400 miles

With Sports Class Nationals cut short, Bob and I left Uvalde at 7 AM monday with the Silent 2 Electro in tow. It rained pretty constantly through most of the hill country but by 9 AM we could see the edge of cloudy skies.

I had been looking at the soaring forecasts the night before and thought Winters, TX would be in the sunshine and a good place to start a flight. It turned out that was the case. Cumulus were popping just west of Winters a little before 10 AM. That was about the time we made it to town. I filled up the tank on the Subaru and got some junk food and headed to the airport.

Runway is advertised at 50 feet wide. It might be. There was semi-tall grass on either side of the pavement that would encourage me to hold centerline on takeoff. Rigging the glider went quick and at about 11:20 i launched, found a thermal and started working NW towards the clouds.

Had a struggle getting around Abilene. Airspace wasn't an issue and ATC was happy to provide flight following, I just spent a lot of time thrashing around trying to find thermals. Progress was slow and steady. At one point while digging out from a low point i saw a paraglider coring a thermal just south of me!

North of Abilene the solid cumulus coverage ended and I only had occasional wisps. They were so short lived to not be very useful unless I was very close. A few low points and long glides and also a couple very strong climbs were encountered, one steady over 1000 feet per minute.

Heights were ticking up as I flew along. The wind was also shifting from a quartering headwind out of the northeast to a crosswind out of the east. I was expecting and anxious for it to turn to a southerly tailwind!

A nice cu field was in sight to the north/northwest. I kept trying to angle that way to get to it ASAP. I seemed to fly over 50/50 flat farmland and rough river drainage ground. I had a few low points down around 2000 AGL or a bit lower but was usually able to find a good climb and get out of there.

I had occasional contact with Bob via radio but I was running about 40 miles west of US Highway 83 so it was spotty. My plan was to try to make it to Ulysses, KS or beyond, depending on how the day went.

Clouds were encountered again around Interstate 40 I think, this was also associated with the wind turning southerly. Finally! I was able to get a good series of climbs to get up high for crossing the Canadian River.

As I was setting out over the Canadian valley, I noticed my airport database showed a private strip out there. Cool! The computer in this glider doesn't provide a lot of detail though so I couldn't be sure about runway length/width etc. About that time my friend Jerry texted me and mentioned that that "ranch strip" belongs to T Boone Pickens and is big enough for his private jets and equipped with an ILS! It made a nice stepping stone to make it to the endless flat farmland on the north side.

I could see the end of the clouds again in the distance to the north. My friend Ed in Ulysses had reported it was blue there. My high point came shortly, at about 11,500 feet. And I was able to do a good job of staying up high as I came to the end of the clouds around Hooker, OK.

I caught a few decent climbs in the blue after the end of the clouds which got me a marginal glide to Ulysses from about 50 miles out. I was able to maintain that with a few bumps on the way down and some careful, slow flying in nice smooth early evening air. I arrived at the airport at about 1500 AGL.

The point to point distance between the airports was 399 miles. I extended downwind to get 400 miles from my takeoff point, then landed. Ed was there to greet me on the side of the runway. Bob was only about 15 minutes behind with the trailer. The flight was 7 hours 50 minutes. What a trip!

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...Id=-1857562377

That's one pretty darn straight line! Cool flight. Great writeup.

P3

On Tuesday, August 16, 2016 at 9:35:02 AM UTC-4, Tony wrote:
With Sports Class Nationals cut short, Bob and I left Uvalde at 7 AM monday with the Silent 2 Electro in tow. It rained pretty constantly through most of the hill country but by 9 AM we could see the edge of cloudy skies.

I had been looking at the soaring forecasts the night before and thought Winters, TX would be in the sunshine and a good place to start a flight. It turned out that was the case. Cumulus were popping just west of Winters a little before 10 AM. That was about the time we made it to town. I filled up the tank on the Subaru and got some junk food and headed to the airport.

Runway is advertised at 50 feet wide. It might be. There was semi-tall grass on either side of the pavement that would encourage me to hold centerline on takeoff. Rigging the glider went quick and at about 11:20 i launched, found a thermal and started working NW towards the clouds.

Had a struggle getting around Abilene. Airspace wasn't an issue and ATC was happy to provide flight following, I just spent a lot of time thrashing around trying to find thermals. Progress was slow and steady. At one point while digging out from a low point i saw a paraglider coring a thermal just south of me!

