Friday 4th September 2026
Posted: 05/09/2026 10:20
Friday 4th. A moderate to fresh W'ly blew all day so runway 24 was the location for the day's 10 winch launches. With reliable hill lift and wave available, only 1 flight failed to exceed 30 minutes, with 5 exceeding an hour, as 4 pilots of the 5 private owners who launched climbed to over 10,000' asl, with 3 of them climbing to over 15,000' asl. All those eventually contacting wave did so after typically 1.5 to 2.5 hours of local soaring in turbulent conditions on a generally cloudy day, with 3 of the initial wave contacts close to site and one near Thimbleby. this being by Dean Crosby in his LS10t. Dean then climbed to 7,300' asl 4 km to the NW of site before falling out of the wave and returning to Sutton at 3,000' asl. However, Dean recontacted the wave at this point and climbed to his maximum altitude of 11,700' asl as he slowly made his way to 3 km NW of Thirsk via the Forward Ridge. From there Dean flew to the NW of Masham before returning to land, having covered 120 OLC km. Clive Swain in his Kestrel 19, Beau Basson in his ASW20, and visitors Andy and Katharine Balkwill in their Janus C all contacted the wave close to site, with Clive and Beau going on to climb to 15,100' asl, both some 5-8 km S of site. Clive's 138 OLC km flight took him to areas near Sutton on Forest, Northallerton, Masham and Ripon and included a meeting at 14,000' with a Royal Signals Balloon which had become untethered from RAF Topcliffe. Beau, after climbing to 9,800' asl just to the SW of site, flew to the Masham area where he reached 12,800'' asl. He then returned to home base and reached 15,100' asl some 5 km to the NW of site before doing an O/R to the Masham area to cover 140 OLC km. Andy/Katherine's flight trace was not very good, so I am unsure of where they went, but it did include a climb to 16,600' asl just to the SW of site during their 3:46 flight. The longest flight in a club glider was by Andreas Rieder/Rob Cruickshank who had 1:10 of wave enhanced hill soaring the main W'ly ridge as far north as High Paradise Farm in the DG500, mainly operating between 1,100-2,300' QFE with a peak height of 2,500' QFE.
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.