2025

Welcome to 2026! Time to look back over the last year through rose tinted glasses and misty eyes. Apologies if I’ve missed anyone or anything off this list.

NUMBERS

  • We have 154 ‘full flying members’ (including 39 junior members!)

  • We did 3817 winch launches and 1059 aerotows

  • We flew over 2512 hours (across 219 flyable days)


Achievements:

  • Lots of first solo’s:

    • Olivia Drummond

    • Patrycja Kolodziejczyk

    • Joe Gwilt

    • Tony Bromby

    • Alfie Thorpe

    • Harvey Webster

Lewis and Henry did their Silver badges = in fact Lewis did the whole thing in one flight!! (50k distance, 1000m climb and 5hrs endurance)

Cyprian and Hayley got their PPLs

Phoebe Buckley qualified as an EasyJet pilot!

It was a pretty good summer with some amazing long distance cross country flights - one of which can be seen below (puts my Barmby Moor out and return to shame):

All Change…

Lots of changes to the fleet. The K8 was retired and a chap from Lincolnshire way bought it as a do’er upper’er.

The LS4 was sold to an ex-member (Callum Ellis) who has taken it down to Devon somewhere - to be replaced by an ASW19 (G-CHLM) which is a similar level of performance but in much better condition.

The Eurofox tug had one too many ‘mechanical issues’ and we sold it to Rufforth gliding club. They’re going to put a different engine in it and continue using it as a tug.

We finally took delivery of the DG1000 and so the bureaucracy began (hoping to get it flying in the next month or two - subject to the CAA gods.) In the meantime, thanks to Chris Lees for collecting it from Germany, Steve Wilkinson for banging his head against the CAA wall and Steve Ruffell who fashioned a wing tip holder for the hangar.

Not long now…

Unfortunately the motorglider had a rather ‘heavy landing’ and is no more - but Gordon Basey kindly offered to fund the purchase of a new replacement. This is a Rotax Falke and is currently under construction - should be with us later in the year - thanks Gordon!

…it will end up looking similar to the following:

Maintenance Weekend (March)

As usual - a LOT of fettling was undertaken throughout the year. Indeed, we had a whole weekend of it back in March (thanks to Sandy for organising) - when we achieved the following:

  • Filled potholes and smoothed parts of the runway

  • Cleared the glider hangar (and hoovered it!!!)

  • Cleared out the sliding door tracks

  • Cleared the tug hangar

  • Regravelled the road into the club caravan site

  • Regravelled the peri-track where it flooded

  • Emptied the loft

  • Cleaned the control bus

  • Reorganised the ballast weights and various other equipment on the control bus

  • Washed and polished the 2 seat gliders (4 of them)

  • Washed and serviced the trailers (4 of them)

  • Done an ARC on one K21

  • Done several other jobs on the same K21

  • Cleared out a load of old computer equipment

  • Litter picked around the site perimeter

  • Cleaned the winch

  • Removed a load of ivy from some walls

  • Cleared a load of brashwood from around the campsite

  • Cleared the main entrance way which has got a bit muddy

The next maintenance weekend will be 28th Feb/1st March 2026.

Fettling is not limited to one weekend - it goes on all the time as can be seen below:

  • New CCTV cameras

  • Upgraded FLARM ground station to transmit ADSB

  • New WiFi for caravan site

  • Inspected Pawnee wings (after global fleet grounded)

  • Removed the water tank

  • Upgraded control bus admin system (new filing cabinet!)

  • Fixed the Supercub throttle

  • Tinkered with the motorglider

  • New guttering on clubhouse

  • New heating boiler for clubhouse

  • New doors for briefing room, workshop and fuels store.

  • New electric roller shutter for workshop

There is MUCH more that gets done, but these are the ones I have photos of…

Andy Thornhill got ANOTHER new present - we spoil him :-)

Annual Camphill visit (April)

Our friends from Camphill came over for their annual expedition to practice aerotowing and experience ‘flatland’ flying! They plan on returning next April 2026 (thanks to Graham Wadforth for organising.)

Open Day (June)

We had another fantastic open day on the longest day (June 21st) where we flew 122 launches in 11 hrs between 8:30 and 19:30 - a real team effort (thanks to Sandy for organising and all the members who took part.)

TSC 2025 (August)

The Two Seat Comp was a big success (flew around 160 launches.) We also raised over £3,000 for charity - split between Yorkshire Air Ambulance and Ruth Strauss foundation.

Evening Visits

Once again, Mark Cass did an amazing job organising the evening visits (over 350 flights.) Thanks to all those members who helped out!





Absent Friends:

Sadly, we lost some old friends this year:

  • Jeanette Pagram

  • Jonathan Thompson

  • Dennis Major

Our thoughts are with their friends and family.