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That Didn't Look Good (long)
Here is a self-indugent story of a flight last year. There is a prettier
version at http://home.inreach.com/grahdani/flights.html Friday, 24 June 2005 was set as the day in 2005 I would again be able to fly straight out as far as I could in my H301 Libelle with my friend Jeff chasing me in his Cessna and then providing an aero tow home the next day. This flight didn't turn out as well as flights in previous years. This year I didn't watch the weather as closely as I normally did leading up to a flight. From the looking I did do, the weather looked pretty good for a flight to the northeast. Perhaps it was good enough that I could achieve my long time goal of flying to Wyoming from Bishop. One part of the forecast puzzled me because it suggested there would not be much sun on a track to the northeast from Bishop. This didn't seem to match the rest of the forecast but I didn't bother to reconcile this. When I woke up the day of the flight I saw a high overcast covering most of the sky at Bishop and understood the forecast about the lack of sun. As the morning progressed the high clouds drifted off to the northeast and the day started to heat up. I knew the high clouds would affect a flight to the northeast but when I looked at the satellite image loop it seemed I could skirt along the northwest side of the high clouds and still fly to the northeast with a tailwind. Around noon I was ready to. There weren't good clouds along the White Mountains yet but I could see some about 80 miles to the north near Hawthorne. I figured I could reach those clouds pretty easily. I took off a few minutes after noon and worked my way up the Whites. Once off the north end of the Whites conditions improved for a while, I was able to get up to a little over 17,500 feet, and I was able to increase my speed. Unfortunately, as I approached Hawthorne I was down to about 10,000 feet with the really good looking clouds still several miles to the north. I struggled along hoping for a good thermal that would be a ticket to those good clouds ahead. My mindset was that the day was a good day and I should push pretty hard to cover as much ground as I could. Even with the high clouds keeping the ground cooler than it would otherwise be, I figured the day would get better and soon I would be covering ground at a rapid clip. Unfortunately I was struggling along east of Walker Lake while the good clouds seeming to recede away from me as I moved toward them. Undaunted I set my sights on a landing far to the northeast and tried not worry about being 4 or 5 thousand feet lower than I usually insisted on being. Finally I found a good thermal, connected with the clouds and headed on my way at as fast as my Libelle would go. The clouds formed a pretty good street off to the north toward Winnemucca and on a path north of the deck of high clouds. I was sorry to see, though, that the street led right through several restricted areas between Winnemucca and me. As I drew closer to the restricted areas I tried to figure out if I could skirt along the east side of them and stay with the clouds. Soon it was clear that wouldn't work so I veered more to the east with the intention of flying toward Austin and beyond. This direction was toward the high clouds receding to the northeast. Jeff was in the air now and headed from Bishop toward Austin. His plan was to land at Austin, add fuel to his tanks, and wait until I was in the area and we would chart a course from there. As soon as I left the clouds I started down pretty quickly and before long was concerned about where to land. The Gabbs airport was starting to feel a long ways away as I sank to about 10,000 feet again. After a couple fair climbs I could reach Austin and I was happy to see a few cumulus on the Toiyabe Mountains north of Austin. The thermals that gave those two climbs on the way to Austin had a substantial drift to the north that is readily apparent in the GPS track of the flight. For some reason, perhaps because of my now firm focus on flying northeast - the direction I thought the wind was blowing - the fact this drift was not to the northeast did not register with me during the flight. Although I had caught up to the high clouds before reaching Austin, conditions were good on the Toiyabe east of Austin with a few nicely shaped cumulus. I quickly progressed north-northeast along them and climbed to a little over 17,500 feet about 20 miles north of Austin. From the top of this thermal I could see some good clouds leading to the sun northwest of the high clouds near Battle Mountain and a few scraps of clouds in the direction of the Ruby Mountains, northeast of my position. I chose a route to the northeast and I left the Toiyabe and headed deeper under the high clouds. The thermals under the high clouds proved to be a long way s apart. About 40 miles after being at the top of one thermal on the Toiyabe I was down close to 9,000 feet looking closely at the highway between Eureka and Interstate 80 between Battle Mountain and Elko about 3,000 feet below me as my landing spot. Fortunately I found lift, was able to climb away, and continue on my way toward the Ruby Mountains and now on a track more to the east than northeast. I found the best thermal