Friday 11th September 2026
Posted: 12/09/2026 10:10
Friday 11th. Another sunny start saw Cumulus soon develop and spreadout to give a mainly cloudy, but bright day, but with sufficient breaks to provide reasonable conditions as the light to moderate WNW'ly slowly backed into the WSW. The day's 21 ATs and 2 self launches were off runway 24 and generated 13 flights of over 30 minutes, all but one of which were over an hour, with most pilots choosing to stay local. However, 4 pilots ventured farther afield with Dean Crosby in his LS10t flying 207 OLC kms as he flew round the top of RAF Topcliffe's MATS before turning S and having a TP some 9 km to the NE of Doncaster. On his return leg Dean overflew Pocklington before turning for home just to the SW of Pickering. Paul Kaye in his LS8t visited the Easingwold, Pickering and Malton areas before returning to the area around Sutton to cover 117 OLC km, while Peter Crawley in his ASH 31M flew 123 OLC km visiting Tockwith and Sutton on Forest and then spending some time locally soaring before a final O/R to Tontine. Les Rayment in his DG606 would have joined this > 100km XC pilot list, but his journey to areas around Foston and York came to an unaided end near Sutton on Forest with resort to his engine. All the other > an hour soaring pilots stayed local, making use of a cloud base of around 4,500' asl and average peak climb rates of 3-4 kts. James Shaw/Chris Thirkell in the DG500 had the longest flight in a club glider with 1:19, mainly in thermal but with a spell of hill soaring prior to landing, whilst Phillip Challans in Astir DPO had 59 minutes of local thermal soaring.
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.