“You find a thermal, gain height and go forward,” says the retired company accountant. “With plenty of height you can soar over York, it is an amazing sight.”

David, of Bierley in Bradford, had always wanted to learn to fly, but had not considered gliding. All that changed when one of the founder members of the Wolds Gliding Club in Pocklington introduced him to the club. “He lived nearby and took a party from the local community centre. I went along and really enjoyed it.

“Afterwards I rang him and said that if he went again I would like to go. He called on my 60th birthday. That time I had three flights and, as my wife Brenda says, I was ‘hooked’”.

David normally takes to the skies using a ‘winch launch’- a stationary ground-based winch mounted on a heavy vehicle that lifts the craft to around 1200 feet. This method is widely used at many European clubs, often in addition to an aerotow service, in which a powered plane pulls the craft into the air.

“The instructor takes the glider up and soon asks whether you want to take control,” says David, “You keep it is the air by keeping an airspeed of about 50 knots. You point the nose down slightly, or you can find a thermal - a rising column of air.”

Thermals tend to rise to between 3,000 and 5,000 feet.

After only eight months, David took a solo flight, and loved it. “It is so quiet and peaceful up there, with only a slight noise from the wind.”

Originally founded in 1969 by a group of enthusiastic bus drivers and conductors from Leeds, the club has been based at Pocklington since 1971, when a secure lease was signed for the former wartime airfield.

Unlike learning to fly, gliding does not incur a huge cost. “You just pay for the flight, not the instruction,” says David, who is treasurer at the club. A winch launch costs £7.50 and then it is 35p for each minute in the air.

Members hail from across Yorkshire, with some from Lincolnshire. Age is no barrier. “Anybody can try it,” says David, who is 71 this month. “We have a group that flies on a Wednesday whose average age is 78.”

He adds: “You can fly solo from ago 14. I know an instructor aged 16.”

David loves being up in the air, once spending more than five hours on a flight. “When I first began I would be up for ten minutes and think I had done well, now if I fly for less than two hours I think I have been cheated. I would recommend it to anyone.”

Wolds Gliding Club, The Airfield, Pocklington, East Yorkshire YO42 1NP. T: 01759 303579.

W: wolds-gliding.com E: office@wolds-gliding.org