Friday 7th to Tuesday 11th September 2018

Posted: 13/09/2018 13:28

Friday 7th.  A light to moderate WSW'ly that veered into the NW brought frequent showers, these limiting flying to  3 ATs, all in K21 KLW and with Stan as P1.  These included one First Flight pupil and 2 club members, Stan and Sean Kelly posting the longest flight of the day, 30 minutes.

Saturday 8th.   A thoroughly wet day (7mm of rain)  with a cool, light to moderate SE'ly  blowing, meant no flying was possible.

Sunday 9th.  The rain had gone, leaving the site in a  SW'ly flow with the occasional shower, although this did not interfere with flying.  Initially the SW'ly wind was light to moderate so that the first 3 launches onto the hill were soon back on the ground, but the wind then freshened to become moderate to fresh with gusts into the high 20's making staying up on the hill much easier.   25 of the 28 launches of the day were via the winch, moderating wind speeds in the afternoon allowing 3 ATs off runway 24, 2 of these being for Chris Booker in  his  newly acquired LS1, the second of which gave Chris 1:49 of acclimatisation time and one of 6 flights on the day to exceed an hour.  Two flights achieved moderate climbs in wave, Martyn Johnson getting to 6,200' asl in his flight of 2:23, while Bill Payton and Chris Thwaites got to 5,700' asl in Bill's DG1000, their second flight of the day being the longest of the day at 3 hrs.  Nora v G solo in K21 JVZ, Toby Wilson in the DG303, Ron Beezer and Andy Hooper in JVZ and Paul Whitehead and Tony Kirby in the DG500 all had flighs of between 1:20 and 1:00 hrs on a good hill soaring day at Sutton.

Monday 10th.  High cover persisted all day, as the initially light to moderate S'ly slowly veered into the SW.  The presence of wave was confirmed by Jesper Mjels in his DG400 who climbed to 15,322' asl, although a high engine based climb was required for contact.  Jesper's flight of 2:41 was the longest of the 3 flights to exceed an hour, the other two flights being by Duncan Pask in his LS10 with 1:29 and Sue Aherne in the DG303 with 1:09.  The majority of the day's flights exceeded 30 minutes with Ron Beezer and Mark Croston in K21 JVZ having 50 minutes, and Stan taking 2 of the day's 6 First Flight pupils for 36 minutes each in the DG500.  A reduction in wind speed towards the end of the flying day led to 2 ATs, John Carter and Dave McKinney having 47 minutes in K21 KLW from one of them.

Tuesday 11th.  An initially light to moderate WSW'ly wind allowed ATing off runway 24, but only 2 launches by this method resulted before the increasing wind strength led to a change to winching.  A further 17 launches resulted, 6 for First Flight pupils, with the majority of flights exceeding 3o minutes, 10 in all.  John Carter and Tony Kirkby almost managed to get to an hour with 59 minutes in K21 JVZ, while Ron Beezer and Christina Griffiths had 50 minutes in K21 KLW.  Ron and Ann Crick in KLW, Stan and one of the day's First Flight pupils  in the DG500 and Ron and Mark Croston  in JVZ all had between 42 and 44 minutes.  The only flight to exceed an hour saw Jesper Mjels again use the engine of his DG400 to contact wave, this time getting to 15,500' asl in his flight of 2:50, with the rest of the day's flights confined to the hill with Black Hambleton the farthest north anyone got.

 

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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