Saturday 19th September 2026
Posted: 20/09/2026 14:42
Saturday 19th. A moderate to fresh WSW'ly blew all day, with the 19 winch launches off runway 24 encountering hill, thermal and, for some, wave lift, resulting in 15 flights exceeding 30 minutes, with 7 of these over an hour, The longest, in terms of duration and distance, and also in altitude reached, was by Dean Crosby in his LS10t. Dean used thermal to progress westwards to Masham, enountering wave just to the N of the town that eventually took him to 12,200' asl just to the east of Reeth. Dean turned for home after flying just to the NW of the town and landed back after just over 5 hours, covering 146 OLC km in the process. All the other soaring pilots stayed local. with wave contacted over or close to site, quite often after a extended period of local hill/thermal soaring, their wave climbs limited to just over 5,000' asl. These criteria applied to Martyn Johnson in his DG600, with 1:20 of local soaring before a climb to 5,800' asl in his 4:04 flight, and Fred Brown in his Ventus 2ct, his 1:5 of local soaring preceding a climb to 5,500' asl. Martyn followed his wave climb with an O/R to Thimbleby. Steve Thompson in his Ventus bt and Clive Swain in his Kestrel 19 also climbed to over 5,000' asl, with Steve getting to 5,100' asl during his 2:41 flight and Clive to 5,600' asl in his 4:22 flight, both with local wave assistance. Adam Sayer in his ASW19 and Kelly Teagle in her LS8t-18 didn't contact wave during their 2:40 and 1:24 flights, but did climb to 4,400' asl and 4,200' asl in thermal respectively, as well as using the local ridges to soar. The longest flight in a club glider was 0:53 minutes, achieved by both Toby Wilson/Adam Dransfield-Duckworth and John Marsh/Naomi Kennard, both flying in K21 JVZ, again via a combination of hill and thermal lift.
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.