Saturday 11th February 2023
Posted: 12/02/2023 15:51
Saturday 11th. A light to moderate W'ly blew all day under generally sunny skies, with some early year thermals providing opportunities for soaring along with hill lift and some weak wave. 19 ATs were flown, of which 12 led to flights of over 30 minutes, with 5 of these over an hour, the conditions tempting 2 private owners, Andy Wilson in his Skylark 4 and Darren Lodge in his LS8-18, to rig and launch. Both Andy and Darren had just over 3 hours soaring, with Darren using the weak thermals to maintain 2,600' 2,900' asl in the first part of his flight and then using hill lift at 5-700' QFE in the main bowl for the remainder. Les Rayment/Phil Lazenby flying K21 JVZ had just over an hour, being able to stay at or above their launch height of 3,700'asl for most of the flight, while Tomer Altman in Astir DSU, taking off just before Les and Phil had 1:40. The other >1 hour flight was by Simona and Dave Latimer, who had 1:09 in JVZ, taking a series of climbs to peak at 4,600' asl just to the north of Thirsk, this being the best altitude of the day. Among those having between 30 and 60 minutes were Rob Bailey, who had 2 flights in the Discus, the first of 43 minutes soaring the main bowl at 6-900' QFE and the second of 48 minutes thermal soaring between 1,900- 2,500' asl but gradually losing out, while Konrad Kawalec climbed to 3,900' asl over Sutton village in his flight of 44 minutes in Astir FSH. The last 4 flights of the day were all for First Flight pupils in either JVZ or the DG 500 and were straight descents from release height as lift became harder to find, contrasting with the 2 for First Flight pupils earlier in the day when the available lift allowed flight times to be extended from around 25 to 35 minutes.
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.