Thursday 19th to Monday 23rd July 2018

Posted: 23/07/2018 21:43

Thursday 19th.  A light SSE'ly soon veered into the W, and with Cumulus blossoming mid morning, a number of private owners rigged and flew with some subsequent entries on the BGA Ladder.  However, the day proved to be tricky at times but nevertheless, Steve Thompson completed an 157 km trip in his Discus around Carlton Moor, Pickering and  Richmond with assistance from Durham Tees Valley ATC and Tony Drury completed a 100 km task with TPs at Rufforth and Carlton Moor.  The day saw 7 flights have in excess of an hour, 6 of these by private owners including Rob Bailey in  his ASG29, Jon May in his Ventus, Bill Payton and Stuart Heaton in their DG1000, Nigel Burke in his DG600  as well as Steve and Tony.  The one club flight to exceed an hour saw Andy Parish and Joan Wilson have 1:14 in K21 KLW off the last flight of the day.  Flights in excess of 30 minutes but less than an hour included Ron Beezer's flight of 52 minutes in KLW with a guest of Henderson Newton Jerry, Andy Parish's 44 minutes in the DG1000 with a guest of Paul Bulmer and Will Blackburn's 40 minutes with Mile High pupil J Thomas in the DG500.  The week's course members continued to amass launches and flying hours under the tutelage of Bob Beck, with Bob completing the overseeing of another solo, this time by the remaining member of the course, Martin Clowes, so congratulations to him.  Virtually all the club flying was in the 2 seaters, although John Tayler did have a flight in the Discus and Alistdair Brown had another solo flight in K21 JVZ.

Friday 20th.  An approaching front brought increasing cloud with  slightly higher wind speeds, moderate from the W, and eventually rain mid afternoon, but  not before 26 ATs had been flown and at least one cross country flown.   The latter was by Martyn Johnson in his DG600 who flew 151 km with TPs at Pocklington, Danby and Guisborough, landing back at Sutton 15 minutes before the rain started.  Martyn's was one of 4 flights to exceed an hour, the other 3 being by Andy Parish and Alan Beamish, with exactly an hour in K21 KLW, 1:13 by Rob Bailey in  his ASG29t and 1:03 by Kevin Kieley and John Dore in KLW.  The 3 other flights to exceed 30 minutes included those for 2 of the 7 First Flight pupils of the day while Paul Whitehead had 36 minutes solo, Martin Clowes and Alistdair Brown ending their successful week's course with some additional solo flying in K21 JVZ.    The rain did not last long,  the same applying to the low cloud accompanying the rain, so the gliders, tugs and ground equipment was soon back out again to allow Tony Drury, Brian Wise and Toby Wilson to provide air experience flights to a group of 7 Scouts and Nora van G to have a short evening flight in the Astir.

Saturday 21st.  The wind had decreased to become a light to moderate W'ly, the cloudiness of the day resulting in no soaring opportunities, with the result that nobody managed to stay up for 30  minutes or more and all the day's 17 ATs being by the club 2 seaters.  Even the day's sole First Flight pupil, with the advantage of a 3,000' AT, could only manage a flight time of 18 minutes in the company of  Tony Drury, so Andy Parish's flight time of 29 minutes off a 1900' tow in K21 KLW with Adam Sawer  can be readily regarded as something of an achievement.

Sunday 22nd.    A brighter day than Saturday, the wind being again light to moderate but this time varying from WNW to WSW over the day, promised some soaring opportunities and tempted a number of private owners to rig and fly.  However, while the 8 private owner launches generated 6 out of the seven flights of over an hour, with 3 of these over 2 hours, nobody posted any flights on the BGA Ladder or OLC, with a number setting off on cross countries but soon retuning to site.  These included Rob Bailey in his ASG29t, 2:06, and Nick Gaunt in his LS7, 1:14.  Darren Lodge had 2:20 in  his LS8-18, Duncan Pask 1:29 in his LS10, while Bill Payton and Martin Joyce had 2:56 in Bill's DG1000t, a flight that included a visit to Burn and use of the engine to return to Sutton.  Ron Beezer and Sean Kelly flying K21 KLW  and George Claydon flying the Astir, made up the > 1 hr list with 1:01 and 1:04 respectively, while the late afternoon provided a number of flights between 30 and 50 minutes duration, these including John Marsh and Natasha Dodds with 49 minutes in K21 JVZ, Colin Troise and John Carter with 48 minutes in KLW and Tony Drury, who gave one of  the 8 First Flight pupils of the day 45 minutes in the DG1000.

Monday 23rd.  A generally cloudy day ensued as fronts threatened the west of the UK and a trough line over the north of England  threatened afternoon thunderstorms which didn't materialise.  However, some early morning light showers did delay things a little.  In spite of the light winds, initially from the S but progressively veering into the WSW,  there was some wave activity in the late morning/early afternoon which provided some soaring opportunities.  These were exploited by John Carter and Andre Feldman who, although never finding anything other than large areas of zero sink, managed the day's longest flight of 56 minutes in K21 JVZ.  George Rowden and Luke Starkey, one of the 12 First Flight pupils flown on the day, found some weak wave as a bar developed just upwind of the site and enjoyed 49 minutes of flight in K21 JVZ, with Stan and another First Flight pupil, Alison Sommerville, using the same lift to  have 39 minutes in the DG500.   Later, in the early afternoon, George and the day's Mile High pupil, Alan White, again found some weak wave and had 52 minutes in K21 KLW.     Ron Beezer, taking the Falke for its only flight of the day, reported strong lift around 6,000' asl.  Mike Greenacre, Colin Troise, Chris Haresnape and Nora v G interupted the 2 seater dominance of the day with solo flights, either using the DG500 or the Astir, but none exceeded 30 minutes of flying time,

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.

Back to Blog index