Distance wood has flown

As Steve Leonard said, "Wood is good."

Wood is Nature's composite.

I've had some fun with the small span Woodstock- 11.9m and about 3/4 the glide of a good Ka-6. Woodstock L/D 24:1. Three of the better ones:

1) Sunflower Aerodrome, KS to Bonham Field, TX was the first pre-declared goal to exceed Diamond Distance in a DU glider (under 220kg auw), homolgated as a world record. Late 90's?

2) Near T-86 to TX Panhandle, around 800 km in 2008. Exceeded world record for DU class significantly but CAI Logger had lapsed certification for that level of records without me realizing it. Post flight and OLC filing deadline, Dan Johnson got it posted to OLC for review (too late to score so doesn't reflect actual awarded points or handicapping). Dave Stephenson scored it at 1483.63 pts if it had counted. There was a thread about the flight on this forum, here's the flight w/o handicapping:

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...tId=1538997862

3) About 5 years previous, fun flying without logger, etc. I had a better one from same location of 2) above to a field just sw of Borger, TX. Was trying to make the AP but it would have put me over the town at marginal altitude and a likely downwind landing in some good wind. If memory serves this was 1008 km and the longest I've flown in the small Woodstock.

Both the Woodstock and the Ka-6 are great handling, fun gliders to fly. There is a lot of value there for new pilots who are looking to spread their wings and go. The craftsmanship and care on some of these older vintage ships represents a beautiful combination of art and science.

Best Regards,

Gary Osoba