Thursday 28th to Saturday 30th March 2019
Posted: 31/03/2019 16:22
Thursday 28th. A light to moderate SW'ly blew all day with Cumulus developing from mid morning and then slowly fading away to leave a blue afternoon. Operations were off runway 20 with 27 ATs flown before flying came to a halt around 1745 hrs. Private owner and visitor launches totalled 12, these providing all of the 7 flights to exceed an hour. Peter Clay in his Ventus had 2 hours as he flew a 62 km O/R to Rufforth, while Duncan Pask went east towards Malton before returning to Sutton in his LS10, his flight time being 1:30. The other pilots to exceed an hour were Phil Lazenby in the DG303, 1:23, John Ellis in his DG800, !:29, visitors J Walker and Paul Howard with 1:09 in their DG505, Rob Cook in his Discus, 1:02 and M Allen and S Guy with 1:01, also in the DG505, all of whom stayed local to the site, as did Paul Whitehead and Lee Grinrod who had 1:04 in K21 KLW.
Friday 29th. A light to moderate SSE'ly blew all day under an clear blue sky with operations off runway 20. 16 launches were flown with some soaring flights in weak wave. However, as I do not currently have access to the day's log sheet, a detailed report will be posted later.
Saturday 30th. A light and variable wind led to take offs from,
and most landings on, runway 20 , but landings on runways 24, 06, 30 and 02 also featured. With initially blue skies overhead, and smooth as silk air, the mornings contributions to the day's 30 ATs saw Andy Parish's 31 minute flight with guest Nick Lugez from a 4,000' AT be the longest However, Cumulus development to the north of the North Yorkshire Moors led Rob Bailey in his ASG 29 to launch around midday in that direction and after initially struggling to stay airborne, completed an undeclared 201 km flight visiting Carlton, Snainton, Sutton, Castle Howard and Wetherby before returning to Sutton, the flight taking him 3:42. Rob reported sea air incursion near Snainton and a cloud base that eventually rose to over 4,000' asl. Cumulus eventually started to blossom around 1300 hrs and three other private owners launched, but only John Ellis in his DG800 left the local area, covering around 100 km as he visited Kirbymoorside and Wetherby in his flight of 1:23. The two others, launching after 1400 hrs, finding that even local soaring was not particularly easy, with only Toby Wilson in his Standard Cirrus having a flight time of > 30 minutes, one of the 5 pilots to do so. These included Andy Parish and Joan Wilson in K21 JVZ with 51 minutes, Steve Thompson and John Dore with 47 minutes in KLW, and George Rowden and First Flight pupil, Mick Gould with 39 minutes in the DG1000 all of whom launched between 1215 abd 1245 hrs. The only other person to have a soaring flight was Simon Altman, who again launching in the favoured 30 minutes had 1:03 in Astir DPO. The flying day ended at around 1650 hrs as Peter Robinson landed KLW on his 2019 re-solo, his first having been in 2018, so congratulations to him. A little break in activities then followed until 1900 hrs when a members forum was held to allow the board to discuss the results of a recent member's survey and allow the members to raise questions with the board on a variety of topics. This was then followed by the annual prizegiving with the recipients of YGC trophies won in 2018 shown in the following photo.
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.