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| January
2002
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Ring! Ring! I glanced at my wristwatch as the phone rang again, 7 am - a little early for telephone calls, "Hello?" " I have a collect call from a Julian Martin, will you accept the charges?" "Yes, operator, " I answered; Julian had been using his weather wisdom these past few weeks to help me plan a record flight, what would today's forecast bring? " Well, Julian, what have you got ?" "There is a front coming in, Les; it seems to have quite a lot of energy. Today might be the day you've been waiting for. There are strong winds forecast, and the leading edge is at Yuma Arizona right now. If you can get 300 feet per minute by 11 this morning, I think you ought to go for it ! " "OK. Thanks -I'll let you know what happens. Bye, Julian," "Good luck, Les." I checked my watch again. 7:05 am, Sunday, May 10 1980. What the watch doesn't tell me is that it is Mother's Day - that I already know. For a month now I've been waiting for a cold front that could give me a good long flight, hopefully a straight distance record in multiplace. Being in the soaring business at Estrella Sailport, it's often difficult to find a day I'm not scheduled for a local aerobatic or cross-country training flight. Now I have the day miraculously free, the cold front is on the doorstep, and it is - mother's Day. My wife Betty will not be thrilled at all this! I probably shouldn't go, Well, I'll just go through the motions of getting ready. As I dress, I pick out all the warm clothes I might need, and pack some extra stuff too -just in case. Our Estrella crew and I load up the VW bus by 8 am. Betty care fully packs in a crate of special Estrella wine we'd received as a gift, and loads boxes of food for our big picnic party that evening. I can feel a change in the weather - it's not all that subtle. There is something different here, an electric feeling, There is no early morning inversion, but no wind yet either. There is just a feeling of something yet to come. We arrived at Estrella at 9 am. I went straight for the phone. "Harry, this is Les. Do you want to go for a record attempt?" " Uh, sure, Les. When?" asked Harry. "Oh, there's a front between Yuma and Estrella. We should take off by 11 this morning." "OK, I'll be there by 11. See you then." Betty's heard this conversation. After I hang up, she asks the obvious, "You're really going, aren't you?" "But honey, I may not get another chance like this again this year!" Oh sure, I'd like to have said, "No, it doesn't matter, I'll do it some other day," but I can't. I recalled another time in 1972, when I was scheduled with a student and elected instead to get my third, diamond. No amount of explanation could make up for the deed, and I've never seen that student at Estrella since. The weather, the plane, the time and opportunity all spelled T0DAY! This time, a record flight. Betty knew all this, and understood. "But who'll be the life of the party tonight?" she kidded. The next hour passed quickly, in cleaning and loading the Janus. Food, drinking water, maps, portable radio. Oxygen gear? Of course. Water ballast, plenty of warm clothes, barographs for both the sailplane and the tow ship. The list went on and on. The wind began to blow; it was not even 10 am and already the horizon was studded with dust devils. "I want to go NOW," I thought to myself, " Where the Hell is Harry??" Harry's son Tom is one of our line boys, and he'd sensed my impatience. "I'll go," he volunteered," we don't have to wait for my dad!" I smile. "No, I'll wait till 11, Tom, but thanks." I can tell that Tom will be looking at the clock every minute, and hoping his dad, has a flat or something. Harry Alton drives in at 10:58 and calls to me from his car," I'll be with you in a minute - have to visit the 'simulator'." As Harry ambles over to that portable compromise to indoor plumbing, the flight line bustles in a flurry of activity. I say my goodbyes to all, get the Janus in take-off position, and settle into the front pilot compartment. As Harry approaches to claim his spot in the back seat, my heart stops. This man is nuts! He's wearing short sleeves and Bermuda shorts! If we ever do land in the mountains of Colorado, he'll freeze. "Harry, didn't you bring any warm clothes?" "Oh, I'll be OK. I'm not cold at all." "Hey the vario is moving up! " As we climb at 100 feet per minute, I'm thinking, "Soon we'll need all this water in our wings." Three minutes later, I see a swirl of dust about 2 miles northeast of us. Hooray! And we're off toward it. After centering, the Janus is climbing at 500 fpm, and all I can do is lean back and enjoy it. Finally, some two hours after take off; we've nailed our first good thermal. We're taking this one to cloudbase. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve thousand feet. Denver here we come! "Harry, what was that city?" "Holbrook, Arizona, " "Holbrook in two hours and five minutes, not bad, eh??" The next hour was incredible. At a 12,000 foot cloudbase, we zoomed along at 100-110 knots, following the cloudstreet and taking advantage of the 30 to 40 knot tailwind. I have never seen the real estate move so fast in my life! "Where are we Harry?" "I don't know." "Would you mind looking at the map?" "Well, I would if I could, Les, but we don't have a Colorado sectional and we left the Phoenix chart about an hour ago. I've got a jet route chart here, but that's not any help. " Oh well, I'm following the clouds, and we're going as far as we can anyway! Flying now over the Painted Desert in northwestern New Mexico - what a beautiful sight. Reds, yellow, rusty orange, white, and rosy pink - name a color and it's there. If we could only film a gorgeous flight like this and show it to the people who are afraid to fly, They'd forget the word fear! We're happy and content. Looking around, we're following nature's incredible highway here in this cloud street. But what's this... rain? The sound is worse than my alarm in the morning as the huge drops go "ping -splat!" on the wings and canopy. Let's see...yup..,we'd better make a right turn and get out of this mess. (And this flight was turning out to be so neat! Drat! ) With this rude awakening, I must look around to assess the weather. Yes, it is rather