Tuesday 29th to Wednesday 30th July 2025
Posted: 31/07/2025 16:27
Tuesday 29th. A light to moderate NW'ly blew all day, a bright start to the day not lasting very long as cloud cover increased in response to a weak front making slow progress eastwards. Consequently, soaring opportunities were limited with only 3 flights of over 30 minutes, including 1 over an hour. Astir pilots Tomer Altman in DSU and Neil Amos in DPO headed the list, Tomer having 1:27 and Neil 42 minutes, with Tomer climbing to 3,700' asl and having a best climb rate of 2.7 kts. The remaining soaring flight was by John Forrester with one of the day's 7 First Flight pupils, their 32 minutes being flown in the DG500. The day's flying included a flight by James Shaw/Alex Sariban in the Falke, with failed launch and field landing excercises plus Touch and Go's off runway 24 on the menu.
Wednesday 30th. The wind had become a light to moderate/ moderate WNW'ly so operations were via AT off runway 24, with the occasional landing on 20. The usual choppiness at the end of the runway with this wind direction kept pilots on their toes, while the thermal conditions resulted in 4 private owner launches and moderate XC's, with 6 flights over 30 minutes, of which 4 were over an hour. Each of the private owners who launched had over an hour, Bob Calvert's 5:48 being the longest as he explored the Pennines for wave without finding anything in particular. A couple of cloud climbs took him to 6,900' asl as he explored areas around Masham, Hawes, Tontine, Northallerton and Boroughbridge. Fred Brown in his Ventus 2ct also went looking for wave in the Ripon area, but like Bob didn't find much, his cloud climb taking him to 6,000' asl. Fred's syndicate partner, James Prosser, later took the glider for a 4 hour local exploration between Northallerton and Boroughbridge, climbing to 7,000' asl during the first half of the flight when he never went below 4,000' asl, in contrast with the second half of the flight when he never climbed above 3,500' asl. Dean Crosby in his LS10t, initially flew to the Ripon/Pateley Bridge area wave hunting but, not finding any, flew back east, eventually getting as far as Guisborough W after an earlier O/R to Carlton Bank and joining the cloud climb brigade with one to 6,000'. The 2 other soaring flights were both in K21 KLW with Andreas Rieder as P1, with each lasting 55 minutes.. Andreas' first was with Lee Makings, their best climb to 5,200' asl being in a strong thermal with an average climb rate of 7.5 kts while his second, with George Rowden, was a much more quiescent affair, but with some late afternoon, clear air lift over and just upwind of the site.
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.