Friday 9th to Saturday 10th August 2024

Posted: 11/08/2024 15:44

Friday 9th.  A moderate W'ly with eventually broken cloud brought a day with thermal, hill and wave lift, the latter being used for some long wave flights, while good climbs and long durations were the order of the day.  Dean Crosby in his LS10t flew a declared 572.1 km flight starting at Ripon, with TPs at Kielder, Wetherby South, Bellingham and Ripon, climbing to a maximum altitude of 15,100' asl.  Steve Thompson in his Ventus 2bt abandoned his original declared wave task due to cloud cover to the north of the Tyne and flew a 468.8 km task around Ripon, Haltwistle, Knaresborough, Haltwistle and Ripon with his maximum altitude being 19,300' asl.  Bob Calvert in his Discus 2ct flew 524 OLC kms, also contacting the wave near Ripon and visiting, Masham, Aysgarth, Longtown, Pontefract, Darlington and Wetherby South.  Flight times for the three of them were 9:08 hrs, 9:19 hrs and 10:40 hrs respectively, but these were topped by Clive Swain's 11:02 hrs in his Kestrel 19, Clive indulging in some hill and thermal soaring before contacting the wave near Helperby  and climbing to 15,000' asl while covering 156 km relatively locally.   Meanwhile, visitors Chris Gill/Ricky Logan who had flown down from Millfield earlier in the week  in an Arcus M, motored out to Ripon from their launch to contact the wave and flew a 358 km task starting at Pateley SE and ending at their home base of Lleweni  in North Wales with  intermediate TPs near Colt Cross reservoir in Northumberland and Keswick in the Lake District, a flight that took them to 14,000' asl and ended with a 90 km N/S crossing of the Irish Sea. Other major wave climbs included Martyn Johnson in his DG600, 19,339' asl,  Fred Brown, 15,167' asl in his Ventus 2ct and Sam Batchelor who took Astir DPO to 10,161' asl on his first wave flight, so well done Sam.  Martyn, Fred and Sam all took a while to contact the wave, Fred using his engine to get to the nearest wave slot near Ripon, while Martyn contacted near Thirsk and Sam near Knayton both via thermals as the cloud cover broke up.  The day's 34 launches off runway 24 resulted in 28 flights  of over 30 minutes with 22 over an hour, each of the day's 16  private owner flights lasting over an hour, with Sam Batchelor's 4:19 being the longest of the day in a club glider. Sam was followed by John Forrester with 2:19 in the Discus, Tim Bearsley/Marco Sneider's 1:42 in K21 KLW, Bruce Grain/David Hamilton's 1:12 in the DG1000, Bruce Grain/Robin Johnson's 1:04 in K21 KLW and 1:01 by Guy Hartland/Steve Ogden in K21 JVZ.  All the above flights, apart from Sam in the Discus, made use of thermal and hill lift. with the main W'ly ridge as far north as Black Hambleton and the forward ridge explored and operating heights while hill soaring being up to 1,500' QFE. 

Saturday 10th.  The wind had decreased slightly to light to moderate and become a WSW'ly, but with cloud amounts decreasing over the day, it was another good soaring day with again some wave flights.  17 launches were flown off runway 24 including 5 for First Flight pupils, with only 2 of the day's launches not leading to flights of over 30 minutes, while 9 exceeded an hour.  7 of the > an hr flights were by the 7 private owners who launched, with Dave McKinney/Duncan Pask in K21 JVZ and Fred Brown/Colin Troise in K21 KLW joining this group with 1:30 and 1:10 respectively, Fred/ Colin the result of thermal soaring up to, 5,200' asl and Dave/Duncan hill soaring at 9-1100' QFE and going as far north as High Paradise Farm.  4 pilots contacted the wave in the Ripon/Masham area, 3 after spending significant time locally in hill and thermal lift before proceeding west via thermal, while Jesper Mjels in his DG400 motored out to contact the wave in the same area.  They then all climbed to between 10,100 to 10, 500' asl with James Prosser in his Ventus 2ct visiting Kirkby Stephen  before returning to Sutton,  229 OLC kms, Dean Crosby in his LS10t flying 231 OLC kms with visits to Richmond, Eastgate and Barnard Castle and Bob Calvert in his Discus 2ct covering 157 km via the Masham, Hawes and Northallerton areas.  Jesper in his DG400m, after climbing in the wave near Ripon, went S to the Pateley Bridge area before going N to near Leyburn where he dropped out of the wave and had to use his engine to remain airborne and return to site.  Martyn Johnson in his DG600, Ben Dawson in his Cirrus and Pete Crawley in his ASH 31M were the other > an  hour pilots, with Martyn and Ben mainly thermalling but  finding some bits and pieces of wave that took them to 4,300' asl and 4,100' asl respectively, while Pete's flight remains a mystery to me as i don't have h a trace.  

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.

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