Saturday 26th March 2022
Posted: 27/03/2022 17:22
Saturday 26th. The centre of the high pressure had drifted closer to the UK, so the winds at site were light, initially from an E'ly direction but later from a SSE'ly direction. Accordingly, initial operations were off runway 06 with a change to 20 occurring around lunch time. Compared to Friday, there was more general Cumulus development and limited use of the convergence that again developed mid morning to the north of the site, while cloud base over the best part of the day didn't quite get to 5,000' asl. However, 14 of the day's 30 ATs led to flights of over 30 minutes, with 6 of these being over an hour. Darren Lodge in his LS8-18, the first of the 9 private owner flights of the day to fly, 4 of these being by members of the T21 syndicate, stayed up for 3:10 locally, climbing to 4,400' asl, while Sarah Stubbs had 2:10 in the Astir with a peak altitude of 3,900' asl. Rob Bailey was one of only two pilots to venture far, , going off in his ASG29t to the convergence to the north where he got a good climb to 4,700' asl and used the height to cross the Vale of York in a 37 km straight glide, in a repeat of part of his flight on Friday. However, lift over the Pennines to the west of Masham proved to be weak so Rob returned to site having reached Reservoir some 11 km SW of Masham, claiming a cross country of of 81 km. Chris Teagle in his Kestrel 19 was the only other pilot to leave the area immediately local to the club, going N to Kepwick, E towards Helmsley and S towards Easingwold in a flight of 1:20, reaching 4,400' asl. While typical average thermal strengths were 1.5-2 kts, Dave Thomson in the DG303 found a 2.9 kt average one and climbed to the best altitude of the day, 4,800' asl in his flight of 1:20, with Tony Drury in his DG303 having 1:17 in the middle of the afternoon as thermal activity started to fade. The 4 flights by the T21 syndicate members accumulated 1:37 of flying time, with Nick Gaunt/Rod Brister's 45 minutes being the longest of the four, while Kelly Teagle and Amelia Forrester's 42 minutes in K21 KLW was the day's longest in a club 2 seater.
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.