Jim Payne and Dennis Tito's long wave flight yesterday

The note below was posted on my Soaring News page this morning.
https://www.facebook.com/CumulusSoaring

Congratulations to Jim Payne and Dennis Tito on your great wave flight
yesterday, May 29th, 2013! Jim and Dennis did a long flight out of Minden,
Nevada in a DG-1001M. The flight covered 1,578 km (980.5 miles) in free
distance according to the OLC (Online Contest) web site. I enjoyed following
the flight as it happened on Jim's SPOT tracking page (posted here
yesterday). The flight log indicates that their maximum altitude was about
24,715 feet (7,533 m) and the flight duration was 14:11:53. They took-off at
5:37 AM and left Minden at about 5:54 AM - climbing in wave with about 6 to
8 knots on the variometer. Their first turnpoint was NW of Reno at about
6:38 AM. Their next turnpoint was far to the South near Lancaster at 10:21
AM. Then they flew back North to near Lone Pine at about 2:17 PM before
turning S/SW again - flying down near Conover Air Lodge and turning NE again
at 4:10 PM. They next turned at a point NW of Inyokern at 5:19 and dashed to
the South and later the SE - flying past Palm Springs and turn turning back
to the NW to land at Palm Springs Airport at 7:49 PM. SeeYou shows that
during one of the straight segments of the flight they flew for over an hour
with an average speed of 152 mph (245 km/hr). Their maximum ground speed was
240 mph (386 km/hr) while flying with a 70 mph tailwind! SeeYou calculated
their maximum True Airspeed at 181.6 mph (158 knots)(292 km/hr). Wow! I see
an average climb rate of over 12 knots for a short period at around 7:20 AM
and a longer climb with an average climb rate of over 9 knots at about 4:30
PM. You can view the flight on the OLC web site using the link below. You
can also download the flight log from that page. Jim posted the note below
the OLC page.
http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...l?dsId=3007376
____________________________
"Forecast called for wind much more NWerly than desired but time is running
out on the wave season so we gave it a try. Day played out as forecast.
Jackie, we owe you. More details later."
____________________________
Please excuse the commercial plug below.
I look forward to following Jim's future flights on his new DeLorme inReach
SE. He will receive one of the first units delivered in a few days. The
inReach SE's tracking page will show more frequent position updates
(depending on the service plan selected) and will also display his altitude
and heading. You can learn more about the inReach SE he
http://www.cumulus-soaring.com/delorme.htm

Nice one, JP!
Palm Springs is one of Jim's favorite destinations:
Downwind, low, light winds, and a friendly hangar to derig in.
Jim

Had time to look this morning. Cool.
Now JP is on top of OLC plus and speed scores.... again.
JP retired a few months ago, so look out for more action.
Jim