Saturday 26th August 2017
Posted: 27/08/2017 20:42
Saturday 26th. A light SSW'ly was initially accompanied by blue skies, but these soon filled with cloud that produced some light showers and meant the morning's launches off runway 20 were not blessed with any soaring opportunities. However, conditions improved markedly after lunch with nice looking Cu dotted about the sky, the wind having veered into the W and strengthened to become moderate, this change leading to a decision to move the launch point to runway 24. The improved conditions also led to a busy launch point as the Task Week pilots set off on their last competition day, having been set a task to fly to as many as possible of a number of BGA TP's along NW, NE, SE and SW legs. Rob Bailey scored the most points on the day, having flown 215 kms and visited each of the 4 legs and 8 of the TP's, with John Ellis in his DG800 coming second having flown a longer distance, 283 km, but only visiting 2 legs and 3 TPs. However, as both Rob and John had previously won a day during the week and Task Week rules mean that nobody can win more than 1 day, the day's winner was 3rd placed Toby Wilson, who flying the club Astir had flown an O/R to Barnard Castle with a detour on the way back to the Tontine to record 143 km. However, more importantly, Toby had completed his Silver distance, thus earning a bonus of 100 points and the congratulations of all the Task Week competitors. All but one of the Task Week pilots flew over 100 km on the day thus ending an enjoyable week of competition with 5 contest days, albeit with some tricky conditions to contend with. After presenting Toby Wilson with this day prize, John Ellis was confirmed as overall winner of Task Week, and presented with the coveted Task Week Trophy, Jon May and Steve Ball coming second in their Duo Discus and Toby Wilson a very credible 3rd in Astir DPO. The Task Week competitors provided the majority of the 15 flights of over an hour, with 1 over 4 hrs, 2 over 3 hrs, 6 over 2 hrs and 6 over an hour, the latter including Andy Parish and Chris Thirkel's flight of 1:15 in K21 JVZ, Tom Dale's 1:10 in the Discus and Andy Tyas' 1:08 solo in K21 KLW. The day also saw 6 First Flight pupils flown, this including a Mile High flight, while the Falke had a couple of sorties and the site saw the visit of a nice looking microlight.
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.