Departure
88%
vs 95% ▼ 7
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
The Yorkshire Gliding Club operates from an airfield perched on the escarpment of Sutton Bank in the North York Moors National Park, one of the most storied gliding sites in Britain. Its single grass runway sits atop a steep west-facing cliff that has provided reliable ridge lift to soaring pilots since before the club's own founding in 1934. For a simulator pilot, it offers a distinctive combination of dramatic terrain, a single 03/21 grass strip, and a strong claim to being the spiritual home of British soaring.
The Yorkshire Gliding Club (YGC) flies from a private airfield at Angram Grange, on Sutton Bank in North Yorkshire, within the North York Moors National Park. It is a gliding-only site, operated by the club itself, and is renowned as one of the premier soaring locations in the United Kingdom, prized for the natural ridge lift generated along the escarpment edge. The field's dramatic cliff-top setting, combined with its long gliding pedigree and famous past visitors including Amy Johnson, Fred Slingsby and Nicholas Goodhart, makes it an interesting and visually striking destination for a simulator pilot exploring general aviation and gliding sites in northern England.
The airfield lies at Angram Grange in North Yorkshire, within the North York Moors National Park, at an elevation of 948 feet. It sits on top of the Sutton Bank escarpment, about seven miles east of Thirsk along the A170 road, immediately south of the National Park's Sutton Bank visitor centre. The site occupies the top of Roulston Scar and Sutton Bank, overlooking the White Horse of Kilburn cut into the hillside below. As a gliding-only airfield it has no control tower and operates as an uncontrolled private site; pilots should be alert to intensive glider activity, aerotow operations and winch launching in the vicinity.
The airfield has a single grass runway, 03/21, measuring 2511 feet in length. There is no ILS or other instrument approach aid at the field, consistent with its use purely for glider and towing operations.
The airfield's flying operations are shaped by its unusual topography: a steep, west-facing escarpment forces air upwards against the cliff face, producing reliable ridge lift that is used, together with aerial tow or winch launching, to get gliders airborne. A third source of lift, a mountain wave, can allow soaring to considerable heights, with a club record of 33,000 feet. Pilots joining or transiting the area should expect glider traffic operating close to the ridge line and should be aware of aerotow and winch launch activity along the escarpment edge.
The airfield is easily identified from the air by its position atop Roulston Scar and Sutton Bank, directly above the White Horse of Kilburn hill figure cut into the escarpment below. The A170 road passes close to the site, and the North York Moors National Park's Sutton Bank visitor centre lies just to the north of the airfield, both useful references when locating the field visually.
Sutton Bank had already been used as a glider launching site for some 25 years before the Yorkshire Gliding Club was formed, with the first recorded launch made by Erik Addyman in 1911, and the site was also used by Slingsby Sailplanes to test their aircraft. The Yorkshire Gliding Club itself was formed in April 1934 through the amalgamation of the Bradford Gliding Club and the Ilkley and District Gliding Club, founded by Phil Wills, Fred Slingsby and Norman Sharpe. The club moved to Sutton Bank later that year, leasing the site from the Church of England, and the location was quickly regarded as second only to Dunstable in the development of British gliding, with its cliff-top launch point offering greater clearance above the ground than its southern rival. In August 1935 the site hosted the National Gliding Competition, with the Sailplane and Gliding Journal declaring it the best-suited site in the country for the event. Hangars and ancillary buildings were erected in 1934, and a brick hangar built in 1936 still stands today. In the early years, launches were made by teams of men hauling ropes to catapult gliders into the air, before the club adapted a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost into a winch, using 2,625 feet of steel cable to get aircraft airborne. During 1939, Royal Air Force cadets undertook glider training at the site, and No. 28 Glider School used the airfield sporadically until its disbandment in 1950. The strip was not used for flying during the Second World War, though it may have served as a decoy airfield to draw enemy bombers away from genuine targets, with a further decoy site established on the racecourse across the A170. At least one RAF aircraft is recorded to have landed at Sutton Bank when other airstrips in the Vale of York were fogbound, and because the site was familiar to German glider pilots before the war, defensive ditches were dug by the British Army in the 1940s against the perceived risk of it being used as an invasion landing ground. The airfield itself occupies the site of a former Iron Age hill fort and is registered as a scheduled monument, excluding the club's own buildings.
The Yorkshire Gliding Club continues to operate from Sutton Bank today, offering gliding training and flights to members and newcomers alike, with a fleet that includes gliders, towing aircraft and a winch, and a motorglider used for side-by-side introductory flying. The club operates every day of the year, weather permitting, and its clubhouse and cafe are open to visitors and walkers as well as to flying members. Prior permission is required for visiting aircraft.
