Wednesday 9th to Friday 11th October 2024.
Posted: 12/10/2024 15:38
Wednesday 9th. A moderate to fresh at times NNE'ly brought in a low overcast and showers, so there was no flying.
Thursday 10th. A cold front had tracked S overnight leaving the site in a light to moderate NNW'ly flow of Arctic air that produced some good soaring conditions for the time of year, with the day's 11 launches off runway 02, including 4 for First Flight pupils, leading to 4 flights of over an hour. The OGN Flightbook website from where I get the details of each day's flight was spasmodic in operation, with only 2 flights recorded, one by Bob Calvert in his Discus 2ct and the other by Konrad Kawalec in Astir DPO. Konrad's 1:49 was thermal based and flown locally , with a peak altitude of 3,600' asl and a peak average climb of 2 kts. Bob's flight, on the other hand, lasted 4:57, with Bob contacting the primary wave triggered by the North Yorkshire Moors some 5 km SE of the site and eventually climbing to 6,700' asl. From here Bob flew N and using thermals arrived in the Carlton Bank area before returning to continue with some local soaring. The other 2 >an hour flights were both in club 2 seaters, Chris O'Doyle/Neil Anderson having 1:49 in K21 JVZ and Bruce Grain/ Neil Amos having 1:02 in K21 KLW.
Friday 11th. The wind had become a light to moderate W'ly under initially clear blue skies in the Arctic air mass, so operations were off runway 24, with 32 launches generating 23 flights of over 30 minutes with 13 over an hour. The continued lack of data from the OGN Flightbook source means that apart from duration times from the paper logs, I only have additional information from a few flights, comprising 3 from 10 of the private owners who flew and only one from the 22 flights in club aircraft. The latter was a 1:09 flight in Astir DSU by Konrad Kawalec who stayed local. The 3 private owner flights for which OGN/Flarm detail is available were by Daren Lodge in his LS8-18 who stayed local in mainly thermal but who also found a little patch of wave just to the NW of Thirsk that took him to his maximum altitude of 5,000' asl. Chris Teagle in his LS8t-18 flew around 90 OLC kms in thermal, getting to within 5 km of Masham and 13 km NNW of site in his 2:16 flight, while Adam Sayer in his ASW19, flew around 80 OLC kms mainly locally, but including a visit to Northallerton in his 1:58 flight. Operating altitudes were typically 3,000' to 4,500' asl with average peak thermal strengths around 2.5kts. Bob Calvert in his Discus 2ct contacted wave and eventually climbed to 10,000' asl while visiting Middleham, Kettlewell, Wetherby and Northallerton in his 5:40 flight, Bob providing this information in a personal message which also included the following photo.
The other private owners who flew all had > an hour flights, with Steve Thompson in his Ventus 2bt having 3:38, Albert/Martin Newbery in their DG1000t having 3:07 and Tony Drury and John Marsh having 1:22 and 1:49 respectively in their DG303. All four club 2 seaters were flown, as were 2 of the club Astirs, with Austin Hartland having 2:35 in Astir DPO and Clive Swain/Ben Isherwood in K21 KLW, Graeme Cooksey/Tony Kirkby in K21 JVZ and Bruce Grain/Polly Whitehead in KLW all having between 1:00 and 1:22. The day also saw 6 First Flight pupils flown, mainly by Nigel Burke. If anyone knows who to contact to resolve the problem with OGN/Flightbook data, which I believe is site based, please let me know.
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.