Thursday 24th to Friday 25th July 2025
Posted: 26/07/2025 12:28
Thursday 24th. A day of sunny intervals, as the moderate NNE'ly slowly backed into the WNW and declined to light, provided some weak thermal conditions that resulted in 4 flights of over 30 minutes with none over an hour, the club two seaters being busy with 9 First Flight pupils. The day's longest flight saw Fred Brown/Ryan Parker have 54 minutes of local soaring in K21 KLW with a best altitude of 4,100' asl, this also being attained by Neil Amos in Astir DSU during his 37 minute flight. Andreas Rieder/David Scolfor had 46 minutes in the DG1000, managing to operate between 2600' and 3,500' asl for a while in weak thermals after having taken a high tow, while Andreas, with one of the day's First Flight pupils, had 33 minutes in the DG500. The day's 20 ATs off runway 02 were complemented by 2 sorties in the Falke. One of our Juniors, James Horton, recently visited RAF Fairford to attend their air show and swapped a seat in a glider for the captain's seat in a Hercules as the following photo shows. Looking good James.
Friday 25th. The wind had become a light to moderate W'ly with somewhat stronger thermal conditions than Thursday and even some wave if you knew where to go, with the result that the day's 36 AT's off runway 24 resulted in 15 flights of over 30 minutes including 11 over an hour. Most of those having > an hour soaring stayed local, but Steve Thompson in his Ventus 2bt flew a 210 km thermal task with TPs at Market Weighton, Pickering and Goole N, commenting on the poor visibility and low cloud base but with reliable and regular thermals. Bob Calvert in his Discus 2ct used his engine to get to primary wave at Malastang near Kirkby Steven (see photo), subsequently climbing to 10,000' asl and visiting areas N of Harrogate, ESE of Leyburn and WSW of Tockwith before returning to site after 8 hours and 245 OLC kms.
Those other pilots with > an hours soaring included Austin Hartland in Astir DSU, 1:24, Steve Scothern in his Discus t, 1:16, Clive Swain in his Kestrel 19, 4:36, John Marsh in his DG303, 1:32, Steve Ogden in his Discus, 1:20, Eileen Scothern in her Discus t, and Tony Drury in his DG303, 1:12. Average peak climb rates were typically 3-4 kts, with the local cloud base 3,500-4,000' asl. Among all this activity, 5 First Flight pupils were flown.
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.