Saturday 28th to Sunday 29th December 2026.
Posted: 30/12/2024 15:37
Saturday 28th. Another day with fog in the valleys surrounding the site as a light SE'ly blew. The fog showed signs of lifting into low cloud with a few sunny intervals developing, but none of these were long enough to permit any flying.
Sunday 29th. A moderate and at times gusty WSW'ly blew all day and with no cloud base restrictions from the generally cloudy sky, 19 launches resulted, 15 via the winch and 4 via AT. Hill and wave lift led to 14 of the day's flights being 30 minutes or more with 7 of these over an hour. The majority of those wave soaring did so straight after launch by transitioning from hill lift in the main bowl and while climbs were generally modest, to 3,500'/4,500' asl, a couple of flights went higher. Bob Calvert flying the Discus mainly used hill lift in his 37 minute flight, but later, in Astir DPO, climbed to the day's best altitude of 8,600' asl, leaving while still in lift and provided the following photo.
Simon Altman/Sue Aherne, taking off in K21 JVZ shortly after Bob, replicated Bob's flight by contacting the wave straight of the winch launch over the main bowl, the initial slow climb speeding up as they moved just to the north of Gormire, eventually reaching 6,500' asl. Somewhat surprisingly, none of the flights using AT contacted the wave, while Toby Wilson in his Standard Cirrus and Chris Collingham/Duncan Pask in K21 JVZ both climbed to around 4,500' asl off their winch launches, Chris and Duncan's peak altitude being directly over the site. For those not contacting the wave, the main W'ly ridge proved to be reliable, with Dean Crosby in the Discus spending most of his 1:13 flight operating between 700' and 1,400' QFE, while John Marsh/Tony Drury's 1:07 in the DG500 was spent soaring the main bowl. Other > an hour flights included Bruce Grain/Sarah Nolan in JVZ and Fred Brown/Harris Hobson in K21 KLW, Fred/Harris initially contacting the wave but losing it over the Forward ridge and then spending the rest of the flight in hill lift at 700'-900' QFE.
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.