Thursday 4th to Monday 8th April 2019
Posted: 08/04/2019 17:29
Thursday 4th. A light to moderate ESE'ly blew all day, being accompanied by significant cloud, the base of which was low enough to restrict flying to a single launch of runway 20. In this Bruce Grain took Donna Walker, a First Flight pupil for 20 minutes in K21 KLW.
Friday 5th. The cloudy skies of Thursday had disappeared, apart from a thin high cover, with the sunshine providing a short period of thermal acivity during the early afternoon. The mainly E'ly wind, moderate and at times fresh, meant AT operations off runway 06, with a total of 10 launches on the day. The brief, early afternoon soaring period saw Andy Parish and Paul Frost have the day's longest flight, 51 minutes in K21 KLW, while its sister K21, JVZ, was the means by which Bruce Grain and Geoff Turner had the other soaring flight of the day, clocking up 47 minutes, the best height of the day, 4,800' asl also being attained during this period. The best of the rest saw Bruce provide a 20 minute flight for one of the day's 3 First Flight pupils.
Saturday 6th. A light NW'ly with a tendency to veer into the NNW meant AT operations of runway 02, the flying day from around 1000 hrs to 1700 hrs providing 16 launches. K21's JVZ and KLW were utilised for the majority of the day's flights, although Astir HVK was flown by Duncan Pask and Chris Knapp, with Chris posting one of the flights to achieve times of over 30 minutes. This particular list was started by Martyn Johnson and Christina Griffiths with 31 minutes in KLW off a 1000' tow, with Bill Payton's later 56 minutes solo in KLW being the longest flight of the day. Andy Parish and Ron Beezer, flying 2 of the 6 First Flight pupils of the day had 48 and 41 minutes respectively as weak thermal conditions developed over the middle part of the day, the top climb being to around 4,000' asl,
Sunday 7th. A light NE/N'ly flow that strengthened to light to moderate from around 1500 hrs, meant another day of operations of runway 02, but low cloud in the morning and the onset of light rain in the middle of the afternoon restricted flying to only 3 ATs. John Marsh and K Williams, flying K21 JVZ on the first flight of the day, found some transient lift to extend their flight time to 23 minutes, the best of the day, while Peter Goodchild and George Claydon practiced approaches onto runway 20 from 1000' launches on each of their 2 flights together, the second running into the rain that signalled the end of flying for the day.
Monday 8th. Persistent low cloud from the North Sea on a light to moderate NNW'ly prevented any flying activity, but did allow ground based activities to be undertaken, ie bringing the radios in the club aircraft up to date with the latest frequency changes and sorting out an electrical problem on the Eurofox.
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.