Another Downwind Dash

I had quit reading the Barry Schiff thread until I was alerted to
this:

"After ~40 years of participation in 'flying for fun' (mostly
soaring), I
recently participated in my Very First vulgar downwind dash...as Joe
Crew.
Proving that ships of 1-26 performance are incapable of XC, Joe Pilot
somehow
managed to soar a 45-year-old wooden homebuilt sailplane having no
more than
1-26 performance, some 240 crow miles on a blue, so-so day, all the
while
easily beating Joe Crew in the speed department across 4 (very
sparsely
populated, well-roaded) western states. Great flight. Great fun. Great
story!
If someone can ever convince Joe Pilot to stop soaring for long enough
to
chime in, I hope we'll be able to share it in writing soon!

Bob - J. Crew - W. "

Well, you asked for it.

I spent last week in Dalhart, TX with a group of club members from the
Soaring Society of Boulder at their annual cross country camp. My
main intent of attending the camp was to practice closed course
soaring in the Cherokee, something I'm not used to doing. However,
the forecast for Wednesday was screaming Downwind Dash so I quickly
recruited an eager Bob as my crew.

The flight was interesting, not nearly as good as Dr. Jack had
promised (typical) but good none the less. I was first to launch
shortly about 1 PM Local (11:15 AM Solar Time) from Dalhart. I
quickly found good lift and climbed to about 10,000 feet, enough for a
comfortable crossing of Rita Blanca National Grassland between Dalhart
and Boise City, OK. You don't want to have to land there! The next
obstacle was the Cimarron river which might as well have been Lake
Michigan but once again I had plenty of altitude to make it across
without sweating. After the Cimarron it was probably about 60 miles
to the next obstacle, the Arkansas River valley. Between them was a
multitude of landable farm fields that I didn't need, however I did
manage to get fairly low several times during this stretch. There was
some sort of weak stationary front, marked by a line of clouds running
east/west probably about halfway between the rivers. I did manage to
climb to 11,000 feet under the clouds (not cloudbase) but on either
side for a good 20 miles I could hardly top 8000 and was usually much
lower.

I was finally able to climb up higher in time to cross the Arkansas
and by the time I crossed it i was flying voer the state of Kansas
where it pronounced Ar-Kansas not Ar-Kansaw. Ahead lay perfectly
level dirt or harvested wheat fields to the horizon. A dream!
However, closer analysis showed that not all was well in dream land.
These were not the farm fields of my native Iowa or even central
Kansas where I have been flying. There, there are occupied farm
houses at least one per square mile. Here, I could not see a positive
sign of human life. Sure I could land anywhere, but then what? Bob
and I were going for a true vintage experience on this flight. He has
no cell phone and radio contact had been lost, after I landed my job
was to call back to Dalhart and leave my location with the mechanic at
the FBO. A few thoughts crossed my mind. If I land out here, will I
be able to get a cell signal? Will there be a house with a phone
within walking distance? How much water do I have? How long will it
take Bob to find me once he gets the message. I might as well have
been flying over the Sahara! However I was relieved to see that I was
over flying the annual migration of the Wheat harvest! Life! My plan
was to land next to a Combine. At least I would eventually be able to
get a ride to civilization.

Once I overflew the Kansas Wheat Desert I had a few garbled exchanges
with Bob over the radio and knew he was headed north on Highway 27.
My route was more or less following the same road. My declared goal
was Imperial, Nebraska, 314 miles from Dalhart. Diamond Distance.
However that low stretch between the rivers had ruined my average
speed and the winds were lighter the further north I flew. The
computer said and I knew that I would need to fly until at least 7:30
PM maybe even 8 to have a chance. I knew it was possible for the
flight to continue that late on the right day so I kept going. I
couldn't help but notice though that the thermals weren't going quite
as high as earlier and each one was lower than the last. Not
encouraging when it was already past 5 PM. Long smooth glides between
thermals started to chip my confidence. I was headed straight for
Goodland, KS but my Mark I eyeball was saying I didn't quit have
enough altitude to make it.

I managed to eek out a few extra hundred feet just southwest of town
so that the airport was now in range. Hating to give up and knowing
that landing at an airport almost always means you didn't go as far as
you could, I flew past the airport a few miles but didn't feel a
single bump. I couldn't turn down the airport, did a 180 and landed.
A few of the mechanics came out and helped pull the Cherokee up to the
ramp at Butterfly Aviation. Bob showed up about a half hour later.
Turns out he hadn't heard my radio calls in the blind saying I was
landing at Goodland but through a bit of deduction and some luck he
figured it was a good place to stop.

All in all the flight was wonderful, 235 miles is my longest flight to
date in the Cherokee. I was really hoping to get to at least 260
which is the longest flight ever flown in a Cherokee II (Pre 1-26 Jim
Hard in 1965) and of course that magical 310 for Diamond Distance, but
it will have to wait for another day.

Bob seemed to have at least as much fun chasing as I did flying. I
tested his crewing skills too. We only had about 4 exchanges
throughout the whole flight that both sides came through loud and
clear. There were also a handful of garbled transmissions that at
least allowed him to know I was still in the air. My old pickup
turned over 262,000 miles on the trip and the A/C wasn't working. Hey
it was only 102 F on the ground. Not to mention my beast of a trailer
sometimes proves exciting when unloaded and exposed to proper
crosswinds or passing semi trucks. The final straw which should've
done any crew in but barely made Bob flinch was when the truck
wouldn't start in Goodland due to a failed fuel pump. So we spent
Thursday replacing the fuel pump. Not only is he a good pilot,
writer, & engineer, but he's not bad with a wrench either!

Here's the flight: http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...tId=-560199443

Made my evening! Thanks for sharing this.

Great Story. Made my lunch hour habit of checking RAS worthwhile
today.

Thank you for taking the time to write it down for us

SF

thanks guys, and you're welcome. It was an awesome flight. The good
news is, there will be more!

I would think that crossing into Russian airspace in a Blanik would be
more akin to Mathias Rust instead of Gary Powers. Perhaps declare Red
Square next time?