Day 3's flight was not only along fabled, scenic Route 1 but was often above
16,000' while looking down at 12,000' peaks and 10,000' frozen lakes. All of
which you will see on this video along with a very close encounter w/ Ken Muscio
at 15K near the 43-mile mark. The flight was a mere 3-1/2 hours in length and 55
miles long. Joe Evens in his Freedom 170 is right behind me on the ramp and
shortly thereafter we climb out together to 12K. The next time I spot Joe is
around the 53-mile mark where he has landed and I'm starting my final glide.
The day started out completely overcast and even looked like it might rain. John
Kangus' forecast called for the weather to blow North and open the skies. My
teammates who drove to upper launch with me announced they were leaving their
gliders there over night and we going to fly the motor glider rather than waste
the day. Sure enough, it began to clear and the walls of virga in the distance
were evaporating at a respectable height.
The same pilot who I'd first met after he landed 1/2-mile from me on Tuesday on
my 12-mile bomb-out day was chomping at the bit to get airborne. The winds on
the upper launch were gusty and switchy. He started his run with his wings
slightly banked away from the valley and took only 3 short steps before lifting
off. Luckily, he was unscathed as his glider ground-looped back into the ramp
below me as I made my way over to the right-hand ramp. You may note in the
opening of the video just how hard I dig into my run and pull in once airborne.
My two teammates did launch not too long after me and both had good flights. One
of them, LJ spotted five elk running at 10,000' and called it on radio about an
hour into his flight. The remarkable thing about my own flight was the lighting
and the scenery. Lots of distant virga and an abundance of sun rays bursting
through cloud decks. Kurt also caught similar scenes on his video as well. There
was nothing that technical about my flight not already mentioned here other than
perhaps having done 48,000' of climbing during the flight. As a result, I
decided to put more work into the soundtrack selections and edit timing than
into a voice-over track and animated 3D tracklog on this iteration.
