Sunday 18th to Monday 19th August 2019

Posted: 20/08/2019 21:01

Sunday 18th.  The winner of Day 4 and  the overall winner of Task week were presented with they prizes following briefing, as described in the summary of Task Week which preceded this Blog.  Sunday's weather was virtually a repeat of Saturday's, an initially light to moderate SW'ly veering into  the WSW and increasing to moderate to fresh, this change leading to a change from ATing to winching, all off runway 24.  The initial 4 ATs, including 2 for First Flight pupils, were generally circuit affairs, but with the  change in wind strength and direction, hill soaring became an option as did thermal and wave soaring.  The latter was only exploited by the sole private owner launch of the day, Martyn Johnson in his DG600, Martyn climbing  to just under 9,000' asl as he explored an area between Topcliffe and Northallerton in his flight of 3:32, the longest of the day.  All of the winch launched flights exceeded 40  minutes, with 5 having between 1 and 2 hours, inlcuding 1:39 for Paul Whitehead and Andy Hanson in the DG500 off the last flight of the day, 1:26 for Mike Collins in Astir DPO and 1:10 for Colin Troise and Tony Drury who shared a 1:10 flight  in the DG500.

Monday 19th.  The wind again started in the SSW before veering into the WSW and like previous days increased from light to moderate to moderate to fresh as the morning progressed.  It was again a mixture of ATing and winching, but with only 2 ATs to add to the 23 winch launches off runway 24.  Thermal and hill soaring led to only 2 flights failing to exceed 30 minutes with 10 exceeding an hour, but unlike previous days no one found any significant wave, the top altitude of 5,300' asl being acheived by the day's Mile High pupil with P1 Paul Whitehead in the DG500.  Darren Lodge in his LS8-18 posted the longest flight of the day, 3 hrs as he soared locally, while Martyn Johnson visited the East Coast Main line and Easingwold during one of his 2 flights of the day.  Conrad Thwaites in his Discus also had 2 flights, the first of 36 minutes and the second of 2:30, while Ron Beezer in his Nimbus explored the hill lift as far north as Black Hambledon in his flight of 1:18.   Other pilots to exceed 2 hours included Tony Drury in his DG303 with 2:04, while visitor Andre Feldmann had 2:03 in Astir DPO, his first flight in the same glider lasting exactly 30  minutes.  Late in the day Bill Payton and guest Martin Petrie had 1:14 in K21 KLW, with Bruce Grain and Jerry H-N just making the hour in K21 JVZ.

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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