Tuesday 14th to Wednesday 15th May 2019

Posted: 17/05/2019 21:14

Tuesday 14th.  An initial light W'ly soon backed into the now familiar SSE/SE direction as a few isolated and transient Cumulus appeared around midday to enliven an otherwise blue day, 13 hours of sunshine being recorded.   A long and busy day ensured, as the day's activities extended into the evening courtesy of  Steve Thompson and co's evening flying group so that the day's launch total was 46.  Colin Troise flying the DG1000 solo posted the first soaring flight of day from the 3rd launch off runway 20, achieving 1:13, this being the followed by10 others as pilots made use of the thermal activity, with peak altitudes being between 4,500 - 5,000' asl.  3 pilots ventured over  and beyond the North Yorks Moors, with Rob Bailey in his ASG29 visiting Giusborough W before attempting to get to Snainton, but abandoning the attempt and returning to Sutton, while Richie Toon visited Northallerton and the Tontine in his LS7 before getting to Goathland in the longest flight of the day, 3:14.  Meanwhile John Ellis did an O/R to Kirbymoorside in his DG800 with the rest of the 6 private owners to lauch remaining relatively local, including Derek Smith in his DG800, Tony Dury in his DG303 and Polly Whitehead in her ASW 24, all of whom had between 1 and 2 hours flying.  Mike O'Neil, flying Astir HVK, had the second longest flight of the day, just over 3 hours, while Andy Parish and Peter Robinson had just over 2 hours in the DG1000 and Bruce Grain took Gina Clarke, one of  the 5 First Flight pupils of the day, for a 1:29 flight in the DG500.  Thermal activity had died by the time the Tuesday evening group started flying, but the quiet evening conditions were eminently suitable for ftraining and more importantly, re-soloing, this being the successful outcome for Paul Frost and Dave Murgatroyd, so our congratulations to them both.

Wednesday 15th   The anticyclone to the east of the UK, continued to provide a light to moderate ESE'ly flow  so operations were again off runway 20 and predominately blue skies again prevailed, particularly before midday.  Thereafter, shallow Cumulus appeared, very transient at first but bcoming more persistent as the afternoon wore on and the relative humidity rose from a low of 46% to 73%.  The thermal conditions were typical of an anticyclonic situation with strong and very narrow cores that were difficult to centre, so pilots had to be content with good lift on one part of the circle and weak and broken lift or even sink on another part of the circle.  This, coupled with moderate to poor visibilty meant that cross country flights were limited to two, with Rob Bailey taking his ASG29 around Guisborough W, Sutton. Carlton, Tontine and back to Sutton, a distance of 110 km, while Martyn Johnson flew his DG600 86 km with TPs at Tontine, Carlton, Guisborough W and Danby.  Rob and Martyn reported better thermal conditions to the north of the site with much more cloud over the Tees valley.  Towards the end of the afternoon, the clouds abvoe and upwind of the site took on a distinctly lee wave appearence, but no wave flights resulted.  Rob's flight of 2:54 was the longest of the day, with Martyn, George Rowden in his Ls8-18 and John Shaw in his Ls10 all having around 2 hours.  They were joined in the > 1 hr group by John Carter and Tony Wiseman who had 1:13 in K21 JVZ and Ian Johnston who flew K21 KLW solo for 1:1. Andy Parish and Peter Robinson in the DG1000 were the best of the rest with 48 minutes, closely followed by Bruce Grain and Geoff Turner  who had 34 minutes in KLW off the last flight of the day.    

 

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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