Saturday 24th to Monday 26th February 2024
Posted: 26/02/2024 21:33
Saturday 24th. A light SSW'ly blew all day, initially dispersing fog and low cloud from the surrounding Vales of York and Pickering and providing a quiet day's gliding, with little lift to find from the 14 ATs off runway 24, landings being on 20. Flight times were generally between 10-20 minutes, but a few pilots did manage to get over 20 minutes, mainly towards the end of the flying day. Sarah Stubbs flying K21 KLW solo, took a high tow and, with the help of some weak thermal extended her flight to 26 minutes, the best of the day. Sarah, on her first day flying as a qualified BI, also took 4 of the day's 5 First Flight pupils for a flight, including a 21 minute flight with one of them and, off the last flight of the day, flew a guest for 23 minutes, all the above flights being in K21 KLW. Jamie Quartermaine, flying with the remaining First Flight pupil, also had 23 minutes, but in K21 JVZ. The Falke had the longest flight of the day doing an O/R to the Egton Bridge area of the North York Moors.
Sunday 25th. A light and variable wind soon settled to become a light to moderate ESE'ly, so operations under a generally cloudy sky were off runway 20 with 22 ATs flown. Conditions again did not result in much meaningful lift being available, so flight times were generally a function of release height, with Toby Wilson/James Horton's 33 minutes in the DG500 resulting from a high tow, and while the first part of the flight included some spin training excercises, a weak thermal encountered later helped to extend the flight. Only two other flights exceeded 20 minutes, Fred Brown/Ryan Dimery-Seek having 21 minutes in K21 JVZ having encountered a couple of weak thermals and Malcolm Morgan in the DG500 also having 21 minutes with one of the day's 7 First Flight pupils.
Monday 26th. A showery, moderate N'ly blew all day, cloud base being around 1,200' QFE and, as a result, it was decided to to take advantage of the conditions and explore a preplanned operation of the winch off runway 02. Bruce Grain/John Carter flew the first 6 launches, the first 2 being full launches from the take off point just to the west of the clubhouse, yielding launch heights of around 800-900' QFE followed by left and right hand circuits. The next 4 launches explored straight ahead landings and right and left hand circuits all from simulated launch failures, all of which were successfully flown, although a notable wind shear existed at around 500' and the wind speed at launch height was 20-25 kts with a significant NW'ly component. On the first of Bruce and John's launches the possibility of lift on the southern end of the main bowl was explored, but none was found, so flight times from full launches were typically 3 minutes. John and George Rowden, on the second of their full launches, did find some lift under a cloud street enabling them to maintain 800' for a while and even climb back above launch height, but the downwind drift was such as to mean an early abandonment of the thermal and a return to land after 7 minutes. Thereafter, John Forrester, Bob Calvert, Tony Drury and Martin Newbery all experienced winch launches and simulated winch launch failures off runway 02, most for the first time, with either Bruce or Guy Harland as P1, all the day's flights being 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.