New World Record Claim

A Silent 2 sailplane flown by Leo Benetti-Longhini of Tullahoma,
Tennessee, and Asiago, Italy, landed at Swee****er, Texas, on Friday
evening (9th July 2004) after a distance record flight of 8.5 hours.
The pilot was met by his ground chase volunteer David Glover of
Oklahoma City and Sidra Gaither of Swee****er, who signed as official
witness to the landing. The sailplane, registration N-210DU (for
Silent 2 series production No. 10), flew in the FAI Class DU glider
category and, until approved by the FAI, has unofficially set the
free-distance and distance-to-goal records.

The previous records (both 509 km) were set in 1998 by Kansas pilot
Gary Osoba in a Woodstock. This year, he had been flying Leo's Silent
since early July in the 2004 World Record Encampment (WRE) organized
by respected national contest director David Glover. The encampment,
held in Zapata, Texas, on the Mexican border 50 miles south of Laredo,
draws pilots from around the world due to the unique desert
conditions, but the unusually wet weather this spring has downgraded
the region's normally optimum soaring.

I spoke with Leo shortly after his flight and I was subsequently also
able to review his flight log. He informed me that with exception to
some local practice and test flights, weather conditions had only
permitted Gary to initiate one distance attempt on Monday of the same
week. Wet terrain and "soft" conditions around Carizzo Springs had
forced him to land on a desert road and resulted in an interesting
retrieve. Ultimately Gary had to temporarily leave the WRE for a
conference in Oklahoma City, leaving Leo to experience local flying in
the ultralight sailplane. On July 9th, weather conditions were
slightly but noticeably improved, and Leo decided to make his own
record attempt. He departed Zapata at approximately 11:00 a.m. with a
declared goal task of 559 km (347 miles) to Winters, Texas, southwest
of Abilene. After reaching Winters in 7 hours and 20 minutes, the
weather conditions allowed him to continue on to Swee****er to obtain
a free-distance record of approximately 620 km (386 miles). A review
of his GPS log shows the first half of the flight was flown mostly
between 600 m and 1100 m (2000 and 3500 feet) AGL with 4 lowpoints of
200m to 400m (700 to 1400 ft) AGL (these corresponded with the soft
conditions around Carizzo Springs as experienced by Gary a few days
earlier and some difficult spots entering the hill country east of
Uvalde). Conditions improved over the higher terrain past Uvalde, but
the whole flight still averaged only 1 m/s (2 kts) of lift. Another
tough day of flying – but just good enough!

Leo is the U.S. representative for Alisport, the Italian manufacturer
of the Silent 2. The ship has an empty weight under 128 kg (282 lbs).
As weather conditions are expected to improve over the next few weeks,
Gary will be back in it, attempting to set additional records from
both Zapata and Big Spring, Texas.

Great flight, Leo… and good luck, Gary