Saturday 8th August 2026
Posted: 08/08/2026 21:39
Saturday 8th. A moderate to moderate to fresh SSE'ly steadily veered into the SW on a blue day with thermals topping out around 6,000' asl and average peak climb rates around 4-5 kts. The blue conditions were not attractive to most pilots, with the 22 ATs and 1 self launch only resulting in 3 XC of >100km, although 12 flights exceeded 30 minutes with 11 of these over an hour. Rob Bailey in his ASG29t, Martin Newbery in his Ventus ct and Les Rayment in his DG808 were the XC pilots. Rob recovered from a 1,400' asl low point shortly after release before completing a 316 OLC km O/R to Saltby that included a 56 km final glide and a peak altitude of 6,800' asl, while Les and Martin flew the same declared 202 km task with TPs at Northallerton, Garforth and Beverley. Steve Scothern with 1:21 and Eileen Scothern with 1:28 flew their Discus t on similar flights, both doing an O/R to within 4-7 km of Rufforth, with distances covered being 79 and 81 OLC km respectively, Dave McKinney in his ASW27 was also just under the 100 OLC km distance with 94 km flown during his 2:42 flight, the result of visiting Easingwold, Thirsk and just beyond Kirkbymoorside. Spencer Bailey had 1:35 flying the DG500 solo, with Andy Tyas having 1:20 in Astir DSU while the only dual flight to exceed 30 minutes came on the last flight of the day, with Andreas Rieder giving the last of the day's 8 First Flight pupils 34 minutes in K21 JVZ. Peter Goodchild, competing in Competition Enterprise at Rufforth, completed a task of 161 km with TPs at Burn and Darlton.
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.