Wednesday 26th to Thursday 27th May 2021.
Posted: 28/05/2021 20:47
Wednesday 26th. An westward travelling occluded front brought low cloud and rain, and although skies eventually cleared in the afternoon, the clearance came too late for any flying.
Thursday 27th. A light to moderate S'ly blew as initially cloudy skies gave way to sunny intervals and convection. Flying commenced around 1010 hrs off runway 20 and 38 ATs were subsequently flown. The thermic conditions led to 21 soaring flights of which 5 were greater than 3 hrs, 3 > 2hrs and 5 > an hour, the majority of these by the 14 private owners who rigged and flew. Most of these flights stayed relatively local, but Andrew Cluskey in his Shark visited Ripon, Pateley Bridge, Knaresborough, Helmsley and the TV mast in Bilsdale. Andy Balkwill in his LS8-18 flew around Kirbymoorside, Malton and York and the two Barrys, Kerby and Monslow in their Duo Discus, had a bird's eye view of Thirsk and Helmsley. All the above had flights of > 3 hrs, with Neil Croxford in his LS4 and Sharon Kerby in her ASW28t also joining this group. Rob Bailey provided this photo of Neil in his LS4 enjoying the conditions.
Cloud base eventually rose to around 4,000' asl with Andy Balkwill achieving this altitude and the two Barrys and Andrew Cluskey getting a little higher with climbs to 4,200' and 4,300' asl respectively. Those flying club gliders also made the most of the conditions with Andy Tyas having 1:28 in the Astir, the same glider being earlier flown by visitor S Olander for 1:14, while the longest 2 seater flight saw Bruce Grain and David Martin have 53 minutes in K21 KLW. The Falke also provided its pilots with 3 flights, 2 of which were over an hour and the 3rd over 3 hours.
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.