Monday 9th to Tuesday August 10th 2021
Posted: 11/08/2021 20:46
Monday 9th. After 3 days of little activity, Monday's forecast promised a much better day and so it turned out. A moderate WSW/W'ly blew all day with Cumulus appearing relatively early, the forecast encouraging 9 private owners to rig and fly, with some notable cross countries flown. Some overdevelopment occured with some recycling of good and bad conditions. the better conditions providing good lift, while cloud base was generally around 5,000' asl. 15 of the day's 22 ATs off runway 24 led to flights of 30 minutes or more with 9 of these over an hou,r as pilots took advantage of thermal and also weak wave conditions. Tasks with TPs to the west/northwest of site were popular, with Boroughbridge and Ripon visited by Martyn Johnson in his DG600, Ron Beezer in his Nimbus 2, and Andrew Cluskey in his Shark. Martyn also visited Northallerton as did Ron and Andrew, while Andrew also added on Masham, Kettlewell, Hawes and Richmond and Ron the Tontine. Chris Handzlik in his DG300 showed an independent spirit by doing an 117km task around Wetherby and Burn, finding conditions around Burn a little difficult. Jesper Mjels twice flying his DG400, explored over the eastern foothills of the Pennines, with TPs at Ripon, Pateley Bridge and venturing to the south of Hawes. The majority of the flights in excess of an hour were by private owners but Paul Whitehead and Jude Kirby had 1:01 in the DG1000 while Paul also had 58 minutes with Tony Kirby in K21 JVZ and Chris Collingham and Dick Cole had 52 minutes in the DG1000.
Tuesday 10th. The wind continued to blow from the west but had declined in strength to become light to moderate. Flying got underway just after 1000 hrs and continued, with the help of the Tuesday evening group, for the best part of the day, the last flight landing just before 2100 hrs off the 49th AT of the day. The 10 private owner flights, including one in the T21 by Tor Taverner and James Prosser, accounted for 8 of the 12 flights to exceed an hour with John Ellis in his DG800 and Andrew Cluskey in his Shark both attempting a Spurn Point/ Pontefract task. Andrew got within 5 km of Spurn and while sea air prevented a closer approach, it did provide an active sea breeze front which gave some good lift. Rob Bailey, flying his ASG29, included TPs at Pocklington and Tadcaster in his task, while Bill Payton and Stewart Heaton in their DG1000 visited North Newbald and Leyburn and Nigel Burke completed the Rufforth/Pocklington 100 km triangle. The other private owners, Martyn Johnson in his DG600 and Jim McClean in his ASW24 stayed relatively local. Club single seater pilots Andrew Bedford, Dave Thompson and James Prosser flying the Discus had 1:16, 1:22 and 0:45 respectively, with one of them visiting the Tontine, although available data doesn't allow me to determine which of them it was. Simon Altman, flying the DG303 had 1:05 while his son Tomer went a little better with 1:12 solo in K21 KLW, while the longest 2 seater flight in a club glider saw Toby Wilson and James Prosser have 48 minutes in the DG500 after taking off at 2000 hrs. Recently soloed Sarah Stubbs also clocked up her longest solo flight so far with 44 minutes in KLW on another good soaring day at Sutton.
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.