The 205 mile Falcon 3 170 world record flight on the
HOLC and
Google Maps/Earth.


The 350 mile Swift world record flight to declared goal on
Google Maps/Earth.


The over running started at 4:45 AM. Gary got up late to check it
out. The sky was black with low fast running cumulus clouds and it only got
blacker when the sun rose. It was old time Zapata for those of us who've come
here since 2000 chasing the every elusive world records.


Now we knew that the winds would not be as strong or as southerly as Friday but
they would still be on and it would be possible to make an attempt. It looked
drier than Friday so maybe it wouldn't blow up like it had on that day. Sure the
cloud base wasn't predicted to be more than 9,000', so we wouldn't get to over
12,000' like Manfred did. But it looked so inviting in the morning and this is
why we come to Zapata. So we were all there lined up and ready to go before 9:30
AM.


The streets, one after another, were calling out to us. We were all aching
inside. Armand took the tug up for a test flight before 9 AM and everything felt good. Then
it was Gary Osoba who wanted to go first at 9 AM (well, that's what he said and
he had moved his glider out onto the runway),
but cloud base was a little low at 1,300' AGL. Armand said his test flight was rough though from the thermals.


Gary waited around a little too long and then announced that he was to be towed to 6,500'. Hmmm,
that sort of disenfranchises those waiting behind him (me, for example). We
deliberately had CIVL reduce the tow height to 3,300' (1 km) so that we wouldn't
get into this confrontation, but it doesn't apply to sailplanes. It would have
been okay if he had towed high at 9 AM, as that wouldn't have affected the rest
of us.


I decided to let it go. I figured that a little later start would be fine. No
need to get uptight when a world record is on the line. Besides Gary can only
land at an air strip without hurting his glider so he may need the extra help.


Armand pulled up Gary and soon the RPM's on the Dragonfly went down to 3,500. He waved Gary off
at 300' and came back and landed. He figured there was carburetor icing as had
been diagnosed previously. So instead Gary got a tow to 300' instead of 6,500'.
Hmmm?!


Gary said that he felt later that he could have thermaled up, but he had wanted a
tow to 6,500' so he came back and landed. But the tug was hurting. Armand
couldn't get the tug to run. He called up Russell Brown who was up at the
National Fly-in in Leakey and they starting working through the problem, which
required taking the tug into the hangar. We all brought our gliders back to the
hangar also as it looked like the day was over.


But, just in case, I had Brian Barnes, who was driving for me (and who drove
Gary's Silent 2 out from Knoxville) set up my borrowed (from Wills Wing) Falcon
3 170, just in case. He is a Falcon pilot, so I knew he knew how to set it up
(although the trick is to put the dive sticks in first).


Well Armand with Russell's help turned on the magic and it only took twenty minutes to fix the
carburetor. When Armand told me he thought he can get it fixed in that amount of
time, I got everything back out on the runway, but the Falcon this time instead of
the AIR ATOS VR.


Armand made good on his promise, took another test flight, and I was off at 11:06 AM,
just 26 minutes later than on Friday. Much better clouds than on Friday,
less wind, but still plenty, about equal to the Falcon's speed - 24 mph.


Pete and Robin were right behind me. We all met up 20 miles out at a bearing of
171 degrees back to Zapata. This bearing means we could get around the airspace. The wind had an
east component, but we were all able to make it around the Laredo to the east.
Dave Glover notifies the tower every time we get close to Laredo and they work to keep the
powered planes away from us. It seems to work.


As I got north of highway 59 which comes east out of Laredo, I was especially careful as I didn't want to go down
where I did on Friday out on a ranch behind locked gates. At 1,300' AGL I found light lift and just hung on it
looking at my options sliding over a little to the west toward Laredo in case I
went down. It took twelve minutes before I found real lift, but I had no desire to land
in this area. The idea is to stay up, otherwise no record.


The wind was out of the south east (145 - 155 degrees), but I wanted to stay as close to possible to
highway 83 which goes off to the north northwest. I just didn't want to be pushed west toward Del Rio.
After I got up next to the Uniroyal plant I was right back down to 1,300' to the
west of highway 83, but this time under a deeply dark cloud that got me right
back up.


Pete and Robin were ahead of me now. Pete was taking the route
about half way between 83 and the Rio Grande (our border with Mexico). Robin in his Swift was
further east like I was. The advice with the Falcon is to just go downwind to
maximize your chances of staying up, but it would be a long walk out if I
landed, so I wanted to shorten that walk if it came to that.


