Monday 6th September 2026
Posted: 08/09/2026 10:36
Monday 6th. A moderate and occasionally moderate to fresh SW'ly blew all day with a medium/high overcast at times, the day's 2 winch launches topping and tailing 16 ATs which resulted in only 1 flight failing to exceed 30 minutes and 16 exceeding an hour. It was a wave day, with 15 flights climbing above 5,000' asl and 3 of these over 10,000' asl, with visitors from the Stratford on Avon GC providing 6 of the 11 private owner launches. Martyn Johnson in his DG600 and Toby Wilson in his Std Cirrus were the topping and tailing winch launched pilots, with flight times of 5:05 and 2:38 respectively. Martyn took a while to contact the wave, but after soaring the local ridges, eventually reached 7,500' asl 8 km to the NW of site, his flight covering 118 OLC km. Toby's flight was a hill soaring only affair on the main W'ly ridge, typically operating at 700-1.100' QFE with a couple of 200' QFE low points. The high climbing flights were by Paul Kaye in his LS8st with 12,400' asl near Pateley Bridge, Barry Kerby flying his Duo Discus solo, 13,400' asl over Borrowby, and Barry/Katharine Balkwill, 12,500' asl 10 km to the NW of Ripon in their Janus C. All three flights visited the Masham, Ripon, Pateley Bridge areas with Paul adding on Leyburn and Wetherby to cover 225 OLC km, while Barry and Andy/Katharine flew 160 km and 145 km respectively. The other flights climbing over 5,000' asl were Maxwell Miller in his LS6, 9,000' asl over the Forward Ridge, Sharon Kerby in her ASW 28t and Barry Monslow in his LS8t-18, 7,700' asl, both local, Roger Burghall in Astir DSU, 7,400' asl 10 km NE of site, Steve Ogden in his Discus, 7,100' asl 9 km NW of site, Andreas Rieder in the DG500 first with Henry Applegarth 6,400' asl 6 km E of Carlton Bank and then with Rob Cruickshank 5,100' asl between Sutton and Thirsk, and finally Jamie Quartermaine/Andy Milner, 5,700' asl over the Forward Ridge in K21 JVZ. Most of the above flights contacted the wave straight of AT on a good wave soaring day at Sutton.
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.