Saturday 24th to Sunday 25th June 2023
Posted: 25/06/2023 16:47
Saturday 24th. A moderate SW veered into the W as the day progressed, with a cloudy start giving way to sunny intervals and lift in the form of thermal, hill and wave, the former for most and the latter for a few. The day's 30 ATs off runway 24, 20 or 24 being used for landing, led to 14 flights of 30 minutes or more with 9 of these of over an hour. 12 private owners launched, including 5 by visitors, contributing all but 2 of the >1 hr flights, Tomer Altman in Astir DPO and Chris Collingham/Naomi Kennard in K21 JVZ providing the other 2. Tomer used thermal for his 2:50 flight maintaining 2,600-3,600' asl, while Chris/Naomi had just over an hour later in the day. Those using thermal lift had to be content with maximum altitudes of around 3,500' asl, but 3 pilots contacted wave to climb to between 7,900' and 11,700' asl. Bob Calvert used the engine of his Discus 2ct to contact the wave over Boltby and climb to 6,300' asl, getting to 8,500' asl over Topcliffe and 10,900' over the A1 just north of Dishforth. Bob then proceeded westwards passing near to Pateley Bridge, Aysgarth and Selset reservoir and then via Tebay and Shap to Bassenthwaite, climbing to his maximum altitude of 11,700' asl, from where he flew a 100 km final glide back to site, arriving after a flight of 7:18. A photo from the flight is shown below.
Fred Brown in his Ventus ct, also used his engine to contact the wave over Knayton, reaching his max altitude of 8,300' asl 5,5 km NE of Boroughbridge. Fred also went westwards but limited his journey to 12 km NW of Ripon. The other wave bound pilot, Darren Lodge in his LS8-18 had a very different route into the wave. 2 hours on the SW'ly facing part of the main bowl was followed by 2 hours of thermal flying with the wave eventually contacted over Thirsk, resulting in a climb to 7,900' asl and a total flight time similar to Bob's. The pilots using thermal based soaring flights generally stayed local, with Kelly Teagle having 1:32 in her Kestrel 19 and visitor Tim Tennant having two flights of 1:50 and 1:20 in his Discus. Martin/Albert Newbery in their DG1000t had a number of low points during their 2:12 flight in thermal, particularly struggling to get a climb over Easingwold in order to get back to Sutton. Among all the above activity, the Falke did an O/R to the Pateley Bridge area.
Sunday 25th. A moderate to moderate to fresh SSE'ly slowly backed into the S, so operations were off runway 20 with K21 JVZ, the DG500 and Astir DPO flown. JVZ did not provide a Flarm trace, so I have no details of its flights other than durations, which averaged out at around 20 minutes, 4 of these being for First Flight pupils with Simon Altman as P1. The day's ATs off runway 20 totalled 11, with Malcolm Morgan/Lincoln Emmons having the only flight of over an hour, their 1:17 being the result of finding and using 3 thermals to climb to 4,200' asl. Malcolm/Lincoln had earlier had one of the day's 2 > 30 minute flights, their 37 minutes including a weak thermal that slowed their descent from 3,200' to 2,800' asl. The other > 30 minute flight was by Steve Thompson/James Horton who had 40 minutes by using an area of reduced sink over the gulley to the east of the site.
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.