Saturday 13th June 2026
Posted: 14/06/2026 11:08
Saturday 13th. A moderate and at times moderate to fresh W'ly blew all day, so winching was the order of the day, with 14 off runway 24, leading to 13 flights of over 30 minutes, with 10 of these over an hour. Lift from hill, thermal and wave was available, but the latter was only fully utilised by 2 pilots, Martyn Johnson in his DG600 getting to 9,200' asl and Yurii Kozheurov climbing to 9,800' asl after contacting the wave just SW of site. Both pilots spent 3-3.5 hrs of local hill/thermal soaring before contacting the wave, Martyn contacting between Topcliffe and Masham and then exploring the Ripon/Knaresborough area before climbing to his peak altitude between Boroughbridge and Sutton on Forest. All the other soaring flights used a combination of hill and thermal lift with the main W'ly ridge and the Forward Ridge favoured, although Dean Crosby in his LS10t flew an O/R to Carlton Bank via Tontine, finding some weak wave near Tontine. Operating heights on the ridges were generally from 700'-1500'QFE, but Toby Wilson in his Std Cirrus had a below ridge height low over Gormire during his 1:40 local flight. The other > an hour flights were by Bas Sonneveld in his LS4, Phillip Morgan/James Minx in their Janus C, first Tony Drury and then John Marsh in their DG303, Darren Lodge in his LS8-18, Sarah Stubbs/Ben Dawson in L21 KLW and Clive Swain/Konrad Kawalec in K21 JVZ.
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.