Excellent story!

This is what I'd truly love to see in the pages of "Soaring".


"Tony" wrote in message
...
RAS,

Since many of you have been long-time followers of my free distance attempts
(that's you, Gapa Geezer), I felt compelled to report on last weekends
Kansas Kowbell Klassic. Saturday was the day and there were 4 of us at the
field to vie for the Kowbell. Me in Kate the Cirrus, Jerry in his Zuni, Bob
in the ASG-29, and Keith in his PW-5.

The forecast seemed to indicate that downwind was NOT the way to go for
distance today. As is often the case on Kowbell, a crosswind or even into
the wind flight would probably yield more distance. Cloud possibilities to
the south, even to the south west, while they looked very good to the west
and northwest. The only challenge would be bucking across a ~15 knot north
wind. In the past with a north wind Kowbell, the best route has been to
roughly follow US Highway 54 across Kansas, gradually drifting south into
the Texas Panhandle and maybe as far as New Mexico. With this in mind I
declared Clayton, NM as my goal.

On course it was obvious pretty soon that going much further south than due
west from Sunflower would lead to the blue. So west I continued, following
the general path of US Highway 50 out of Hutchinson and out towards Garden
City. Garden City was the last time I had radio contact with my trusty crew
Leah. Climbs were pretty good and the low points weren't too low. There were
lots of dust devils the further west I went and once or twice I was actually
able to find one close enough to be able to use it.

I noticed that the wind had started to swing around from NW to more of a NE
heading. By now I was at the Kansas/Colorado border and further out to the
west I could see a North/South line of thunderstorms and I was rapidly
approaching its shadow. I turned to a more northerly heading over eastern
Colorado to stay out in the sunlight. Once or twice I actually had to cut
back east a bit to stay out of the shade as I tracked north towards I-70.

I was able to get a few texts out to Leah to let her know about the change
in course. She was glad to hear it as the emergency alert had sounded over
FM Radio warning of strong winds and hail from the thunderstorms that I was
going around.

Past the 5 hour mark I started to wonder how much longer I would be able to
fly. I was already past my personal longest duration flight in the Cirrus
and my all time personal best has been 6.5 hrs. My speed wasn't really
great, averaging about 40 mph, but while the day had started to soften a
bit, it really didn't seem like it was dying anytime soon. I kept pushing
north and eventually arrived over I-70, right as it was possible to turn
west again as I had cleared the storms to the north and had endless sunshine
to the west.

Now was decision time. This area of Colorado features endless landable
terrain, dirt fields as far as the eye can see, relatively flat, and almost
no paved roads or towns of any kind once you are away from the interstate.
The wind was still out of the NE and I had flown about 280 miles. I was
pretty confident in getting the Kowbell and my only real goal was to find a
way to get over 310 miles, Diamond Distance. To the NW the flight would be
crosswind in dying conditions, but with a relatively constant ground
elevation. To the west I could follow I-70 but have to fly uphill,
potentially shortening my distance flown.

I initially started to head NW but then found a very smooth 1-2 knot
thermal. By now I had been in the cockpit a LONG time, over 7 hours, and I
knew that it was time to excercise some real patience and take every climb
as high as it would go. We ground away as we drifted west and the airport at
Limon, CO started to seem like a real possibility. I was slowly drifting
west and decided that I would probably have enough altitude to make it over
500km even with the uphill run and if I could just find one more weak
thermal I might even make the airport at Limon.

I hadn't actually communicated with Leah for hours and had every reason to
believe that she was hours behind me. The idea of a real airport with a
town, hotels, restaurants, etc, seemed really attractive. Off we went on a
best L/D glide in smooth evening air. I decided to stick with interstate and
as I came upon Genoa, CO I had not found a bump. I had a few thousand feet,
enough to make it halfway or so from Genoa to Limon, but decided enough was
enough. I had cleared the magical 500km line and figured a landing next to a
town on the Interstate would leave me with the most enjoyable possible
retreive. I landed on the north edge of town in a field which I believe had
freshly sprouted Milo in it, only a few inches tall.

The locals were really friendly and helpful, offering beer, water, calling
the sheriff to assure them that a plane hadn't crashed, and contacting the
owner of the land. Master chase crew Leah was a mere 40 miles behind me on
the Interstate and was there within the hour. We had Kate in the trailer
before sunset and were headed towards home. Spent the night in Goodland, KS
and made it back to Sunflower by 1 PM after watching excellent cu form over
much of Kansas starting at 10:30 AM.

Diamond Distance has been my goal for a long time and I never imagined it
would happen this way. Uphill, Upwind, and in a Std. Cirrus. It was always
supposed to be a downwind dash in the Cherokee so I'll have to keep working
on that. I won the Kowbell on my 5th attempt which I am pretty proud of and
am looking forward to getting the paperwork submitted for the distance, then
I'll only need altitude. The total flight time was 8 hrs 10 minutes, by far
my best to date. It was proof that you can either fly slow for a long time
or fast for a short time.