Sunday 2nd and Tuesday 4th October
Posted: 05/10/2016 16:46
Sunday 2nd. An initially light to moderate N'ly declined to become light around 1400 hrs as a good thermic day resulted in 46 ATs being flown and a number of cross countries completed. The club 2 seaters were kept busy flying a group of 7 Scouts and their leaders, 7 First Flight pupils and YGC members, while the conditions encouraged 9 private owner launches. Cloud base was initially quite low but improved later to around 3.500' asl, allowing Rob Bailey to fly a 150 km task with TPs at Ripon, Pontefract, Wetherby South and Helmsley, his flight time being just under 3 hours. Seeing it was Sunday, Nick Gaunt visited Ripon Cathedral, York Minster, the chapel at Castle Howard and would had added Mount Grace Priory to his devotions on the day had not the conditions resulted in a decision to turn back to Sutton at Boltby. Nick's flight time of 2:22 was the third longest of the day with Graham Morris topping the list with 3:27 in his ASW27, like Rob and Nick spending time visiting local and not so local TPs. Steve Ogden in Astir KRN and Simon Altman in Astir DPO shared a flight time of 1:04, while syndicate partners Tony Drury and John Marsh recorded 1:42 and 1:04 respectively in their DG303, John's flight, with a take off time of 1515 hrs, demonstrating the soarable extend of this October day. The 8 flights to exceed an hour did not include any of the 2 seaters, but Brian Wise with First Flight pupil David Charlton had 41 minutes in K21 JVZ and therefore added their names to the 3 strong list of those who exceeded 30 minutes flying time. An Antipodean view of beautiful North Yorkshire and the Cumulus has been provided by Roger Burghall and is included below.
Tuesday 4th. With an Anticyclone centred over Scandinavia extending it influence over the UK, the wind had become a moderate SE'ly. Operations were initially off runway 20 but with the wind backing into the ESE and strengthening, launches were transferred to runway 06 for a while before the increasing wind strength and gustiness, a peak gust of 30 kts was recorded around 1700 hrs, led to the decision to abandon flying for the day. Prior to this, 9 ATs had been flown, 4 for First Flight pupils, with only the 2 K21s utilised. Staying up proved to be difficult with no thermal or wave activity and it was left to Mike Wood and Chris Thirkell to post the longest flight of the day, 25 minutes in K21 JVZ. 3 of the 4 First Flight pupils had flights of 20 minutes with David Campbell and Albert Newbery sharing the instructing duties.
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.