Tuesday 20th to Wednesday 21st September 2022
Posted: 21/09/2022 20:22
Tuesday 20th. A light and variable wind slowly became a light to moderate SSW'ly, the day being generally overcast with some weak thermal activity. Flying commenced off runway 24 around 1015hrs and continued until the last flight landed at 1550 hrs, the day's total of 16 ATs including 6 for private owners and 6 for First Flight pupils. 5 of the private owners had flights of over an hour, with the other private owner having 34 minutes, with weak thermal activity being utilised and maximum altitudes of 4,000' asl being reached. Later in the day, with the wind strengthening from the SSW. some hill soaring of the main bowl between Gormire Lake and the A170 was undertaken by Bob Calvert in his Discus 2ct, but this merely slowed down his rate of descent for a while but enabled him to extend his flight time to 1:43. Visitors Craig Lowrie in his DG800 and G Burtenshaw in his DG303 had 1:22 and 1:24 respectively, with Rob Bottomley having 1:11 in his Discus bt. The longest of the day's 2 seater flights was the 29 minutes by Dave Campbell with one of the day's First Flight pupils, while Andy Evans had 23 minutes flying Astir DSU off the last flight of the day.
Wednesday 21st. Clear blue skies with a light SE'ly wind opened the day, with flying from runway 20 starting at around 1015 hrs. Cloudy skies arrived from the SW around midday but still provided some thermal activity, while the wind veered into the SSW and strengthened to moderate, generating some hill lift both on the main and White Horse ridges with operations moving to runway 24 for the day's last 3 flights. The mixture of thermal and hill lift led to 4 flights of over an hour and a further 6 of between 30 and 60 minutes out of the day's total of 23. The 4 longer flights were all by private owners, with Bob Calvert in his Discus 2ct having the longest flight of 2:56, the first 70 minutes being in thermal with a trip to Boroughbridge and back, and the rest in hill lift, initially at around 1300 QFE helped by the occasional thermal, but at 700' QFE for the last 30 minutes. Visitor Craig Lowrie used thermal to fly around 100 kms, visiting York East, Easingwold and Boroughbridge in his DG800, a brief spell trying to soar the White Horse ridge preceding his landing, while his fellow visitor, G Burtenshaw in his DG303, soared the SSW facing section of the main bowl for 1:31 at around 800' QFE towards the end of the flying day. YGC member Ian Bullous had just over an hour in his DG800 in local thermal, although he did have to resort to his engine at one point in the flight. Chris Knapp flying Astir DSU and Bruce Grain/Dave Trouse in K21 FYF both had 38 minutes, Chris's being in thermal and Bruce/Dave's in hill lift off the last flight of the day, this including a trip to Boltby. Although thermals were weak, cloud base rose to around 4,500' asl during the best part of the day.
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.