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Longest King flight of 2001 - up Route 1
My flying season was lean this past year. I was inundated with work, and
had time for only about 8 flights all season, a paltry 29.5 hours. That's
my leanest season by far, only one season was leaner, and that was 10 years
ago when my knee was torn out. I usually get about 3-4x that.
Nevertheless, 23 August dawned with great numbers forecast for King: 220
degrees from ground all the way up, 12 kts at 9000', 25 at 18000'. How
many times, though, have they missed that one, and a SE kicks in?? But I
didn't want to take the chance of missing a good day. I called around,
though nobody was available, no driver as well. Nuts. I drove out to the
LZ, arriving at 1130, nobody there, and nobody on launch. What's up with
this?? The wind was gentling straight into launch, 8-12, just like they
said it would be. I drove over to Alan's house, and there were 6 gliders
on rigs in the lot. Inside, they were going through his latest web
page. "Anybody going flying??" I said. They all indicated "oh maybe
later, 4 or 5, when it calms down". See ya. I was out the door, thinking
man oh man what's wrong with this picture? I dropped my mountain bike at
the LZ and drove to lower launch.
I figured I could always just land anytime at the bottom, get the bike, get
the truck and call it a day. I set up. No pilots for two hours. I waited
another 15 minutes. Nobody. At 2:15, in 8-12 kt groundwind, the Laminar
really wanted to fly; I carefully eased her into the wind, kicked in a
solid takeoff roll and lifted gently and cleanly into the King air.
Climbout was stock King, a little rocky. I measured the winds aloft with
the GPS, and they were 20 or less. Wham! Something gutwrenching came
through off the rocks while I was going through 10,500'; I was outa
here. I hate those inexplicable cannon balls. XC? Sure, I can always
hitchhike back. Go have fun!!
I skated to Mr. Nasty, and he gave me solid eye popping lift at 1400
fpm. I pulled out at 12,000' and checked the winds aloft speed and
direction: 23 at 220. Cool. I raced along without hardly a turn, holding
altitude surprisingly well, across Pass Creek to Red Rocks at
10,500'. Looking good! I climbed onto and above Invisible without going
too far out front, the 220 direction really helping. The spines were
working beautifully, and I was making really great time, to McCaleb in less
than an hour from launch. But there, at 12,000', I got hit by some of the
most violent air of my life. My best interpretation at the time was that
there was a smashing of air masses from the SW and NW, and I was in the
washing machine. For the longest minute of my life I felt I had no control
over the glider, and just aimed the ship straight out into the valley,
praying that it would stay upright. As quick as the violence started, it
quit. Ok, ok, get it together, wind speed and direction: 22 from 220
still. What is going on?? To this day still no idea.
Back to the range, the lift was once again solid on the spines. Recording
1750 fpm at the Three Sisters, I raced to cloudbase at
17,300'. Yeah!! This gave me the cut off before Corner Mountain, onto
Borah with altitude. No need to stop now. I raced across Double Springs
for Dickie Peak and Victory Ridge, and kept the glide as hot as I could,
mostly at best fast glide. Holding altitude well, I hit some big poppers
but ignored them, waiting to near the end of Victory, where she turned on
again. I drifted with a sharp thermal at 1400 fpm over the back, and
committed to a long retrieval or an overnight - someplace... Challis did
tempt me, it would be easy hitchhiking from there back to the car; but the
day was on, I was making great time, and the heck with stopping.
Drawing a straight line from Victory to the rocks east of Ellis, I stopped
for one weak thermal one third the way across, and another half way across.
This is always the tough move, and I wanted to make it in good form. I got
to the rocks at 9,800', followed a broken area of lift into the canyon, and
about 4 miles in she cracked solidly at 900 fpm to 17,600', the cloud
forming with my arrival at base. Nice position to be in.
I eased over to the east, the large rocky mountains of the Lemhis, and
though I never really hit lift, I was in bouyant air along the whole
canyon, arriving at the northerly canyon mouth at 13,000'. Wow, that was
the nicest ride I'd ever had over those open jaws of no man's
land. Looking to the distance past Salmon, I was trying to plot an
intelligent course. It was only 6 pm, I had covered almost 100 miles
straightline in less than 4 hours, and all was well. Life was good!
But just when you start thinking like that, Mother Nature has a way of
reminding you that you are a very transient visitor, and that the ground is
not very far away. Flying off the end of the mountains east of the Salmon
River just before the airport, the bottom fell out: I was plummeting from a
happy 13,000' to the rocks below. I stayed away from the center of the
valley, onto the east hills, hoping, waiting, gliding, falling. South of
and even with the town of Salmon, down to 7,500' over the highway, I found
a little bubble that seemed to want to stay together. I pulled back up to
10,000', and that was going to be it. I contemplated tracking the now 250
wind aloft to the Divide, where perhaps I could get up, and maybe over, but
... could I really get over? Thermals were weak this late in the day. And
what the heck is on the other side? Not much, forest, rocks.. I now
plotted the course half way between the Divide and the Salmon River,
following a crosswind path that was pinching me back into the canyon. Nuts.
The green fields were coming to an end at Carmen, 111 miles on the GPS, and
I still had 2,500' agl. The river and road began a crazy S zigzag up
canyon toward North Fork. How far can I carry this flight?? Eiji had a
fine 114 miler earlier in the season, 2,500' should give me at least five
or six more miles, c'mon baby!! But down to 1100' agl with 114 registering
on the GPS, I couldn't pull the next move, which was over a substantial
hill that forced the river to wedge around it. I circled down and landed
in a postage stamp of a field: 4 hrs 15 minutes aloft.
Now what? Break down and get on the road before nightfall, you've got a
long way to hitch back. While hiking the glider out of the field, the
owners came out and were very kind, giving me pizza, beer and a
phone. Wow. I called Alan Paylor to see if he or anyone would be
interested in a long drive that night if I covered all expenses and then
some. The folks where I landed offered to take me half way back, with
glider, to Challis!! Fantastic! I mentioned this to Alan; no commitment,
but he said he'd ask around and try. I got to Challis at 11 pm: no glider
trucks anywhere, so I found a ditch, got out my flight clothes and slept
the night with my glider. In the morning I was able to snag a ride to the
King LZ, and all was ok.
I called Eiji about this flight after turning it in to the contest
administrator Ken Schreck. Eiji had already heard about it and said "You
got me!" Well, I said, not so fast, I think it might be a tie, 114 vs 114,
and if that was the case I would be proud to have my name next to his on
the trophy. But I also wanted to let him know that I launched from the
lower launch, so the overall distance would be slightly greater, and my GPS
was reading back to the upper launch, so I really didn't have as accurate
of distance information as I would like. I gave the coordinates to Ken to
log and determine distance by great circle, and he awarded First to me (I
am still not sure to this day if the flight came out 115 or stayed 114 in
his calculation). I want to say again that Eiji flew a great season last
year, and if Ken would have declared it a tie, I would have been proud to
have shared First with him.