Saturday 12th to Sunday 13th March
Posted: 14/03/2016 16:28
Saturday 12th. A high pressure system built across the UK, leading to a day of light to moderate, predominately S'ly winds at site, but with little if any convection to provide for extended flights. Accordingly, although the day saw 26 ATs behind one or other to the 2 Eurofox tugs, only one flight exceeded 30 minutes and that by only a single minute. This was by Tony Drury and Duncan Pask flying a mutual in K21 JVZ, although they benefited from a 3,400' tow. The day saw all the club's 4 two seaters in action as 7 Scouts and 6 First Flight pupils were flown in addition to club members, with 3 of the First Flight pupils getting close to the 30 minute duration mark following tows to 3,000'. These were Messrs D'Oca, Norden and Priestly who were introduced to gliding by Mike Smith, Fred Brown and Andy Hatfield respectively, Mike providing 26 minutes flying time for his pupil and Fred and Andy 24 minutes each for theirs. The day's only solo flight was by Tony Drury who flew the DG303 for 22 minutes.
Sunday 13th. Subtle changes in the position of the centre of High Pressure did not result in much change in wind strength and direction to that of Saturday but what had changed was the horizontal visibility. In fact, the horizontal visibility was too poor to allow any flying except towards the end of the day when Paul Whitehead and Jamie Quartermaine did some flying in Eurofox IOF to familiarise Jamie with this, the club's new tug. The poor visibility did not, however, seem to deter the pilot of a helicopter which appeared over the White Horse and flew up the centre line of runway 02 at approximately 100' before disappearing into the murk. Better conditions prevailed in the simulator where another group of Scouts were introduced to gliding by Mike Brown. The unable to fly membership usefully spent some of their time derigging and getting Astir DPO into its trailer in readiness for departure from site for its ARC and also doing some TLC work on the club's other gliders.
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.