Flight from Minden to Steamboat Springs, Colorado?

[Bill Daniels]

I heard a rumor that there was a wave XC flight eastbound from Minden to
Colorado within the last few days. Anyone have details?

Bill Daniels

[Mark Navarre]

>Subject: Flight from Minden to Steamboat Springs, Colorado?
>From: "Bill Daniels"
>Date: 4/18/2004 6:53 PM Pacific Daylight Time
>Message-id: <kiGgc.14332$hw5.16048@attbi_s53>
>
>I heard a rumor that there was a wave XC flight eastbound from Minden to
>Colorado within the last few days. Anyone have details?
>
>Bill Daniels

I can confirm the rumor, heard from Kempton today at Cal City that Gordon
Boettger flew from Minden, NV to Steamboat Springs, CO.... downwind in wave
last Thursday.
Just short of 700 miles as I was told.
-
Mark Navarre
2/5 black ace
LoCal, USA
remove brain to reply
-

[Kizuno]

>>I heard a rumor that there was a wave XC flight eastbound from Minden to
>>Colorado within the last few days. Anyone have details?
>>
>>Bill Daniels
>
>I can confirm the rumor, heard from Kempton today at Cal City that Gordon
>Boettger flew from Minden, NV to Steamboat Springs, CO.... downwind in wave
>last Thursday.
>Just short of 700 miles as I was told.
>-
>Mark Navarre

While my goal is coax Gordon into writing in detail about this flight, I can
say that this was notable in a couple ways:
- He secured LOAs with the FAA (over a period of years) to allow climbs in his
Kestrel well above the normal 18,000 ft base of Class A airspace. And he
needed it for this flight.
- He is a professional heavy jet pilot, so knows how to talk and work with ATC,
something that most of us (myself included) are not well versed in.
- Much of the first half of the flight was in poor visibility, so finding the
embedded wave was challenging.

In any event, this was a great test run for his equipment and logistics. It is
likely that we can see him fly to Kansas someday.