to clear and off the last flight of the day John Marsh and Martin Joyce flying the DG1000 used thermal activity to extend their flight time to 46 minutes, a goodly proportion of this time spent below 1,000′ QFE.  After the end of the flying day and with the gliders and equipment safely hangared and stored, Steve Wilson provided an informative, and at times amusing, introduction to using XCSoar to a group of interested members via a well crafted Powerpoint presentation.  Covering both the capability of the software and the requirements of the hardware, Steve provided a host of tips and  screen display preferences based on his extensive use of the system in his Pegase, the evening including hands on help to assist members to get the most out of the system's capabilities.

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.

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