Tuesday 3rd November 2020

Posted: 03/11/2020 21:37

Tuesday 3rd.  A light S'ly opened the day with the first launch at around 0930 hrs off runway 24, the club being busy prior to the expected shut down of operations from  Thursday when the  lock down in England starts due to rapidly increasing Covid 19 infection rates.  Some of the early launches contacted weak wave, with Alan Beaumont reporting a peak climb rate of 3 kts in his 42 minute flight in the DG500,  although nobody climbed above their launch height.  John Carter and Toby Wilson, flying the DG1000 also made use of wave with a flight of 44 minutes, while George Rowden gave his Mile High pupil Jimmy Stockdale a taste of wave in their 36 minutes flight in K21 KLW but all three flights were terminated early by a build up of cloud with a base of around 1400' QFE, this eventually leading to a heavy shower around lunch time.  Following the passage of the shower, the wind veered into the WSW and increased to moderate with hill lift being available, this being utilised by a number of pilots, principally Jon May in his Ventus and Rob Bottomley in the Discus, each having just over an hour of flying time.  The change in wind direction and strength led to landings switching from 20 to 24.  Bruce Grain/Robert Wood in the DG1000 and Chris Booker in the Discus, also flying in the afternoon had 48 and 47 minutes respectively , being 2 more of the 10 flights to have between 30 and 60 minutes.  Care was needed on landing and retrieving due to the presence of very soft areas on the airfield while the view while flying included large flooded areas along the course of the River Wiske and around Dalton due to heavy rain at the end of October which was a decidedly wet month. 

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.

Back to Blog index