Sunday 19th to Monday 20th July 2026
Posted: 20/07/2026 21:53
Sunday 19th, An early morning overcast soon broke up to give a reasonable thermal soaring day, the 19 ATs and 1 self launch off runway 02 giving rise to 10 flights of over 30 minutes with 6 of these over an hour, the wind being a moderate NNW'ly that slowly veered into the NNE, bringing in sea air late in the day.. 5 private owners flew and there were 5 flights for First Flight pupils, with 2 pilots flying XC:s. Dean Crosby in his LS10t completed a 303 km O/R to Belvoir Castle and Steve Thompson a 259 km O/R to Southwell Minister in his Ventus bt. Both pilots climbed to 4,800' asl during their flights, with Dean finding a peak average climb rate of 5.7 kts. Conditions were not as good locally, with peak altitudes clustering around 4-4,500' asl and peak average climb rates around 3-3,5 kts. The local > an hour flights were flown by a mixture of private owners and those in club gliders, with Pete Crawley in his ASH 31M having 1:40 that included an engine burn, Chris Handzlik in his DG300 having 1:11, and Adam Sayer in his ASW19 having 2:11. Sarah Stubbs/Becca Fletcher in K21 JVZ had exactly an hour, while Toby Wilson/Spencer Bailey had 51 minutes in the DG1000.
Monday 20th. It was sunny from the start of the flying day, with the light to moderate NNE'ly leading to the use of runway 02 for take off and landing. Cumulus were soon evident over the N Yorks Moors and Pennines, but those setting off on early XC's had to contend with initially blue conditions over the Vale of York. It turned into a very good thermal soaring day, with peak altitudes over Lincolnshire of over 7,000'asl and peak average climb rates of up to 6.5 kts. Consequently, the day's 29 ATs and 2 self launches realised 22 flights of 30 minutes or more with 18 of these over an hour while 9 XC's were flown, 5 of these being over 300 km. Dean Crosby in his LS10t flew a 400 km task with TPs at Saltby NW, Doncaster NW and Bolsover W, with Peter Crawley in his ASH 31M flying 398 OLC km with TPs at Oakham E and Garforth. Fred Brown in his Ventus ct and Les Rayment in his DG808 both flew a 304 km O/R to Grantham, while Chris Handzlik flew a 303 km O/R to Belvoir Castle in his DG303. Other > 300 km pilots were Neil Paveley in his Nimbus 2, who flew 321 OLC km on an O/R to Bingham, to the east of Nottingham, and Rob Bailey in his ASG29t, whose 342 OLC km O/R to Saltby included a straight glide of 83 km. Toby Wilson decided to abandon a planned task to fly a convergence to the SE of the site in his Std Cirrus and was rewarded with a handicapped speed of 104 kph as he flew 182 km, starting at Sutton Control Point N, turning Sutton on Forest and North Duffield and finishing at Sutton. Martyn Johnson in his DG600 was another pilot ot abandon his declared task, this time, due to large blue holes but flew 166 km with TPs at Burn, Garforth and Goole N. Private owners flying locally for > an hour included Sanjay Nath in his Std Cirrus, 1:57, Steve Scothern in his Discus t, 2:03 and Steve Ogden in his Discus, 2:24, his flight including a couple of forays to the Tontine TP. Pete Goodchild's 3:18 flight in his Discus bt may have been another XC but his Flarm Trace is too poor to provide any useful information. Those flying club gliders for > an hour locally included Andreas Rieder who accounted for 3 of them in K21 JVZ, first with Stephen Morgan, 1:03, then with Phillip Holland, 1:13., and finally with Andrew Bedford, 1:04, while Maxwell Miller had 2:15 in the Discus on a good soaring day at Sutton.
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.