Wednesday 11th to Thursday 12th July 2018
Posted: 12/07/2018 10:40
Wednesday 11th. The predominately light to moderate N'ly flow continued, varying from NNW to start the day before progressively veering to become NE'ly at the end. An early morning overcast soon dispersed to give a reasonable soaring day, although conditions away from the site were significantly worse. Unlike Tuesday, Cumulus of significant vertical extent developed over the North Yorkshire Moors giving some good thermal climbs at times, although this was not everyone's experience. The two seaters were busy with members, 6 First Flight pupils and 9 Scouts, with Stan being assisted by Will Blackburn and Tony Drury, flying coming to an end around 1730 hrs. 5 private owners launched, contributing 4 of the 6 flights to exceed an hour, Colin Troise with 1:14 in the Ka8 and Sue Aherne in the Discus with 1:06 in the Discus making up this particular list. The private owner launch not to have a flight of > 1hr saw Tor Taverner and Tony Wiseman have 31 minutes in the T21, one of the 12 flights to have between 30 and 59 minutes air time, with Colin Troise's 57 minutes solo in K21 JVZ off the first flight of the day topping this particular list, followed by Stan and Tony Wiseman's 44 minutes in K21 KLW. Peter Clay left the site to fly the 100 km Sutton/Pocklington/Rufforth/ Sutton triangle in his Ventus, while Rob Bailey, going further south in his ASG29t, found very murky, low cloud conditions on approaching the Humber and turned around near Goole, going from one low save to another before getting back to the much better conditions closer to Sutton where cloud base reached around 4,000' asl. Duncan Pask in his LS10 and Chris Teagle in his Kestrel were the other pilots to have greater than an hour in the air, Duncan having 1:44 and Chris 1:32, both flights staying local.
Thursday 12th. The day started with a low overcast that showed little sign of breaking up, its low base of around 1200' QFE preventing any flying of the first of the 12 First Flight pupils booked in for the day. Operations in the Falke around lunch time, it having a busy day with 7 flights, indicated an improving cloud base, so John Carter and Ron Linton took the first pure glider flight of the day at around 1230 hrs, enc0untering cloud at around 1800' QFE. John and Ron then took a second flight in K21 KLW, managing to release at 2,000' QFE behind the SuperCub and also to find some weak thermal lift that extended their flight to 25 minutes. This was the signal for the start of flights for the First Flight pupils, with their flight times covering the 18-39 minute range as the cloud base slowly rose to eventually around 2,500' QFE and the overcast began to break up, with gentle thermals to be found on most flights, even under the overcast. Stan, Will Blackburn, Stuart Heaton, Albert Newbery and George Rowden shared the PI duties for the First Flight pupils, with John Carter and Stan looking after member's flying. Reg Rowlinson, after a 39 minute flight in the Ka8 in the early afternoon, took a second flight around 1600 hrs and subsequently recorded the longest flight of the day, 1:32. The day also saw the Eurofox share tugging duties with the SuperCub off ruway 02 and Pawnee Tango Mike return to site from Bagby.
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.