Friday 25th August 2017
Posted: 26/08/2017 11:01
Friday 25th. The depression to the north of Ireland was still in place feeding a light to moderate, cloudy, SSW'ly flow over the north of England resulting in moderate soaring conditions for the Task Week pilots. They were set the same task as on Thursday, to complete as many triangles as possible out of a given list of 12. In the event, only John Ellis managed to complete any triangles, two in fact, the Sut/Castle Howard/Sutton on the Forest/Sut one and the Sut/Northallerton/Carlton/Sut one to record 132 km in total in his DG800. Two other pilots recorded flights in excess of 100 km, Jon May and Steve Ball in their Duo Discus getting to Thorngumbald but having to resort to their engine to get back, covering 117 km, while Rob Bailey in his ASG29 did an O/R to Pocklington, a distance of 119 km. The tricky conditions led to two pilots landing out, Jon Hart in his Vega choosing the private airfield at Bagby and Tony Drury landing in a stubble field near Castle Howard, which proved to handily placed to a nearby café, the cakes and tea/coffee available being welcomed by Tony and his retrieve crew. Most of the Task Week pilots, even those who didn't stray too far from site managed to have at least an hour in the air, contributing to the 7 flights of over an hour, with Jon May/Steve Ball topping the list with 3:31, followed by John Ellis with 2:54 and Rob Bailey with 2:45. Club gliding produced 5 flights of 30 minutes or more, with Andy Parish taking one of the 3 First Flight pupils of the day, Loretto Watt for 48 minutes in K21 KLW. It was a red letter day however, for Lee Grindrod who went solo in KLW, so congratulations to Lee, the following photo showing Lee receiving his wings from CFI Andy Parish.
Thursday's Task Week flying resulted in John Ellis gaining the greatest number of points but having already won a day, the daily prize went to David Bradley in his ASW 28 who had come second on the day. So after 3 Task days, John Ellis led the field with Jon May and Steve Ball in second place and Jon Hart third.
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.