Saturday 20th to Sunday 21st April 2019

Posted: 23/04/2019 19:48

Saturday 20th. The Scandinavian high pressure continued to dominate the weather, the advection of Continental air providing a very warm day, max temperature of 20.4C, blue skies, a light predominately SE'ly wind and some thermal activity. Visitor Steve Codd, with P2 Dewi Humphries, were the first to exploit the convection, having just under 2 hours in the DG1000 from a launch off runway 20 around 1400 hrs. The conditions encouraged 9 private owners to launch and they provided most of the 10 flights that were in excess of an hour. Martyn Johnson in his DG600 and Jon May in his Ventus 2ct both had just over 2 hours flying, with Martyn visiting Helmsley and venturing north over the moors east of Kepwick as well as posting the highest altitude, 4,400' asl. Most other pilots stayed more local, including Duncan Pask in his LS10 during his flight of 1:51. Steve Codd had one other flight in the DG1000 of an hour or more , this being 1:02 with David Waring while Simon Altman, 1:13 in Astir HVK, had the longest flight in a club single seater, Martin Joyce following with 56 minutes in Astir DPO. John Marsh in his DG300, John Ellis in his DG800, Simona Latimer in her Discus and Jon Hart in his Vega made up the list of > 1 hour pilots on a day when 38 launches were made off runway 20.

Sunday 21st. With little change in the synoptic situation, it was again a day of hazy blue skies, warm temperatures, initially light ESE'ly winds and some afternoon thermal activity. All the day's 22 launches were off runway 20 with the first extended flight being that of John Marsh and Tony Drury who, taking off at just after 1400 hrs, had the first of the day's 6 flights to exceed 30 minutes, with 59 minutes in the DG500. John Ellis, taking off in his DG800, had the longest flight of the day, 2:19, being joined in the 3 strong > 1 hours group by Steve Codd with 1:31 in his ASK18 and Rob Bailey with 1:27 in his ASG29, all pilots remaining relatively local to the site with the highest recorded altitude again being 4,400' asl. The last 6 flights of the day were all solo flights, Simon Altman flying the Discus, Keith Davy the DG303, Mike Collins K21 JVZ solo, Jerry Henderson Newton the DG500 solo, Nora van Genugen her Ka6e and John Ellis Steve Codd's ASK 18. In spite of this wealth of soaring talent, nobody managed to stay aloft for more than 28 minutes as the day died, this particular duration being acheived by Nora.

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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