Friday 5th June 2026
Posted: 06/06/2026 10:10
Friday 5th. A moderate WSW'ly that later backed into the SW and declined to light to moderate, provided a soaring day, mainly thermal based but with hill soaring as a back up. A cloud base rising to over 5,000' asl and average peak climb rates of around 5 kts were tempered by generally cloudy skies, so XC flying was limited in distance, the exception being Dean Crosby's 194 km circumvention of the N Yorkshire Moors National Park with TPs at Scarborough, Guisborough W and Tontine before visiting Ripon and Knaresborough. Others who fly more moderate XC's mainly investigated to the W of site in the hope of encountering wave but there were no contacts. This group included Peter Crawley in his ASH 31M who flew 140 OLC km visiting the Knaresborough/ Ripon area but had to resort to his engine S of Topcliffe on the way back to site, Chris Teagle in his LS8-18t and Martin Newbery in his Ventus ct who both did an O/R just to the E of Masham. The majority of the day's soaring flights contacted a thermal straight of the launch but Martin utilised the lift on the home bowl before transferring to thermal lift. Other > an hour pilots stayed within ~15 km of site, these including Bruce Grain/Sarah Nolan in the DG1000, 1:12, Charles Frenchville in Astir FSH, 1:42, Bruce/Mark James in the DG1000, 1:16, Andrew Wilmot in his ASW19, 1:34, Sarah Nolan in Astir DPO, 2:10, Steve Ogden in his Discus, 2:08 and Nigel Dickenson in his Libelle Club, 1:52. The above flights contributed to a day where 22 of the day's 12 ATs, 14 winch launches and 1 self launch, led to flights of over 30 minutes, with 12 of these over an hour, the switch to ATing from winching occurring around1330 hrs as the wind declined in strength, although there were some earlier ATs to accommodate some of the day's 7 First Flight pupils.
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