Tuesday 3rd to Thursday 5th August 2021
Posted: 11/08/2021 12:03
Tuesday 3rd. A light to moderate SW'ly heralded in a good days soaring with 11 private owner and 39 club glider flights generating 24 flights in excess of 30 minutes with 17 in excess of an hour. The latter list spanned exactly an hour by Malcolm Smith flying K21 KLW solo to the 7:40 of Clive Swain, his landing being just before 2000 hrs. I didn't have access to Flarm flight traces at the end of Tuesday so I am unable to divulge who went where except for those pilots who put their traces on the National Ladder or OLC. However, the good soaring conditions, coupled of course with the skill of the pilots resulted in 3x 300 km flights and a 250 km flight being registered on the National ladder by the following pilots. Andrew Cluskey in his Shark and Andy Wright in his Nimbus 3 flew the same 325 km task with TPs at Doncaster NW, Aysgarth, and Pontefract, while Rob Bailey flew 316 km in his ASG29, turning Doncaster NW, Catterick and Pontefract with the start and finish points being Sutton Bank Control Point N. Martyn Johnson in his DG600 was the 250 km task pilot with TPs at Burn, the Tontine and Market Weighton. These cross country pilots reported tricky conditions at times but the good areas giving strong lift with cloud bases approaching 6,000' asl. Back at site, Colin Troise, taking off solo in the DG1000 at 1120 hrs had the first soaring flight of the day with 1:23 and followed this up with a similar flight in the DG1000 having 1:20 from a 1624 hr take off. However, that wasn't the latest flight to soar, for as the Tuesday evening group took over from the day team, Adam Sayer had 1:37 flying the Astir having taken off at 1715 hrs. Another notable flight to exceed an hour was that by Tor Taverner and Duncan Pask in their T21, with a flight time of 1:06 and the day's report couldn't be complete without reference to Sarah Stubbs first solo in K21 JVZ, so congratulations Sarah. The photo of a happy Sarah and happy Ron Beezer is shown below, with later Sarah making everyone happy by ringing the bell in the bar.
Wednesday 4th. A moderate SSE'ly in the morning strengthened to become moderate to fresh in the afternoon, but this didn't stop the 6 private owners who launched enjoying flight times from 1:25 for Rob Bailey in his ASG29 to the 2:18 by Andrew Wilmot in his ASW19. As I didn't have access to Flarm traces I am unsure if anyone went cross country as no flights were posted on the Ladder or OLC. The other private owners who flew were Polly Whitehead in her ASW24, 1:42, Martyn Johnson in his DG600, 1:57, Ron Beezer in his Nimbus 2, 2:01 and Bill Payton and John Maxter in Bill's DG1000, 2:14. The longest flights in club gliders were by Andy Tyas in the Discus with 56 minutes and Clive Swan and John Dore in K21 KLW with 44 minutes. with the majority of the soaring flights being between midday and 1430 hrs, the day's maximum altitude being 4,600' asl by Martyn Johnson with a number of other flights getting to 4,000' asl or above.
Thursday 5th. A moderate SSE'ly continued to blow so flying commenced off runway 20 around 1100hrs as cloud built ahead of a incoming depression. Nevertheless, Chris Handzlik completed an O/R to Rufforth in his DG300, having to contend with a 25-30 kt headwind during his 2:03 flight. Nigel Burke also launched in his DG800 and had 2 hours aloft during which he made a couple of sorties south of Easingwold. Chris and Nigel were not, however, the only pilots to exceed an hour's flight, as Les Rayment and Dan McClean had 1:02 in K21 JVZ, while a further 3 pilots had durations in excess of 30 minutes, John Tayler and Charles Frecheville, 41 minutes in the DG1000, and Les Rayment/John Maxted 34 minutes in the DG500, this also being acheived by Dave McKinney in the same glider with one of the day's 3 First Flight pupils.
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.