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First XC's of 2020 - in JULY!

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Well hasn't this year been fun, everyone? It's been a long time since I wrote anything - but that's because it's been a long time since there was anything to write. The weather in February was bad, even for February, and as we were looking forward to getting going again in March/April, along came a global pandemic! Thankfully we had the ability to get flying again as soon as regulations allowed in May, but the lockdown period had enjoyed a searing spring, and we returned to some less than stellar gliding conditions - not only that but we all needed to get some local flying done to get in practice after what was effectively a long winter break. June came and went with no chance to use what few good flying days there were due to annual maintenance on the glider which is normally done in March before serious flying begins and so July was the first opportunity to try and get something out of the year. The first day where me, my airworthy glider, and some good weather were a...
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A grand day out in Yorkshire

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After my venture towards the pennines in the club motorglider the other week, I was invited to fly again with the instructor in his own private machine (a Super Ximango), so that we could go and see some more of Yorkshire and pick up some navigation pointers. It would be again a learning exercise but also a bit of a sightseeing exercise - the main purpose was just to see some of the main towns and landmarks that are considered local flying. I plotted a course on Saturday evening; with turning points at Breighton, Beverley, Bridlington Scarborough, Full Sutton before passing over York, back to Rufforth airfield. I marked up my map with headings and 5-mile markers to each TP. I added rough timings based on 70 knots, but we all know that gliders don't fly in a straight line at a constant speed, so this was more just to make sure the flight didn't go on too long. In all, the route just over 100 nautical miles. I purposely routed to the coast for some sight...
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An Almost Diamond Flight

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A Gold distance is defined as a 300km flight either in a straight line, or around up to three declared turn points - I guess you can complete it without returning to your original start point. If you do, you can also claim the Diamond Goal flight, which can be done as a 300km flight on an "out and return" basis or around a closed triangular course. I had therefore figured that on the right day, and since I really always want to get back to where I started (because retrieves are time consuming and/or expensive) I would try to do both in one. With the birth of my first and only child having only occured around two weeks previous, managing to go gliding at all was something of an achievement - but after two weeks stuck indoors essentially on-call 24/7 whilst we all figured out what to do - a bit of a timeout was definitely needed.  Anyway, SkySight provided a good forecast and basically said "Go south and stay inland" - the usual 300km O/R from Sutton Bank is ...
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