Wednesday 13th to Friday 15th July

Posted: 16/07/2016 16:52

Wednesday 13th.  Wednesday turned out to be a reasonable soaring day with a light to moderate NW'ly wind that slowly backed into the W.  With flying being extended into the evening as part of a initiative to provide more training and visitor  flying time, the last flight landed just before 2100 hrs, with the launch total for the day being 30 ATs.  Visitor flying amounted to 6 First Flights and 5 Scouts, while the day encouraged 2 private owners to launch, the soarable conditions enabling 16 flights to exceed 30 minutes with 6 exceeding an hour.  Martyn Johnson had 2:44 in his DG600. being the only pilot to exceed 2 hours, but Mark Newburn totalled 3:55 hrs, having 1:32 with John Carter in the DG1000 before having 2 solo flights in the DG303 of 1:14 and 1:09.  Others to breach 1 hr included Andy Parish and Ken Duxbury with 1:08 in the DG1000 and Sue Ahern who recorded the same time in the DG303.  Andy Parish and Bryn Evans in K21 KLW, John Carter and Anton Mahnke in the same glider, Tony Drury in Astir DPO and Duncan Pask in his LS10 all came close to the 1 hr boundary, recording flight times of between 53 to 56 minutes.

Thursday 14th.  A transient ridge of high pressure promised a good soaring day and tempted 8 private owners to launch, contributing to the 27 ATs flown as a light NW'ly blew, this again backing into the W towards the end of the flying day.  Cumulus soon started to appear in the early morning blue skies and the airmass tended to produce areas of spreadout, although these didn't lead to a any landouts although there  were reports of abandoned tasks.  19 of the day's launches led to flights in excess of an hour with Lindsay McLane in his Ventus t, Steve Thompson in his Discus and Rob Bailey in his ASG29 all exceeding 3 hrs.  I  have no information on the routes covered by Lindsay and Steve in their flights of 4:12 and 3:10 respectively but Rob Bailey set off to the Lakes in his ASG29t but on reaching Hawes could see that the cloud over the Lakes was shrouding the mountain tops, so a return east was undertaken, but not before Rob took this photo of Hawes and adjacent Whether Fell.

Hawes and Wether Fell 14 July

Rob then flew to the Humber Bridge via Ripon, returning to site via Thirsk and having to circumnavigate some areas of spreadout on the way, the flight covering 290 km.  Phil Lazenby, flying the DG303, abandoned his task at Market Weighton not due to spreadout but to inoperative TE compensation, but still covered 117 km in his flight of 2:24 on what he described as "a not bad half day".  Martyn Johnson visited Pocklington and Rufforth in his DG600 in a flight of 1:57 while Derek Taylor was another cross country pilot whose achievements in a flight time of 1:58 in  his ASW 22 are unknown.  Bryn Evans flying Astir KRN made up for a very short first flight of 9 minutes by staying up for 2:09 on his second, while Simon Altman had 1:01 in Astir DPO and John Carter and David Pottage a round 1 hour in K21 KLW.  The club two seaters were also busy with 4 First Flight pupils and a Day Course member, while the Falke chipped in with 2 sorties.

Friday 15th.  Overcast skies and a moderate SSW'ly wind presaged the arrival of a  weak warm front, this duly bringing rain around 1500 hrs which lasted for a couple of hours and deposited 2.3 mm.  The clearance came too late to allow any flying to take place, but prior to the arrival of the front,  Andy Parish took the opportunity to fly the Pawnee back to site from Bagby where it had been for its scheduled maintenance.

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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