Pete had seen Dave Prentice in his paraglider when he was near Laredo and now I
found him at about 65 miles out from Zapata. It turned out that Dave landed soon
after that. The story he told Dave was that we wasn't getting the ground speeds
that he needed to go further than he had the day before so he stopped the
flight.


I was five to ten miles to the west of highway 83 heading for Carrizo
Springs. There were cumulus clouds every where so I was able to make cross wind
glides to keep on the northwesterly course as much as possible. It was slow
going cross wind, but for the most part I stayed under clouds or was able to
make short jumps to clouds.


Eighty miles out I was down to 1,000' as I was struggling along not getting
above 4,000' even though earlier I had been above 6,000'. It looked like the
flight would end early, but I found an invisible dust devil and held on really
tight. It was twisty and rough but at 550 fpm it took me to 6,500'. Things got
easier.


A few thermals got me right over downtown Carrizo Springs (such as it is) at 110
miles out. Patience was required to get up again as I drifted northwest down the
highway to Del Rio. I really wanted to go north, but I needed the lift and
needed to drift down wind to stay in it.


At 125 miles out I was able to to get back to 6,500' nine miles west of Crystal
City at highway 83. I wasn't able to get closer to highway 83, but it looked
like I could find a way to get a retrieval if I landed out.


At 145 miles out I cut northeast again, about ten miles west of La Pryor. This proved
a little too difficult and I was soon down to 700' AGL and looking at the ranch
house as a savior for a retrieval. I didn't like the fact that the flight looked
like it was ending, but what was I going to do about it now?


I drifted over a corral where I could land and there I found the lift, and
it was strong. I had been looking around pretty closely at possible landing
areas as I drifted north northwest and choosing which areas were marginally
possible.


This thermal turned on and I drifted for four miles as I climbed at 550 fpm to
almost 7,000' at cloud base. Luck at intervened on my side once again and I was
back in the game.


There were plenty of streets but they were all headed off to the
northwest and I wanted to get over highway 55 and take the route up to Rocksprings.
This is the safest route over the hill country. I had to keep beating upwind to
get in position to follow 55 to Camp Wood.


The clouds were higher and darker and seventeen miles due west of Uvalde I
climbed out to 7,800'. This gave me a good view of the rivers below and the
highway ahead. I was using Camp Wood as my designed waypoint now so I could see
where I needed to go to get on highway 55.


Finally, I got to the mouth of the valley of the northern branch of Nueces River and was able to head north northwest
toward Rocksprings. I would have preferred to be on the east side of the valley
over the hot rocks of the hill country but the wind was just too much to get
over there in a Falcon. There were fewer cu's now over the hill country just the
opposite of what you'd expect with the hot rocks below, but it was 5:30 PM after
all.


At a little after 6 PM
I found solid lift at 250 fpm in the valley and just stayed with it to
7,200' while drifting for five miles. There were a few sparse clouds A head and
I went on glide toward them, but that was the last lift I found and after
gliding for twelve miles I landed at 205 miles out for the
new single surface record.


My mean L/D on glide was 16:1, even with a glider that gets about 7:1. The last
glide, the longest, was 13:1 at 46 mph. I often saw 50 mph over the ground. That
made the flight a lot more fun.


This is a shot of what the sky looked like at 11:15 soon after I launched.
Thanks to Marco Alvarez:





Thanks so much to Wills Wing for letting me borrow their great new Falcon 3 170.
I felt that it was the right size even though at first I wanted a 195. Bo had a
Falcon 1 195 last year and it was too big for him, although he weighs quite a
bit less than me. The glider was a joy to fly (although I sure couldn't pull in
and have it do anything). I was confident in all the thermals no matter how
wild. I could whip it around without a problem. I was pushing out and flying at
less than 19 mph.


I could land it any where so I didn't worry much about that. I figured I could
even land in the higher bushes if I needed to. Just not in the Mesquite trees.


Click on the picture above for the higher resolution version.


I kept track of Robin's and Pete's flights as we were all on the same frequency.
Pete was twenty miles to my west pretty much on the same track as his flight on
the previous day. He was able to head north from Brackettville and get up on the
Edwards Plateau west of Rocksprings. He landed early at Sonora, 265 miles out.


Robin really picked up speed when he got past the hill country and the cloud
base rose up to 9,000'. It was drying out and the clouds were disappearing. He
and Pete were heading for the same declared goal at Sterling City. Robin got a
better flight as he quit looking at the clouds and came in high to the goal. He
and his driver Karl at 4 AM.