Wednesday 5th to Thursday 6th February 2025.
Posted: 06/02/2025 21:52
Wednesday 5th. A light to moderate SW'ly that veered into the W brought an early morning shower but otherwise it was a sunny day with scattered cloud. Flying commenced around 1000 hrs, with the last flight of the 17 on the day landing at 1540 hrs, 12 of the flights exceeding 30 minutes and 6 an hour, the result of weak wave and hill lift and occasional thermal. The 5 private owners who launched each had over an hour, with Neil Paverley in his Nimbus 2 managing a wave climb to 4,000' asl, Andrew Wilmot in his ASW19 4,500' asl and Steve Thompson to 8,000' asl in his Ventus 2bt, while Steve Ogden in his Discus spent his 1:12 hill soaring the main bowl. Chris Booker in his LS1 had 1:02 but didn't record a trace. Neil and Steve both explored the wave away from site with Neil getting south of Topcliffe and Steve visiting Northallerton, Tontine, Ripon and Catterick before returning to Sutton commenting that very low climb rates characterised the wave, particularly at the start of any climb. Those flying club gliders also made good use of the conditions with Yurii Kozhuerov in Astir DSU and Martin Joyce/Dave McKinney in K21 KLW joining the > and hour list with 1:18 and 1:09 respectively mainly the result of hill soaring. Those just shy of 60 minutes included Paul Whitehead/Tony Kirby in K21 JVZ and John Carter/Steve Morgan in KLW both with 49 minutes. Dave Campbell and John Carter flew the 2 First Flight pupils of the day while Martin and Albert Newbery had a couple of flights in the Falke.
Thursday 6th. With high pressure centred over the UK it was a day of mainly blue skies and light winds that started in the WNW but veered into the E, so the day's 13 ATs were off runway 02 with landings on either 02 or 20. Some thermal activity from midday to 1400 hours allowed first Bruce Grain/Logan Briggs in K21 JVZ and then George Rowden, solo in the same glider, to have soaring flights, Bruce/Logan having 35 minutes and George 42. The thermals were characterised by a low cloud base, 1,000-1,200' QFE, up to 4kts lift at times and were in the form of streets. Bruce Grain/Richard Harding had 21 minutes off the second of their flights and Andrew and Liz Bedford had 22 minutes in their flight, the penultimate one of the day.
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.