North of Abilene the solid cumulus coverage ended and I only had occasional wisps. They were so short lived to not be very useful unless I was very close. A few low points and long glides and also a couple very strong climbs were encountered, one steady over 1000 feet per minute.

Heights were ticking up as I flew along. The wind was also shifting from a quartering headwind out of the northeast to a crosswind out of the east. I was expecting and anxious for it to turn to a southerly tailwind!

A nice cu field was in sight to the north/northwest. I kept trying to angle that way to get to it ASAP. I seemed to fly over 50/50 flat farmland and rough river drainage ground. I had a few low points down around 2000 AGL or a bit lower but was usually able to find a good climb and get out of there.

I had occasional contact with Bob via radio but I was running about 40 miles west of US Highway 83 so it was spotty. My plan was to try to make it to Ulysses, KS or beyond, depending on how the day went.

Clouds were encountered again around Interstate 40 I think, this was also associated with the wind turning southerly. Finally! I was able to get a good series of climbs to get up high for crossing the Canadian River.

As I was setting out over the Canadian valley, I noticed my airport database showed a private strip out there. Cool! The computer in this glider doesn't provide a lot of detail though so I couldn't be sure about runway length/width etc. About that time my friend Jerry texted me and mentioned that that "ranch strip" belongs to T Boone Pickens and is big enough for his private jets and equipped with an ILS! It made a nice stepping stone to make it to the endless flat farmland on the north side.

I could see the end of the clouds again in the distance to the north. My friend Ed in Ulysses had reported it was blue there. My high point came shortly, at about 11,500 feet. And I was able to do a good job of staying up high as I came to the end of the clouds around Hooker, OK.

I caught a few decent climbs in the blue after the end of the clouds which got me a marginal glide to Ulysses from about 50 miles out. I was able to maintain that with a few bumps on the way down and some careful, slow flying in nice smooth early evening air. I arrived at the airport at about 1500 AGL.

The point to point distance between the airports was 399 miles. I extended downwind to get 400 miles from my takeoff point, then landed. Ed was there to greet me on the side of the runway. Bob was only about 15 minutes behind with the trailer. The flight was 7 hours 50 minutes. What a trip!

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...Id=-1857562377

Congrats. Impressive. IMHO the OLC scoring system doesn't do justice to achievements like yours, considering the challenge caused by the distance, changing weather on the long route, flying into unknown territory, endurance, stress and the very courage to try something new. There should be some bonuses...

Tomasz
BravoMike

To me, one of the best things on this flight is that it wasn't the "vulgar, downwind dash". It was a cross headwind, crosswind, cross-tail wind, finally light tailwind flight. It had clouds, and it had blue. It went over fields and over some really gnarly terrain. And, it ended at an airport with really good people ready to take care of you!

Oh, and it was flying home after a contest. There is the real benefit to having a crew! You get to fly home! I have always wanted to do that, but have never tried.

Steve Leonard

We're not worthy, We're not worthy!!!

Thanks for writing it up!
Scott.

Vulgar downwind dash"? ?
I don't know what you are referring to.
Straight out flights, at least anything more than a 100k, will be of constant different and changing conditions.
After all that is what it's all about.

On Tuesday, August 16, 2016 at 2:39:21 PM UTC-5, 6PK wrote:
Vulgar downwind dash"? ?
I don't know what you are referring to.
Straight out flights, at least anything more than a 100k, will be of constant different and changing conditions.
After all that is what it's all about.

Old school term. Look at the writings of Phillip Wills.

It's sort of like golf. Headwind on the front 4. Still a headwind on the middle 3. Headwind back to the clubhouse. Repeat on the back 9.

It's sort of like golf. Headwind on the front 4. Still a headwind on the middle 3. Headwind back to the clubhouse. Repeat on the back 9.

Thanks Steve. As far as I could tell, the day was a boring average Soaring day in the panhandle. So now I know what can be achieved on a normal day, I am even more excited to get a shot on a really good day!

6PK, not necessarily...my other Big Flights, all of which would qualify as Vulgar Downwind Dashes, were pretty constant and homogenous Soaring weather wise. Especially the big 525 miler, the conditions were strong with nice Cu and strong tailwinds the whole way. One of the 300 milers did have a shift from clouds to blue but without a major shift in thermal strength.