Sunday 14th to Monday 15th August 2022
Posted: 15/08/2022 21:21
Sunday 14th. The persistent high pressure of the last 10 days or so was now showing signs of slipping away, but skies remained blue but increasingly hazy and the maximum temperature at nearby RAF Leeming reached 30.2C. A light and variable wind led to operations off runway 20 behind the Eurofox or Pawnee, with the 19 launches leading to 7 flights of over 30 minutes, with 3 of these over an hour. The longest by far was the 5:03 by Clive Swain in his Kestrel 19, Clive climbing to the best altitude of the day, 6,900' asl in generally moderate strength thermals. During his flight, Clive had two forays to York, and one each to Boroughbridge and Sutton on Forest. One of the other > an hour flight was by Roger Burghall/Tor Taverner in K21 KLW, their 1:28 being spent locally, but including a climb to 6,300' asl with all of the other soaring flights climbing to between 4/4,800' asl. Visitors Johnson and Thomas were the other > an hour pilots as they took their DG1000t to Aysgarth via Rufforth and Ripon, but had then to resort to the engine to reconnect with the convection. All 4 club two seaters were flown, for members and the day's 5 First Flight pupils, but the club single seaters remained in the hangar.
Monday 15th. With a thundery outbreak forecast for later in the day, flying got underway around 1040 hrs off runway with the first of the day's 2 First Flight pupils, conditions being smooth under thin patchy high cover and moderate visibility, the wind again being light and variable. Monday was also the start of YGC's Task week with competitors tasked with visiting self selected TPs and using their Trigraphs to make as many Scrabble words as possible for bonus points on top of OLC distance and speed. The day never produced the high climbs forecast, with nobody climbing much above launch height and only 2 pilots managed to fly for more than 30 minutes, Task Week competitors, Toby Wilson with 46 minutes in his Standard Cirrus and John Ellis in his DG800 with 31 minutes. The only other Task Week competitor to fly was Sarah Stubbs with 20 minutes in Astir DSU,while Peter Goodchild decided to visit the Women's World Championship at Husbands Bosworth, flying down there in his Pic 20. Bruce Grain/Amelia Forrester took a 3,500' tow to carry out a spinning exercise and in doing so claimed the highest flight of the day. The thunderstorms eventually started to form locally around 1700 hrs to the SE of York and drifted northwards to the east of the site. with a more active line of storms approaching from the south of York around 1900 hrs and developing into a massive storm as it followed the track of its predecessor.
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.