Saturday 2nd May 2026
Posted: 03/05/2026 11:44
Saturday 2nd. The high pressure had started to decline, with thin high cover progressively invading from the SW and Cumulus continuing to form underneath. Cloud base rose from around 3,200' asl to around 4,000' asl away from the site but remained around 3,200' asl locally, with moderate peak average climb rates locally but higher elsewhere of up to 3,5-4 kts, resulting in 22 of the day's 27 ATs off runway 24 leading to soaring flights of over 30 minutes, with 14 of these over an hour. The wind, initially light to moderate from the W, slowly declined to light as it veered into the WNW. 5 pilots flew XC, with Rob Bailey in his ASG29t completing a 260 OLC km task with TPs at Tontine, Beverley, York, Northallerton and a point 18km S of Sutton. Steve Thompson declared a 310 km task around Sheffield East, Northallerton and Sutton on Forest. but abandoned the task after Northallerton. to cover 224 km, while Peter Crawley's trace from his ASH 31M was not totally complete, but indicated a 209 OLC km task with TPs at or near Humber Bridge, Burn and Northallerton. Kelly Teagle in her LS8-18t flew a declared 116 km with TPs at Wetherby and Pocklington before deciding not to repeat the task under the weak conditions, while Beau Basson in his ASW20L almost completed his declared 101 km task around Pocklington and Rufforth S but landed out 5 km short of Sutton. All the day's other soaring flights stayed local, including all the other private owners who flew. being joined by those flying club gliders including Howard Manning in Astir DSU, 1:07. Yuri Kozheurov in the Discus, 1: 37, Sarah Stubbs/Duncan Pask in the DG1000, 2:10 and Clive Swain/Steven Carroll in K21 JVZ,1:00. Among all this activity 5 First Flight pupils were flown and the Falke had a single sortie while towards the end of the flying day, the club welcomed 3 gliders from Lleweni Parc, 2 Arcus M's and a JS 1B who had flown around 300 km to Sutton via Stoke on Trent and Sheffield or Wakefield on a sector of a round Britain task. They were joined at Sutton by the pilot of an HPH 304S Shark flown up from Gransden Lodge, a distance of 240 km.
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.