Sunday 20th September 2026
Posted: 21/09/2026 17:30
Sunday 20th. The wind had become a moderate to fresh WNW'ly, the day's sunny intervals accompanying hill, thermal and wave lift with 24 flights of over 30 minutes, of which 16 were over an hour, the launch total of 29 comprising 23 winch, 5 ATs and 1 self launch off runway 24. Thermal soaring was the norm for most, supplemented by hill lift, although Steve Thompson in his Ventus bt, used hill lift supplemented by thermal to twice fly an O/R to Guisborough W via the Tontine, extending the first visit to Guisborough W to the east coast at Saltburn from where the following photos were taken. The first is the view S and the second the view N. with Steve covering 160 km.
Wave lift was also used, with 6 pilots climbing to over 5,000' asl with 3 of these over 10,000' asl. The > 10,000' asl pilots included Dean Crosby in his LS10t who reached 10,200' asl during his 5:23 flight after contacting wave near Masham, and going on to fly 203 OLC km after turning E just before reaching Kirkby Stephen Station and then concluding his flight with a visit to Guisborough W and a return to site via Tontine. Fred Brown in his Ventus 2ct and visitor Graham Morris in his Ventus 2cxt were the other > 10,000' asl pilots, Fred climbing to 11,700' asl on his flight of 181 OLC km in the Ripon, Kettlewell, Skipton area, while Graham reached 11,400' asl and covered 148 OLC km as he explored the area to the W of RAF Leeming as far W as Reeth, having contacted wave just N of Northallerton. The other wave soaring pilots were Chris Teagle in his LS6t-18 who reached 7,100' asl after having to resort to his engine near Dishforth, but continued his flight using thermal and hill lift before contacting wave near Northallerton, and Nigel Burke who took his DG808 to 7,900' asl and visited the Masham/Ripon area before landing back after a detour to Northallerton and Tontine. Nigel's syndicate partner, Les Rayment, had earlier run into the same dead area near Dishforth as Chris Teagle had in his LS8t-18, with the same result, recourse to his engine but unlike Chris didn't contact wave as he continued his thermal based flight in the Ripon area to land back after just over 2 hours. All the other soaring flights remained local with cloud base around 4,500' asl and average peak thermal strengths around 3,.5 kts, while hill soaring heights were typically 700' - 1,300' QFE. Charles Frenchville had the longest flight in a club single seater, 2:07, while Kelly Teagle/Sam Stinson had the longest in a club 2 seater, 1:18.
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.