Friday 7th to Sunday 8th October 2022
Posted: 11/10/2022 15:29
Friday 7th. An active cold front crossed the area in the morning, bringing rain and low cloud from 09-1100 hrs, but, with the skies brightening in the early afternoon, flying was possible from around 1500 hrs, with, hill lift, thermal and some wave to soar in, the wind being a moderate and at times moderate to fresh WSW'ly. The day's 9 winch launches off runway 24 all led to flights of >30 minutes, with 7 over an hour, all but one of these being by the 6 private owners who launched. The exception was the 2:00 flown by Mr Stanford in Astir DPO mainly in hill lift on the W'ly ridge, with a height of around 1100' QFEE being maintained, High Paradise Farm and the forward ridge being visited and a peak altitude of 3,000' asl being reached in thermal. Thermal flying and hill soaring was also the order of the day for the majority of private owners with maximum altitudes of typically around 3,000' asl, but Bob Calvert in his Discus 2ct climbed to 4,700' asl over Bagby in wave and explored the area to the west of Thirsk for more lift without finding any. Jesper Mjels, using the engine of his DG400 to go further west, contacted the wave 5km north of Ripon and eventually climbed to 8,000' asl 4km SW of Masham. Guy Hartland/Simon Altman flying the only dual flight of the day in JVZ, had 50 minutes soaring the main bowl, with Fred Brown having 41 minutes flying the same glider solo earlier in the day.
Saturday 8th. A sunny, clear sky start to the day saw Cumulus appearing mid morning, becoming extensive in the mid afternoon before fading away later, the initially light to moderate W'ly increasing to moderate to fresh before declining to light to moderate later in the day as it backed into the WSW. The conditions led to the usual mix of hill, thermal and wave lift with of number of cross countries flown, some predominately in wave and others in thermal. Engine use played a part in the majority of cross country flights with Bob Calvert in his Discus 2ct and Jesper Mjels in his DG400 using their engines to contact wave and Rob Bailey using his to get back to site on his thermal based cross country. Bob's flight of around 200 km included visits to the vicinity of Masham. Aysgarth, Warcop and Dufton on the west side of the Pennines, with a peak altitude of 12,800' asl reached 4 km south of Masham, having contacted the wave 6 km west of Thirsk and climbed to 6,000' asl there. Jesper, on the other hand contacted the wave just to the NNW of Ripon, climbing there to around 14,600' asl and visiting Aysgarth and Brough to cover around 175 km. Preferring to use thermal lift, Rob Bailey in his ASG29t, flew to the Tontine, Guisborough West, Carlton Bank and Burn, but on the return journey had to resort to his engine when just north of Tockwith, some 22 km short of completing his 180 km task. Other cross country flights included Chris Teagle's thermal based visit to Dishforth in his Kestrel 19 and Bill Payton/Dave McKinney's trip to the ridge near the Tontine in Bill's DG1000t. Having arrived using a mixture of thermal and hill lift, Bill and Dave spent 20 minutes soaring the ridge at around 6-700' QFE before using their engine to return to Sutton. Cloud base reached just over 4,000' with peak thermal climb rates of 2.5-3 kts as 16 of the day's 31 flights exceeded 30 minutes, with 13 of these over an hour. The majority of the >1 hour flights were by private owners but Sarah Stubbs had 2 flights of over an hour in Astir DSU, climbing to 4,000' asl in thermal on the first and maintaining 8-1100' QFE hill soaring on the second, while Kelly Teagle had the day's two longest 2 seater flights, the first 53 minutes with Malcolm Morgan and the second 43 minutes with Amelia Forrester off the last flight of the day, both in K21 FYF.
Sunday 9th. A moderate, and at times moderate to fresh and gusty SSE'ly slowly veered into the S, providing hill and wave lift for the mixture of 4 private owner and 4 club 2 seater flights flown, these generating 6 flghts of over 30 minutes of which 4 were longer than an hour. Steve Thompson in his Ventus bt took a high tow and contacted wave, eventually climbing to 12,500' asl over Richmond as he flew a 173 km cross country with TPs at Masham, Richmond, Hawes, Harrogate North, Catterick and Ripon after abandoning a declared task due to 8/8ths cloud cover further west. Fred Brown in his Ventus ct, contacted wave straight of tow in front of the main W'ly ridge and visited Northallerton, just S of Catterick, NNW of Masham, Harrogate North and 10 km north of Rufforth before returning to Sutton, a distance of around 130 km, climbing to a peak altitude of 12,100' asl 5 km NNW of Masham. Fred reported 43 kts at altitude, making into wind progress slow. Photos from Steve and Fred are included below.
Bob Calvert in his Discus 2ct, climbed to 6,000' asl in wave just north of Boltby but couldn't get higher and for the last 30 minutes of his 2:06 flight, hill soared the S'ly facing portion of the main bowl and the White Horse ridge maintaining 800-1000' QFE. The day's 2 flights in the DG1000 saw first Bruce Grain/Simon Altman climb to 4,400' asl in front of the S'ly ridge between Kilburn and Wass in their 1:11 flight, while later, Toby Wilson/John Dore climbed to the same altitude over Boltby in their flight of 38 minutes.
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.