Sunday 23rd to Tuesday 25th February 2025
Posted: 27/02/2025 16:09
Sunday 23rd. Multiple fronts crossing the UK led to a day of low cloud, rain from 1300 hrs and the moderate to fresh SSE veering into the S, so there was no flying.
Monday 24th. The wind had become a moderate WSW'ly and with a sunny start followed by broken cloud, winching off runway 24 commenced with Fred Brown in his Ventus 2ct launching into consistent hill lift before spending 4:18 flying the main W ridge and using ridge and thermal to get to the Tontine looking for wave. Some weak, transient wave lift was found but with limited climbs to 4,400' asl. 3 other pilots soared for over an hour, Dean Crosby in Astir DPO, Paul Whitehead in Astir DSU and Bob Calvert also in DSU, with visits to the Kepwick and the forward ridges, Thirsk, Borrowby and High Paradise Farm included. 12 other flights had over 30 minutes, with the longest being 52 minutes by Martin Newbery in Astir FSH, followed by a bunch of flights over 40 minutes with Ian McFarlane/Sanjay Naith's 47 minutes in the DG500 being the longest.
Tuesday 25th. The moderate WSW'ly continued to blow, so it was another winch launching day off runway 24, although launching reverted to ATs in the late morning with 3 of these adding to the 20 via the winch. Soaring was mainly via hill lift with some thermal, allowing 9 flights to exceed 30 minutes with 5 of these over an hour. Steve Thompson in his Ventus 2bt was the only private owner to fly and his 2,900' asl peak altitude was the highest of the day and his 1:42 the longest flight. Hill soaring was primarily in the 700' to 1300' QFE band with the main W'ly ridge flown as far north as High Paradise Farm. The other > an hour pilots were Dean Crosby in Astir DPO, Bob Beck/Duncan Pask in the DG500, Austin Hartland first in Astir DSU via an AT and then in DPO via the winch and finally Bruce Grain/Stephen Kellerher in K21 JVZ. 3 flights in the Falke completed the day's aviating.
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.