Thursday 1st October 2026
Posted: 02/10/2026 11:02
Thursday 1st. Another good soaring day at Sutton, with cloud base rising to around 6,000' asl and average peak climb rates of 4-5 kts, as a moderate WSW'ly blew. The 27 ATs off runway 24 comprised 2 for First Flight pupils and 15 for private owners. delivering 22 > 30 minute flights of which 16 were over an hour, 7 of the latter associated with XC flights. Greater than an hour flights ranged from Andreas Rieder/Steve Scothern's 1:05 in K21 JVZ flown locally but with a trip to Kepwick included, and visitor Graham Morris' 4:20 as he flew his Ventus 2cxt 203 OLC km around North Yorkshire with visits to Helmsley (twice), Boroughbridge, Harrogate N (twice), Knaresborough (twice), Thirsk, Wetherby and Sutton, concluding his flight with spell of hill soaring along the main W'ly ridge, Wandering around N Yorkshire appeared to to be the flavour of the day for a number of the pilots flying XC, although some extended into W and S Yorkshire with the Ripon/Knaresborough/Boroughbridge areas being favoured. Beau Basson in his ASW20 also visited Harrogate N, Pontefract, York and Wetherby S, covering 201 OLC km and Chris Teagle in his LS8t-18 added on Wetherby S, Rufforth, Sutton on Forest and Northallerton to cover 147 OLC km, while also finding some transient wave over Kepwick. Rob Bailey in his ASG29 also visited Garforth in his 166 OLC km flight and Steve Thompson in his Ventus bt bucked the trend by visiting Burn, Malton and North Duffield while covering 217 OLC km. Fred Brown in his Ventus 2ct and Dean Crosby in his LS10t both spent time in the Ripon area trying to make use of the transient wave lift they encountered there without much success, with Fred incorporating a cloud climb to 7,500' asl into his flight and extending it to visit the Pateley Bridge area and covering 124 OLC km with Dean covering 110 OLC km. All the other > an hour pilots stayed local. with Steve Ogden in his Discus retreating to the main bowl when down to 300' QFE, gaining back to 700' QFE in hill lift and then finding a thermal that took him to his peak altitude of 4,800' asl during his 2:30 flight.
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.