of the day on the way to the Ruby's and climbed to a little over 17,500 feet. It was after 1700 by this time and it was clear I wasn't going to make it to Wyoming and might not even make it out of Nevada. I was sure I was high enough to reach the Ruby' s and could see a few shreds of cumulus clouds along their spine. I was confident once on the Ruby's I could easily fly the length of the range. I thought a reasonable landing spot would be Wells Nevada at the far end of the Rubies. I reached the Ruby Mountains at about 12,500 feet and the clouds along the spine seemed to dissipate as I approached. I turned northeast along the spine confident I would soon contact lift. Unfortunately I sank closer to the highest ridge of the range and still found no lift. As I continued northeast, the Fort Ruby strip near the south end of the Ruby Mountains and about 30 miles behind me, became harder and harder to reach. Jeff was in the Ruby Valley east of the Ruby Mountains and said he saw what he thought would be reasonable places for me to land on roads and private airstrips there. I knew I could reach these areas but wasn't sure I could reach the Elko airport 30 miles to the northwest and on the other side of the Ruby Mountains from the Ruby Valley. As I sank even closer to the spine of the Ruby's I found scraps of lift I tried to work but with little success. With a few hundred feet to go I had to make a decision on which side of the Ruby' s I should sink. The landing spots Jeff found seemed more like a sure thing so I made the decision and descended east of the spine of the mountains. Jeff had found two good places to land, one was on the paved road near the north end of the Ruby Valley and the other was at a private strip mowed into a nice green field. Although I thought I could reach the road, the strip was just off my right wing so I committed myself to the strip. I worked weak lift on a ridge jutting from the Ruby's into the valley but it only delayed my inevitable landing. As I got lower, Jeff made a low pass on the strip and reported 18-inch high grass along the sides and some poles set back from the strip on either side at about mid-field. I was a little concerned about the grass and knew I would need to keep my wings level as I touched down and rolled to a stop after landing to avoid catching a wing in the grass. As I made my final approach to the strip on a track to the southwest, I noticed the ground sloped from the right to the left, from the mountains to the valley, and that there was a light breeze blowing off the mountains across the strip from the right. The mowed strip was narrow and to stay aligned with it I held my right wing a little low. As I approached round-out and prepared to touch down I noted the slip I held for the wind and the cross slope of the field both made my right wing be close to the ground. I raised the right wing to provide clearance and prepared for touch down. The instant it touched down, probably at about 40 miles per hour, the glider began turning sideways to the right and skidding. At once I thought I had forgotten to put the gear down and, without a wheel running along the ground, I was sliding sideways on the belly of the glider. I immediately recalled I had gone through my pre-landing checks and verified at least once, and probably twice, the gear was down and locked. By this time I was sliding sideways perpendicular to the strip and realized it didn't matter why I was sliding sideways, and braced for any sort of impact or breakage in store. I further realized I was experiencing a ground loop and remembered that Libelles sometime break their tail booms in ground loops. I came to a stop and all was quiet. I couldn't see much because I was in a cloud of dust kicked up by the less-than-perfect landing. Moments later Jeff, who had been watching from pattern altitude said on the radio "that didn't look good" and sort of captured the moment perfectly. To what he proclaimed later was to his relief, I replied I was okay. I knew I hit my head on the canopy and wondered if I had strained my neck a little. I tried to take the canopy off but couldn't. My Libelle's canopy needs to roll forward an inch or so to release the back of the canopy and I couldn't get the canopy forward for some reason. After some gymnastics in the cramped cockpit I finally got the canopy off and climbed out of my glider. The tail boom was not broken but the wingtips were torn off of both wings and the landing gear was bent to one side. In a couple of minutes Jeff landed and taxied to a stop near me. We gathered up the wing tips and pushed the glider off the strip and tied it down. The owners of the strip were not at home so I left a note on the glider giving my cell phone number and saying I would be back the next day to get it. Jeff and I solemnly flew off in his plane, camping overnight under the wing of his plane at the Eureka airport. We were back in Bishop mid morning. But my adventure wasn' t over. By about noon I was headed out of town with my trailer to get the glider. On the way out I retrieved a voicemail on my cell phone from the owners of the strip where I landed and returned the call. The fellow I talked to was extremely nice and understanding about my need to land on his strip. I told him I estimated I would get to the strip