Sunday 14th to Monday 15th July 2024
Posted: 16/07/2024 14:18
Sunday 14th. A light and decreasing NNW'ly slowly veered into the N accompanied by low cloud and rain at times so there was no flying.
Monday 15th. Early cloud cleared to provide a thermal soaring day that was shortened by increasingly overcast skies as a light to moderate SE'ly blew. 26 launches were flown off runway 20, resulting in 14 flights of over 30 minutes of which 9 were over an hour. with a number of cross countries flown. Cloud base was eventually around 4,000' asl and average peak thermal strengths around 2,5-3 kts, with some pilots electing to do cloud climbs, Clive Swain's climb in his Kestrel 19 to 6,400' asl being the highest of the day. Clive also posted the longest flight of the day, 5:04, during which he visited Stamford Bridge and Tontine before soaring locally. Fred Brown in his Ventus 2ct, Bob Calvert in his Discus 2ct and Toby Wilson in his Std Cirrus also departed the site, Fred visiting Rufforth, passing between Wetherby and Tockwith and returning to site via Boroughbridge, Bob visiting Pocklington, North Dufield, getting to within 5 km of Burn and then spending time around Slingsby, while Toby went SE to the Malton area and made use of a convergence. Les Rayment in his DG800, Dean Crosby in his LS10t and John Ellis in his DG800 also flew cross countries, but indicative of the day, they all had to use their engines at some point in their flight. Les used his near Pocklington on an O/R to Market Weighton, Dean near Malton before continuing on his flight to Northallerton and Tontine and John overhead Pocklington after visiting Hemsley and continuing on to North Duffield before indulging in some local soaring on returning to site. The other > an hour pilots all stayed local, as did Steve Ogden during his 45 minutes in Astir DSU, with Sarah Stubbs contributing the longest 2 seater flight if the day as she gave one of the day's 3 First Flight pupils 32 minutes in K21 KLW.
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.