Tuesday 10th to Friday 13th March 2020
Posted: 13/03/2020 19:45
Tuesday 10th. A fresh and gusty SW'ly blew all day, a little rain and general cloudiness clearing later in the day, but this didn't improve the prospects for flying.
Wednesday 11th. The moderate to fresh SSW'ly wind soon increased to fresh, with gusts into the mid 40kts during the middle part of the day, this being otherwise dry with sunny intervals. The wind strength later declined to moderate, but too late to allow any flying.
Thursday 12th. Heavy rain overnight led to a very wet airfield, but this was of little consequence as the main obstacle to flying was again the wind strength, the SW'ly increasing from moderate/fresh to fresh as it became increasingly gusty, peak gusts being in the mid to high 40 kts.
Friday 13th. The wind had veered into the NNW and become light to moderate as blue skies initially prevailed. However the sun was soon obscured by an overcast and an early AT off runway 02 by Steve Thompson and Tony Kirby in K21 KLW found the cloud base to be 850' QFE, so a landing was made after 5 minutes, just behind Dave Campbell in the Eurofox. Continuation of the cloudy conditions and some light rain meant no more flying until after lunch, when brighter skies and broken cloud saw Steve and David Eccles launch in KLW for a 13 minute flight. They were followed by George Rowden and the first of the 2 First Flight pupils of the day in K21 JVZ, the, by now, well broken cloud allowing a tow to 3,000' QFE and a flight of 26 minutes, helped by some weak thermal, cloudbase being around 1800' QFE. This proved to be the longest flight of the day, with Bruce Grain and Tony Kirby's flight of 25 minutes in JVZ being the only other one to exceed 20 minutes. Thereafter, the cloud became more extensive with a lower base as the wind progressively veered into the NE, so flight times were in the range 13 -20 minutes, with the last of the day's 10 ATs landing on runway 06. Tony Drury was the only solo pilot on the day, having 20 minutes in the Discus.
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.