Having ridden the area for years on dirt bikes including the Black Rock
Desert where the land speed record was once set it is easy for a plane to
disappear especially if there was fire and the fabric (hence the color) was
all gone. It could also disappear in Walker Lake or Pyramid lake.

Robert
wrote in message
oups.com...
To All:

I'm not involved with the SAR effort, other than hoping for a good
outcome, but I get a lot of mail, much of it from overseas and the
same questions keep popping up.

Where is the 'Flying M Ranch'?
Actually, there's quite a few of them. The one of interest here is
about twenty miles due west of the southern tip of Walker Lake.
That's about 40 air-miles south of the Yarrington airport; about 80
miles SE from Minden.

What was Mr. Fossett's destination?
I don't know. Previous land-speed runs have used dry lakes about a
hundred miles north of the Flying M ranch.

People in Europe often asked how an aircraft can vanish unless covered
by water or snow. There's no pat answer for that. Until they have
some search & rescue experience over that part of Nevada most people
simply have no concept of the problem. I've seen a Beechcraft
'Bonanza' crumpled into a ball you could fit into a pick-up truck. It
lay undiscovered for seven years within a thousand feet of a paved
road until exposed by a brush-fire that burned away the manzanita that
had concealed it from view.

Some of the questions stemmed from my articles on survival and desert
travel. I've re-posted them to my blog for those who are interested.

After ten days although logic my deem otherwise I say keep looking.
Never give up hope.

-R.S.Hoover