overdeveloped. We'd better climb as high as we can. We found a 400 fpm thermal and made it to 14,000 msl. Harry -you fly over this area all the time for Republic - any idea where we are now? We're headed for Denver, all right, and I think that over there is Farmington. It would be nice to know for sure. How could I have stashed the wrong map on board? Well, it's obvious we'll have to follow the weather anyway - there's only one way to go with all this over development in the area. The ground is wet everywhere; the area must have had a lot of rain fairly recently. Things are definitely slowing down. We're no longer finding any strong lift, and 200 fpm seems like a boomer. There is a 100% cloud cover, with snow and rain moving threateningly up from the south. We have a nice smooth ride down to 10,000 feet, with barely a ripple. The terrain is ruggedly mountainous with peaks at 9,000 feet, and we head for a roll cloud of sorts up ahead. We gain a few hundred feet in that choppy lift, and then glide quietly again. There is too much water everywhere! No more thermals at all. We're down to 9,000 feet when I finally decide to dump the water ballast and we begin to ridge soar. I look down to see a small village with an invitingly big blacktop runway. Should I land? The wind is blowing against the ridges, but so what? The ridges are ninety degrees to course line, so ridge soaring is not very practical. Without thermals, how can we go on? Well now, maybe there's a wave. And maybe if there's one, there are more...all those ridges lined up like ripples across the course might work out after all! "Harry, there are some houses in those hills. What do you think shall we lake a chance at jumping ridges? We might make it into the big one somewhere out there. And, if we have to land, at least we'll be close to people. "DK. let's go. Les. Sounds slick." We jumped a couple of ridges, then found some very strong lift. AHA! There it is! or is it? What we've got is 2,000 fpm on one side and we're losing 1,000 fpm on the other. Interesting. At about 300 feet above the peak of the ridge, the lift quits entirely. We find ourselves free-falling, with the Janus' nose pointed down at a 45 degree angle and no indicated airspeed. Very interesting! The hillside is really coming up fast. At what looks like about 6 feel above the tree tops, the Janus finally decides that the better part of valor here is to fly again. Now that was about as close as I ever would want it! The back seat is very quiet. As I work the Janus closer to the big mountain, the lift gets better. Pretty soon we are looking some 1,000 feet down at the peak that had almost consumed us. It had lost it's hold on us. Now we were really moving. At 14,500 msl, we were ridge soaring - a new experience for me. We could turn downwind and glide a long way, but there is a snow shower on the lee side of our ridge. One scare is enough for today! For 20 minutes, we followed the ridge to the south, and managed to get around the snow shower. We crossed the mountain crest and found not wave, but turbulent lift we used to climb back to 14,500 feet. Then we continued the downwind dash. After crossing a large flat marshland, we reached the foothills of a 14,000 foot mountain. The altimeter shows us at 8,000 feet, probably some 7 or 8 hundred feet above the valley floor. We work weak lift of only 50 fpm, the air as smooth as silk, and find ourselves getting colder. At 9,000 feet, we spot five Golden Eagles. They're ridge soaring quietly, minding their own business and looking at this big while intruder. Four of them move away, but the fifth approaches. Power radiates from this beautiful bird, and he glances over as if to say, "I was here first, you know. Bug off!" His majesty was telling me to stay away, and I held my distance. At 10,000 feet the snow level started. The mountain became frightening! Wind howling, snow boiling off it. The slope looked like a cauldron of churning winter storm. Happy Mother's Day, Mother Nature! On each successive turn, we had to bear upwind, because of the strong drift, which would otherwise slam us into the slope. The peak was a brilliant white as we climbed past it showing 500 fpm. Soon we were at cloudbase, now 15,000 msl, and guess who was climbing into the clouds just off our right wingtip...none other than our Golden Eagle friend. We turn downwind once more, and I sense that the day is coming to an end. Crossing one more mountain, we find the long-awaited wave some 2 miles past the crest. It is a silky smooth climb at 700 fpm. Apparently, this last mountain wants to be nice to us, but it is too late. The sun is setting; we must quit the climb and look for a landing place. We spot a city in the distance, and I aim for it. Harry soon declares this town to be Pueblo Colorado. As we circle over the airport with enough altitude to flat glide another 100 miles, Harry calls the tower. "Pueblo rower, Glider 468F -just arrived from Phoenix, Arizona - request landing instructions ." All's quiet. After some long seconds, "Uh, glider uh, 68F say again from where?" We touched down at 8:08 local time, and the whole airport came out to see this magnificent soaring machine that could waft along for the 563 course miles we'd flown. We secured the ship, answered the obligatory questions, and walked rather stiffly up to the operations building. It was time for the phone calls. Harry had a bit of explaining to do, and I wanted to let my Estrella gang know their fearless leader had set a new National record. Ring! Ring! "This is Estrella sailport," a voice answered the phone. "I have a collect call from a Les Horvath, will you accept the charges?" "Well, I guess so. He's the one who pays the phone bills." This was not exactly the enthusiasm I'd expected. "How's the party going there," I asked. "Really good. Lincoln and Mitchell got their diamond altitudes today, so they're pretty happy. This is one of the best parties we've ever had! Kinda too bad you missed all the wine and everything, Les, Oh, by the way, where are you? "Pueblo Colorado" "Oh. Well, that's far enough, right? Gotta go -the party's just getting good out there. Here's Betty." "Hi Les. Where are you?" "Pueblo Colorado. Happy mother's Day"' " Oh thanks. Say, what have you got planned for Father's Day??" |
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