Thursday 23rd to Friday 24th October 2025
Posted: 25/10/2025 17:34
Thursday 23rd. The site was on the periphery of storm Benjamin which tracked across Southern England, and, as a consequence, missed the heavy rain and strong winds which affected the southern half of the UK and northern France. However, it was a day of moderate to fresh NW'ly winds, low cloud and bits and pieces of rain so there was no flying.
Friday 24th. The wind had become an initially light WNW'ly but then increased to moderate and, with initially sunny skies, Bob Calvert in his Discus 2ct took the first of 11 ATs off runway 24 before launching changed to winching in the early afternoon, with 12 being flown. A combination of mainly hill lift, with wave and some thermal, led to 18 of the day's flights exceeding 30 minutes, with 14 of these exceeding an hour. Pilots staying local relied mainly on hill soaring the home bowl and main W'ly ridge up to High Paradise Farm, with the Forward and Kepwick ridges also visited, but local wave enabled climbs to around 3,000' asl. hill soaring generating operating heights of typically 500 - 900' QFE. Greater than an hour pilots staying local included visitors Julian Ingram, twice in his LS4, Barney Wainwright also twice in his DG300, Tim Gullie in his ASW 19 and Nobby Noble/Chris Hensman twice in K21 KVZ. YGC pilots in this list were Charles Frenchville, twice in Astir DPO, Chris Handzlik in his DG300, Neil Paverley in the Discus and Paul Whitehead/Suzie Forers in the DG500. Bob Calvert in his Discus 2ct and Fred Brown in his Ventus 2ct both progressed to stronger wave to the west, Fred contacting south of Topcliffe and Bob near Dishforth. Both progressed to the central Yorkshire Dales area, Bob via Reeth with a climb to 8,900' asl near Hawes and then to Garsdale Head, after having to use his engine to avoid a landout near Masham when down to 2,000' asl. Fred journeyed W via Ripon, climbing to 9,200'asl to the NW of Pateley Bridge before returning to site after covering 116 OLC km.
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.