10 solos in one day...

Good morning everyone welcome to another beautiful day,

The only flying taking place around here are the numerous birds nest building, feeding and nurturing young. So quiet we are beginning to recognise different birds songs. 

A couple of helicopters and an occasional jet really sound out of place. 

Each morning I’ve been taking a peep at the duck sitting on her nest in the raised bed. As she was off the nest yesterday morning to stretch her legs I thought I would check on the eggs having spotted a cat taking a close interest. I saw a broken egg shell and was about to start blaming the cat when to my surprise I see some shiny black eyes and looking carefully spot 8 or so soft feathery tiny bundles all keeping as quiet as possible.

Raised in the same spot last year the ducklings were too small to reach the edge of the wall despite some comical bounces up with flapping winglets and Mark spent ages catching them to help them down. 

Ducks can count and she knew one was missing quacking furiously. 

We decided to quietly make them some steps up from the soil to the coping stones hoping they might use them.

Imagine our delight and surprise that only a short time later they found and used them. 

Just luck had me glance out of the window at just the right time. Mother at the base of the wall encouraging each brown fluffy bundle as they reached the edge to leap down the terrifying one meter drop tiny wings flapping.

Mark’s photos track their progress;

Once up on the wall walking along the edge to find the best place to leap

Encouraging each other and deciding who’s going first,

Along with a bit of shoving to get the one in front to go. One or two bounced landings but all forgotten as they scurry towards mum!

Final approach is a bit of a blurr its all happening so fast, and the last one desperate not to be left behind but it’s a really long way down;

After a good landing mother counts them all and promptly leads them through the hedge towards a neighbouring garden and pond for their first swimming lesson.

10 little ducklings on their first solo flights.

It brought a smile to our day.  

With our best regards to you all.

Patricia and Mark

The club is closed (temporarily)

Unfortunately we have had to close the club until the Coronavirus situation improves.

Whilst the actual gliding bit is a relatively solitary pastime, we all need to work as a team in order to launch the gliders. This type of social interaction is what the government wants us to avoid - especially in environments like ours (where many members are in the ‘at risk’ age range.)

When the situation improves we will be back open for business and playing in the clouds.

See you then…

The next generation of pilots

On Monday we hosted the Pocklington 1st Beavers as they work towards getting their RAF Air Activities Badge.

The kids took it in turns to look round our hangars and sit in a real glider - testing the knowledge of our Chief Flying Instructor as he attempted to answer all the questions.

They then spent some time in our gliding simulator - and some genuine talent was demonstrated (as anyone who knows how to fly a glider will testify from the photo below!)

Wave if you can see me

Great day gliding this week. A few of our members managed to take advantage of a meteorological effect called ‘wave’ to climb to over 10,000ft (2 miles!) above York.

York from 2 miles up (click to see larger image)

Rainbow in the distance - below!

‘Surfing’ along the edge of the ‘wave bar’

Wave is a fairly rare occurrence this far east in Pocklington. It happens when a strong south westerly wind hits the pennines (50 miles away) causing a ripple in the atmosphere which acts like a wave - which gliders can use to surf up high.

The pilots above only stopped at 10,000 feet because they didn’t have oxygen with them (or thick enough socks!)