Tuesday 6th to Wednesday 7th February 2024
Posted: 08/02/2024 11:12
Tuesday 6th. A cold front moving south brought rain in the early morning with its associated cloud not clearing until mid afternoon, the moderate to fresh WSW'ly wind veering into the NW and slowly declining to become light as the front departed. Consequently, there was no flying.
Wednesday 7th. A light and variable, but essentially WSW to NW wind blew all day under a high, thin overcast, with some very isolated Cumulus appearing before thicker medium level cloud arrived mid afternoon. With poor weather forecast for the rest of the week, the launch point was busy from just after 1000 hrs to 1600 hrs with 25 ATs off runway 24, landings being on runway 20. In the absence of any significant lift, most flights were back on the ground after 14-18 minutes, but 7 flights managed over 20 minutes and 2 over 30 minutes, as the result of finding areas of zero sink or even weak lift, flight times sometimes being aided by high tows. The two pilots to extend their flight over 30 minutes were George Rowden in the Discus and Clive Swain, flying the DG500 solo. George's 37 minute flight made use of an area of weak lift just to the SW of site that saw him maintain 1,400' -1,600' QFE for the majority of the flight, while Clive's 31 minutes was flown mainly just to the east of Thirsk, a very slow descent from his release at 2,500' QFE to 1,500' QFE being followed by a return to site. The DG500 was rigged and test flown by John Carter/Dave McKinney after returning from its ARC before Clive's flight and the DG1000 was derigged in readiness for its transport to North Yorkshire Sailplanes for its ARC. In addition to the above activity, the Falke had 3 flights, one of which involved a trip into the Dales.
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.