Tuesday 27th to Friday 30th April 2021
Posted: 30/04/2021 20:15
Tuesday 27th. A light to moderate wind varying between ESE and NE saw the majority of the day's 4 ATs in K21 KLW use runway 06, with landings split evenly between runways 06 and 02. A few showers on the day did not interfere with operations, the main limitation to flying being a lack of members. The unstable conditions did provide some opportunities for soaring and while nobody climbed above launch height, John Carter and Tony Wiseman with 32 minutes and Bruce Grain and Josh Abbey? with 45 minutes made the most of what lift there was.
Wednesday 28th. A generally cloudy day as a light to moderate, chilly NE'ly blew encouraged only Falke pilots to fly, 4 excursions taking place with some evidence for thermal activity from one of the flight traces. As with Tuesday, a mixture of runways 06 and 02 were used for take offs and landings.
Thursday 29th. The light to moderate, chilly flow continued, this time from the NNE, accompanied by a higher frequency of showers. Flying did not commence until after lunch and concluded after 3 launches off runway 02, all in K21 KLW. Nigel Burke and Les Rayment spent 34 minutes in each others company off the first flight of the day, while off the second, John Carter and John Dore climbed to the day's best altitude of 4,000' asl in their flight of 50 minutes. Steve Ogden, flying KLW solo, rounded of the day's flying with a 12 minute flight.
Friday 30th. Conditions were similar to those of Thursday except the lighter wind meant the more frequent showers were both slow moving and heavier but fortunately bypassed the airfield. 06 was the runway for the day's 11 ATs with runway 02 selected for landing for all but the last 2 flights of the day, Dave Thompson in the Astir preferring 20 and Bruce Grain and John Dore in K21 KLW 06. A large shower to the south of the airfield late in the afternoon led to the wind becoming S'ly. Initial flights found little in the way of lift and Martin and Albert Newbery in their DG1000t, taking off around 1100 hrs had to resort to their engine to remain airborne but later found 5 kts lift that took them to the day's best altitude of 4,300' asl and an allowed a trip to Carlton Bank via the Tontine and back. They reported cloud base to be very variable in their flight of 1:45. Soaring conditions improved in the afternoon with the day's other 3 flights to exceed 30 minutes occurring between take off times of 1303 hrs and 1356 hrs. Bruce Grain and Keith Davey started the ball rolling, or the variometer cheerfully chirping, with 40 minutes in K21 KLW, while Dave Thompson in the Astir with 1:51 and Bruce Grain and John Dore in KLW with 1:10 demonstrated the improved conditions, Dave getting to 4,000' asl and Bruce and John 3,800'asl.
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.