Wednesday 4th June 2025
Posted: 05/06/2025 12:25
Wednesday 4th. The WSW'ly wind had increased in strength to moderate to fresh with 30 kt gusts, so it was again a winching day, with 19 launches off runway 24 that led to 12 flights of over 30 minutes, 11 of these being over an hour, with 7 over 2 hours. In addition to hill and thermal lift, the latter's condensation level being around 6,000' asl, wave was encountered by a few pilots with climbs to between 9,900' to 12,200' asl. Most of the soaring flights transitioned from hill lift into thermal with some them contacting wave but James Shaw/Logan Briggs' 56 minutes in the DG500 was hill soaring based, this including soaring as far N as Black Hambleton and operating between 700' to 1,600' QFE. The hill/thermal soaring pilots included Malcolm Guard in his Vega 15m, who had just over 7 hours, during which he visited near Ripon and Northallerton and did a cloud climb to 7,600' asl over Topcliffe. Fred Brown in his Ventus 2ct also did a cloud climb to 7,100' asl in his 3:11, flight during which he visited areas around Ripon, Masham and Leyburn and Pat Fowler in his Astir CS flew 4:24 locally with a peak altitude of 6,500' asl. Those flying club gliders also enjoyed the conditions, with John Forrester in Astir DPO climbing to 6,000' asl in his flight of 1:47, James Shaw/Simona Latimer in the DG500 also getting to 6,000' asl in their 1;21 flight and Chris O'Doyle/Mark James having exactly an hour in K21 KLW, while Andreas Rieder/Stephen Kellerher had 2:05 in K21 JVZ off the last flight of the day. The wave soaring pilots were Bob Calvert in his Discus 2ct who climbed to 9,900' asl just to the SSE of Aysgarth and covered around 185 km visiting areas near Leyburn, Masham and Tockwith, Dean Crosby in his LS10t who climbed to 11,800' asl near Ripon and flew an estimated 142 km, while Clive Swain in his Kestrel 19 climbed to 12,200' asl to the S of Thirsk, having first explored the Boroughbridge, Topcliffe and Ripon areas via thermals in his flight of 5:23.
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.