Friday 13th August 2021

Posted: 14/08/2021 15:45

Friday 13th.   A moderate to fresh WSW'ly resulted in a winch day with consistent hill lift and thermal and wave as well,  a few isolated showers missing the site.   As a result 37 launches were flown off runway 24, with 27 flights exceeding 30 minutes and 11 an hour.  The promising conditions led to 12 launches by private owners, with Toby Wilson in his Standard Cirrus having 2, during one of which he visited the Tontine.  Other private owners to have two flights were Fred Brown in his Ventus and Jesper Mjels in his DG400 who, on both occasions, used his engine to contact the wave, reaching 18,200' asl on his morning flight and 17,300' asl on his afternoon one.  Jesper contacted the wave over Bagby on his first flight climbing to his maximum altitude west of Bedale, while on his second flight initial wave contact was over Upsall, with the maximum height obtained over Masham.  Jesper was not the only pilot to contact the wave, as according to information from KTrax.  Dave McKinney flying his ASW28  reached around 19,000' asl and James Prosser in the Discus climbed to around 11,800' asl.  No one else reached anything like these heights with altitudes of around 4,800' being the next best and similarly, pilots remained relatively local with the Tontine, Kirbymoorside and the northern outskirts of York being the limits of exploration.  Conrad Thwaites joined James Prosser in having a Discus flight of > 1 hour, 1:13 in fact, and while there were no two seater flights over an hour, Bruce Grain and Mike O'Neil in K21 JVZ came closest with 57 minutes, and Amelia Forrester continued to make the most of her post First Flight monthly membership which started on the 12th August, by having 51 minutes with Les Rayment in the DG500.    

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