Wednesday 21st August 2024
Posted: 22/08/2024 11:46
August 21st. The moderate WSW'ly continued to blow, so it was another day of winching off runway 24 with 21 launches leading to 11 flights of 30 minutes or more with 7 of these over an hour. Increasingly cloudy skies progressively limited thermal activity, but hill and wave lift provided soaring opportunities with 2 good wave climbs and associated XCs achieved. Fred Brown in his Ventus 2ct and Bob Calvert in his Discus 2ct were the wave/XC pilots though both had to be patient before contacting the wave, typically spending a couple of hours in hill and thermal before both contacting the wave some 7km SE of Northallerton. Fred eventually climbed to 11,100' and Bob 10,200', both asl, with Fred spending the rest of his 3:56 flight in the Boroughbridge/Topcliffe area and covering 108 OLC km in total, while Bob flew to or near, Ripon, Harrogate, Wetherby, Kettlewell and East Keswick during his 4:34 flight, covering an estimated 180 kms. The rest of the pilots to have over an hour soaring did so using hill and thermal lift with the former generally keeping heights at 700-1,100' QFE and thermals to 2,500' - 3,000' asl, although Neil Paveley in the 1st of his 2 flights in the Discus climbed to 3,400' asl. Other > an hour pilots included visitors Rob Johnson/Jim Pereria in their DG1000t who had 1:29, Bruce Grain/Sarah ? who had 1:07 in K21 JVZ during which they visited the forward ridge and Boltby and found a touch of wave, John Carter/Roger Taylor in K21 KLW with 1:03 hill soaring the main W'ly ridge back and forth to High Paradise Farm, while Dean Crosby in his LS10t also had to be content with 50 minutes of hill soaring as the wave proved to be difficult to contact.
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.