Saturday 28th August 2021
Posted: 29/08/2021 15:28
Saturday 28th. In spite of apparently little change to the synoptic situation with the High Pressure feeding in a light breeze from the the North Sea, Saturday had sunny blue skies and Cumulus instead of the low overcast that has hindered flying over the past few days. Consequently, it was a very busy day at site, with 64 ATs mainly off runway 06, with landings mainly on 02, the launch total including 25 by private owners with 8 of these by visitors attending the start of Slingsby Week. As a result, the usual monochrome white of modern gliders was interspersed and brightened by the more colourful gliders of yesteryear. Flying got underway around 1045 hrs with Toby Wilson taking the first of 5 First Flight pupils for 32 minutes in K21 KLW, setting the scene for the rest of the day, as 33 flights exceeded 30 minutes with 24 of these exceeding an hour. As I did not have access to post flight traces, I am unable to fully document the cross country flying on the day, which undoubtedly there was. The only evidence comes from the National Ladder, where 2 flights were registered, and from the land out of Chris Booker in his LS1 at Pocklington, with a subsequent AT retrieve. The available information points to a day of an initial low cloud base which steadily improved to peak at around 5,000' asl. The two pilots to put their flights on the National Ladder were Chris Teagle, who flew his Kestrel 19 to Kirton in Lindsey and back, 189 km, and Darren Lodge, who visited Market Weighton in his LS8 18, covering 103 km. Darren had the longest flight of the day, 4:06 hrs, with Derek Taylor in his ASW22 having exactly 4 hrs, 4 pilots having between 3-4 hrs and 7 having between 2-3 hrs. Those having more an hour or more flying club aircraft included Ben Dawson with 1:37 in the DG303, 1;17 by Bruce Grain/Amelia Forrester in K21 JVZ, 1:14 by Ian Pattingdale/Marek Potrzyk in K21 KLW and exactly an hour by Fred Brown and Mike Collins in the DG1000 and by Julian Gerretsen flying KLW solo. Saturday, 28th of August was certainly a bright spot in a rather disappointing August from a soaring point of view.
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.