Cambridge is a place fond of traditions and, as a result, we could not help but engage in our annual tradition of gathering some CUGC members and an instructor and shipping them up north for ridge and wave soaring, as well as extensive canopy de-misting. December found a group of us packing our blankets and heaters and heading to the Yorkshire Gliding Club (YGC), aka the Sutton Bank airfield. Sutton Bank is a hill gliding site and one of the oldest UK gliding sites. It offers glider pilots used to the flatness of Cambridgeshire the opportunity to soar along its westerly ridge and potentially find some wave. While there is no water tower or Wimpole Estate to help us navigate, there is the famous Kilburn White Horse -a landmark one cannot possibly miss. Its fleet includes the most wonderful DG1000 (that the author instantly fell in love with), which we had the pleasure to fly.
Image 01: Chara taking off in the DG1000. Credit: Kate Runciman
Our captain, Darren, made sure everything was in place for our departure on December 7. We are very grateful for his help and also very sorry he could not join us on this occasion. Six of us (Edgar, Kate, Mike, Peter, Tereza and, yours truly, Chara) alongside Simon Smith, who very kindly agreed to join the expedition and instruct us, set off in the rainiest of conditions. We wrapped up the day with a trip to Tesco and dinner in the clubhouse kitchen, joined by YGC CFI James Shaw (who happens to be a CUGC alumnus; we truly were a good CUGC crowd).
Thankfully, the next day proved to be much better -drier and with improved visibility. We unpacked the hangar, got the tug started, and enjoyed a full day of both winching and aerotowing. In fact, our first day proved to be good enough for a bit of wave soaring as well. Tereza flew for over an hour in the DG1000 and climbed to 5,500’ ASL. Mike and Edgar did some ridge soaring in the YGC K21s.
Unfortunately, there was no flying on our second day. Storm Bram brought low cloud, so visibility was basically non-existent. Therefore, we decided that was the perfect opportunity to tick the aerotow briefing off the SPL course list -and better prepare for aerotows, as that tends to be the primary launch method at Sutton Bank, unlike Gransden Lodge.
Our third day was another (weak) wave day of a winching-only operation. Still, flights were plenty and absolutely delightful, though in fairly gusty conditions. Mike flew for a little over an hour, Chara found some wave (thanks to instructor Clive Swain) and ended up at 3,500’ ASL, while Peter clocked 47 minutes on a flight with James. Edgar soared with Simon and gave us a snapshot of nice cloudy views from his flight, pictured below.
On day four, Kate decided it was time to hop on a single seater and fly the YGC Astir! The author can confirm that Kate studied the flight manual diligently (pictured below) and James made sure everything was in order before her launch. Kate’s solo in the Astir was truly the highlight of the day, though the rest of us also had some decent flights and plenty aerotow practice in moderate wind, i.e., just enough to bump the tug and glider around and get us all to practise our recovery from being out of position.
Friday was our last full day at the club. At that point, we had enjoyed plenty of flights, delightful dinners in the clubhouse and at Thirsk, and each of us had stacked a few more hours in our logbooks. Unfortunately, Friday was not particularly favourable. We decided to open the hangar in the afternoon, and only Kate and Tereza managed to get one flight each until we started dealing with too much canopy misting to carry on launching. Peter and Chara got to do some flying in the TMG to prevent FOMO. Chara was lucky enough to have a sunset flight, but barely enjoyed the view as she was focused on circuit practice. Thankfully, the ground crew captured some beautiful shots!
Saturday was departure day and conditions in the morning were not particularly favourable. Kate managed to fly in the TMG before departure and Chara stayed at YGC the whole day and did some fun ridge soaring around sunset time (I am sensing 
Overall, it was a very successful expedition. We all hit some milestones in our flying progress, got to enjoy ridge and (some) wave soaring, and certainly learnt loads by gliding at a hill site. We are very grateful to CGC instructor Simon Smith for joining us and to YGC for the instruction and exceptional hospitality. It was an excellent week, and we are looking forward to returning!
Chara Triantafyllidou
CUGC Publicity and Alumni Officer
