Thursday 21st to Friday 22nd August 2025
Posted: 23/08/2025 20:39
Thursday 21st. The moderate NNE'ly slowly declined to become light, the initially complete cloud cover slowly breaking up to give occasional brighter periods, without the change providing much in the way of soaring opportunities. Consequently, the 22 ATs off runway 02 only led to 3 flights of over 30 minutes with none over an hour. The launch total included 8 for First Flight pupils and 5 by private owners, with visitors Malcolm Guard and Pat Fowler having 2 flights each and Scott Kennedy one, Pat in his Astir CS having 34 minutes on his second flight in which he climbed to 4,300' asl. Earlier, Graham Spelman in Astir DSU had 31 minutes, with Andreas Rieder/Howard Barber in K21 KLW having the longest flight of the day, 41 minutes, climbing to 3,800', thermal activity being weak and mainly confined to the area over the valley just to the east of site. The Falke added two flights to the day's total, James Shaw/Matt Oaks on one of them visiting Sherriff Hutton and Stonegrave.
Friday 22nd. The wind had backed into the NW but remained light to moderate and with brighter skies the launch total of 30 off runway 24, which included 7 for First Flight pupils and 4 for private owners, resulted in 9 flights of over 30 minutes of which 5 were over an hour. The Falke also had a couple of flights, the longest of which saw Paul Whitehead/Matt Oakes visit Tockwith, Wetherby South and Harrogate North. While most of the glider flights of over an hour stayed relatively local, Bob Calvert in his Discus2 ct, after an initial engine burn to get to sunnier skies to the NW, visited Northallerton, Aysgarth and Masham while spending a significant part of his flight in-between Tontine and Northallerton. The day's best altitude was around 5,000' asl with average peak climb rates around 3.5 kts, with the majority of soaring flights coming mid afternoon onwards as sunnier skies developed locally. Paul Whitehead/Sereat Bobian in the DG500 set the ball rolling with1:03 from their 15:02 launch, with Peter Crawley in his ASH 31 MI having 3:20, but as Pete didn't leave a Flarm trace I don't know where he went. Visitors Pat Fowler in his Astir CS and Malcolm Guard in his Vega 15 both had about 2 hrs local flying, staying within +/- 10 km of site and the same can be said of Andreas Rieder/Malcolm Morgan, who, flying K21 KLW off the last launch of the day had 1:07, landing back on runway 02. The longest of Graham Spelman's three flights in Astir DSU saw him join the soaring list with 37 minutes.
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.