On Sunday, April 26, 2020 at 3:22:54 AM UTC-5, wrote:
* There is a reference in the movie to a pilot that "set a record of
over 600 miles between Odessa, TX and Nebraska riding a storm front".
Was that Dick Johnson? Jim Short mentioned Dick's record to me just
last night and said that it stood for over 10 years. He also
mentioned that Dick flew a glider of his own design (don't recall the
name). Damn shame about Dick. Great guy.

Dick Johnson did set a distance record but the movie reference may likely be about Al Parker in an Arlington Sisu sailplane making the first 1,000 kilometer soaring flight in the world in July of 1964 from his hometown of Odessa, TX across Colorado to Kimball, Nebraska, well over 600 miles. That historic Sisu is on display in the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy aviation museum near Dulles, VA. Excellent article with better details about the flight in a 1964 fall issue of SOARING magazine. (I'm not in Marfa to access my fat file on the Sisu sailplane history - gone since April 27. Heading back to Marfa in a week or two.)