Okay, I posted a photo of the Lark

Okay, you guys told me to post binaries to the alt.binary file. I did
that. It's under Badwater Bill and it's titled Lark GLider. I can't
find the shot I took when I was above the crap you see in the
background. But here's the story:

I got a clearance to go up into PC. That's what we called class A in
those days. I knew the wave over Mt. Charleston was kickin' ass. I
put a barograph in the glider and took a 2000 foot tow. I punched off
in a thermal that gave me about 500 up. After 15 minutes I was going
through 12,000 and I turned on the military rig you see on my face
here. About 15 minutes later I called Center and asked for my
clearance up into Positive Control Airspace (Class A). I then
navigated using a LORAN above the clouds to a lenticular cloud over
Mt. Charleston west of Las Vegas. I got in the lift band and started
to climb. It was 5 degrees F. at 18,000 and I was on my way up in
smooth wave lift. The trouble was that it was so cold, the damn
Oxygen system was leaking moisture from my lungs into the cockpit and
the window was freezing over. No worries, I just flew the gyro for
awhile, a long while. After an hour of it the gyro began to go tits
up because the battery was so cold. I thought I could stay there and
I tried to get the ice off the inside of the window. It was probably
about a quarter of an inch thick at that point and it wasn't going to
come off. So, I just stayed on instruments and pulled the spoilers.
Coming down through about 12,000 feet again I popped out of the bottom
of a cloud in rain but the ice started falling off in my lap and I
could see. The gyro tumbled about 5 minutes later but there was no
problem making it back to Jean.

That was 1986.

I found this glider at Jean in 1984. The canopy was broken. Although
the glider is a two place metal ship, the ailerons were covered with
cotton fabric, as was the rudder and the elevator. The fabric had
deteriorated away. I took it apart and brought it home, then covered
it with Stitts. I painted it with Ditzler Durethane (like Emeron) and
had all the instruments rebuilt. I did my 5 hours in it and my
X-countries to get all my badges. I always wanted to make an attempt
on an altitude record and that was the ship for it with that big wing.
But, I never got higher than 30,300 on that day.

Oh, well, that's pretty high in a glider. I would have had about 10
seconds of useful consciousness if my oxygen system had failed that
day.

But, what the hell, no guts, no glory. My motto is "Take big bites of
life. Moderation is for Monks."

Later, I traded that Lark for a Jantar 15 meter sportsplane-like
glider that was aerobatic. My wife didn't like thermaling and puked
after only two turns in a thermal. What a waste on an airplane of
such wonderful design. I miss it. I wish I could fly it tomorrow.
It was made in Rumania

BWB