Tuesday 2nd to Wednesday 3rd July 2019
Posted: 04/07/2019 11:13
Tuesday 2nd. A light WSW slowly veered into the NNW over the course of the day, the air mass providing thermic conditions that allowed pilots to post some good soaring flights in terms of duration, but not in terms of distance, with the BGA ladder and OLC not troubled by YGC pilots. Additionally, with the Open Glider Network still not providing post flight tracks, your scribe can only assume that most pilots stayed local. The day saw 15 ATs off runway 24 with landings on 24, but later in the day runway 20 was used for landings. Three private owners launched and logged the 3 longest flights of the day, Derek Smith with 2:44 and John Ellis wiht 2:25, both in DG800s, while Duncan Pask had 1:57 in his LS10. John Ellis also recorded the best climb of the day to 6.200' asl with a number of others getting over 5,000' asl . No club single seaters were flown, but 2 seater pilots also enjoyed the conditions with Ron Beezer and Christina Griffiths having 2:02 in the DG500, John Carter and Andrew Bedford 1:06 in the same glider, while Bruce Grain and Jerry HN just failed to reach the 1 hour with 57 minutes in K21 JVZ. The day's flying had started with John Carter flying the Falke down to Bagby for some maintenance and John then flew it back to site towards the end of the afternoon.
Wednesday 3rd. A very light and variable wind, predominately from a W'ly quadrant saw operations off runway 20 and. with the prospects of a good day's thermal soaring. the trailer park was soon busy as 9 private owners rigged in anticipation. They were not disappointed as the day provided some good. if a little tricky at times. soaring conditions and a number of completed or almost completed cross countries. A Notamed exercise over Catterick meant some changes to cross country plans but Jon May still completed a 320 km flight around Goole and Skelling Farm in his Ventus ct, the Goole/Skelling Farm leg requiring a big diversion to avoid the Catterick Notamed area. Jon also reported blue conditions on the other side of the Pennines. Steve Thompson in his Discus flew 282 km with TPs at Doncaster NW, Northallerton and Burn reporting trickier conditions north of York probably due to sea air incursion, but also being able to fly along for a significant number of kms in smooth net zero. George Rowden in his LS8-18 reported the same trickier conditions north of York has he flew 259 km with TPs at Ripon, Doncaster NW, the Tontine and Rufforth and had the opposite experience to Steve finding continuous heavy sink from Sutton to the Tontine that required a diversion to the NE of the Tontine TP in order to remain airbourne. The hard luck story of the day was provided by Chris Booker in his LS1, who. declaring an 301.3 km O/R to Alton Towers from Sutton Control Point N. couldn't quite make it back to his start point and landed back at Sutton at 1742 hrs, just 3 km short of his first 300 km flight. Those staying local to site also enjoyed the conditions, with only 1 of the day's 23 launches failing to exceed 30 minutes. while, of the 14 flights to exceed an hour, 9 had over 2 hours. As well as most of the private owners, these included Frank Wilson with 2:20 in Astir DPO and Mike O'Neil with 2:10 in the DG303, while Bruce Grain and Joan Hartley had just over an hour in K21 JVZ. The day also provided local lift until late afternoon with Peter Robinson having 1:27 solo in JVZ from a 16:35 take off time.
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.