in about 8 hours, or at about 8 pm. Just a few miles from Bishop I ran smack into what must have been a 40 mile per hour headwind with blowing dust and sand and some rain. I got through this and the hours went by as I drove slowly across Nevada. When I got to Highway 50 near Austin I had my first encounter with the masses of huge crickets I would find covering the roads in many places. The horrified look on the face of a bicycle rider going the other way on Highway 50 summed up the situation pretty well. From Eureka I left Highway 50 and decided to take dirt roads to the Ruby Valley because the route on dirt roads would be so much shorter than a route on paved roads. I knew I had to drive on some dirt roads getting to the strip and figured the trailer would be full of dust anyway, so why not save some time? A few miles from Eureka I got lost and had to backtrack to find the right road. Soon I started to run through (and over) patches thick with crickets again. When I passed each of the few vehicles going the other way, the tracks of smashed crickets that vehicle left would quickly become brown with live crickets feeding on their fallen comrades. It was disgusting so I had to stop and take a picture. As I walked along the crickets would screech and hop away. Before continuing on I walked around the trailer for a quick check and heard the hiss of a leak in one of my truck tires. I drove out of the cricket patch, changed the tire, and drove more slowly since I no longer had a spare. Finally I reached a paved road near the Ruby Mountains without seeming to get another flat. I needed to stretch so got out and walked around the trailer again and was really sorry to hear the hiss of leak in one of the other tires on the truck! I started to drive toward Elko but the tire was going flat fast. In about a quarter mile I pulled off the road onto a side road and wondered what to do next. I called the owner of the strip again to tell him I wouldn't be getting to the strip that day. He offered to come and get me and even bring my two flat tires to his place and fix them! I didn't want to cause him so much trouble but my options were extremely limited so accepted. He drove with his wife the hour each way to pick me up me and to pick up my tires. We decided we should also tow my trailer back to the strip so I could put my glider in it and save some time. Once there, I realize I had left some of the gear I needed to load the glider in the trailer in my truck. He did a great job fixing the two tires and we drove the two hours back to my truck and back, with me following him on the way back. To top off the day they treated me to a delicious meal at what I found to be an absolutely wonderful old house that started its life as a one-room schoolhouse. I slept under the wing of my wounded glider. Early the next morning I woke to the sound of them loading their plane for their trip back home to Las Vegas. I became even further in their debt when he helped me take the wings off the glider and put them into the trailer. Soon they took off. I was able to force the landing gear to retract enough to load the fuselage in the trailer and was on my way home, home the long smooth paved way. The paved way home was along Interstate 80 and as I drove along on that highway west of Elko I noticed how much the trailer would sway when the big trucks passed me, me going about 60 miles an hour them going 75 or more. It didn't take long for me to find out the real reason why the trailer was swaying when the right trailer tire disintegrated catastrophically because of low air pressure. I was discouraged to find the trailer spare was also low on air even though I had filled it when I left Bishop. I limped along to Battle Mountain to get air. I filled my gas tank, the two tires on the truck that were low on air, and the now-in-use spare on the trailer, and headed for Austin. The highway between Battle Mountain and Austin was thick with crickets in many places, so thick I thought I remembered about smashed crickets being a safety problem because they make the road so slippery. I slowed down going through the crickets. The sound of the countless bodies being crushed under my tires was memorable, to say the least. My fender wells and other truck and trailer parts were coated in thick mush of cricket that dried. Some stays there as I write this months later. I didn't need gas at Austin and actually didn't even need to go through town because the highways I was going to travel joined west of town about a mile. At the highway junction I checked the tires again as a precaution and once again heard the hiss of a leak in one of the truck tires. So, I drove into Austin, filled all the tires, including the spare on the truck, mounted the spare, and bought some fix-a-flat now that I was without spare tires. From Austin I made it home without incident after a long couple of days in the glider and the truck. I bought new tires for the truck and the trailer. For several months I couldn't face even evaluating the damage on the glider. Finally I did look the glider and a few months later had it repaired. It was almost a year later that I flew my Libelle again. |
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That Didn't Look Good (long)
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