September is usually the last month of the year in which thermal cross countries can be confidently predicted.  However, September 2012 was more notable for wave based cross countries, although there were some  thermal based ones sometimes assisted by Sea Breeze fronts, as on the 2nd of the month, allowing Derek Taylor in his ASW 22 to do a fast trip down the east coast to the Humber Bridge near Hull.   The highlights of the thermal cross country days were Chris Gill’s Gold Distance flight on the 5th of the month, only a few weeks after completing his Silver C badge, and Lindsay McLane’s trip up to the north of  Newcastle to photograph the Goddess of the North.  This is a new, very large, earth sculpture picturing a rather attractive looking woman which certainly looks impressive from the air as Lindsay’s photo shows.  The size of the sculpture can be gauged by comparison with the articulated lorry to be seen on the road below the sculpture, while the white lines detailing the figure are footpaths for those visiting by foot, this entailing climbing some low hills.

As mentioned above, September continued the good wave months of July and August as predominately Westerly airstreams produced Pennine generated  wave on 11 of the flying days of the month, with 10,000′ asl or more achieved on the majority of these days.   Pilots took advantage of the conditions to either fly N-S along the lee of the Pennines, the best distance being 360 km, or hop wave bars to cross the Pennines and either use the wave generated from the Lake District or hill soar the western face of the Pennines.   The following photos give a taste of the wave flying that took place.

The top photo shows the Pennines from 6,000′ asl.  The second shows one of the clubs’ K21s flying in the wave with one of the month’s holiday course members on board, while the last shows the YGC site from 7,000′ asl with its distinctive and iconic White Horse on the southern ridge clearly visible.  The wave flying from the YGC obviously stood YGC pilots David Latimer and Richie Toon in good stead when they competed in the Moutain Soaring Competition at Aboyne in eastern Scotland during the month, coming 3rd and 4th respectively.

Many of the wave days are also good hill soaring days with the opportunity to transfer from a winch launch into  hill lift and then  into wave although the latter can sometimes require a lot of patience.  However, hill soaring can provide an enjoyable way to amass a few flying hours while at the same time enjoying the views over the North Yorkshire Moors National Park as the following photo shows.

On WNW’ly days, the normal 25 km O/R along the westerly facing ridges can to extended to almost 100 km, this entailing using the ridges to be seen running from left to right in the middle distance on  the above picture.  As only some of these ridges have a  westerly facing component, some exciting low level flying is required to make it back to Sutton Bank.