Cross country record: personal shortest flight

On the subject of cross country records, I have a new personal best today,
for shortest cross country flight. I landed out a grand total of 4.7 miles
from the airport today. Statute miles. The sky sure looked beautiful but
the lift was deceptively hard to work. I found a wonderful field, larger
and in many places smoother than the home airport, which turned out to be
inside a locked water treatment facility. Much governmental hilarity
ensued, finally resulting in a successful retrieve.

From reading previous discussions on the subject I know that I have a long
way to go before I can rival some of the records posted here, but I feel
that with this flight I'm off to a good start.

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software

On 1 Jul, 03:19, Michael Ash wrote:
On the subject of cross country records, I have a new personal best today,
for shortest cross country flight. I landed out a grand total of 4.7 miles
from the airport today.

A friend of mine got lost and low on his first flight in his Ka6 and
landed out in the field next to the gliding site. That was a cross
country of several hundred yards.

Ian

We purposefully force our students down (with CFI on board) on a near by
lake bed pre-solo, about 2-3 miles from the airport, then aero tow them out.
I suppose that would be cross country?

We preach the lake bed as an out if they get caught low on the wrong side of
the ridge. Show them it can be used.


BT

"Michael Ash" wrote in message
...
On the subject of cross country records, I have a new personal best today,
for shortest cross country flight. I landed out a grand total of 4.7 miles
from the airport today. Statute miles. The sky sure looked beautiful but
the lift was deceptively hard to work. I found a wonderful field, larger
and in many places smoother than the home airport, which turned out to be
inside a locked water treatment facility. Much governmental hilarity
ensued, finally resulting in a successful retrieve.

From reading previous discussions on the subject I know that I have a long
way to go before I can rival some of the records posted here, but I feel
that with this flight I'm off to a good start.

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software

On Jul 1, 12:51 am, "BT" wrote:
We purposefully force our students down (with CFI on board) on a near by
lake bed pre-solo, about 2-3 miles from the airport, then aero tow them out.
I suppose that would be cross country?

We preach the lake bed as an out if they get caught low on the wrong side of
the ridge. Show them it can be used.

BT

"Michael Ash" wrote in message

...



On the subject of cross country records, I have a new personal best today,
for shortest cross country flight. I landed out a grand total of 4.7 miles
from the airport today. Statute miles. The sky sure looked beautiful but
the lift was deceptively hard to work. I found a wonderful field, larger
and in many places smoother than the home airport, which turned out to be
inside a locked water treatment facility. Much governmental hilarity
ensued, finally resulting in a successful retrieve.

From reading previous discussions on the subject I know that I have a long
way to go before I can rival some of the records posted here, but I feel
that with this flight I'm off to a good start.

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Michael

Thats Wonderful!!! As you probably know I have posted my personal
shortest cross countries here as well. Currently I am at 13 nautical
miles but maybe I can do even shorter next weekend when I fly. Way to
go on a great flight and nice landout with a short retrieve. The best
part about short flights is you are back in time to have supper with
the other pilots but you actually have an interesting story to tell
besides orbitin around the airport for hours.

wrote:
Thats Wonderful!!! As you probably know I have posted my personal
shortest cross countries here as well. Currently I am at 13 nautical
miles but maybe I can do even shorter next weekend when I fly. Way to
go on a great flight and nice landout with a short retrieve. The best
part about short flights is you are back in time to have supper with
the other pilots but you actually have an interesting story to tell
besides orbitin around the airport for hours.

I have indeed been reading your stories, and they served as something of
an inspiration. I'm certainly not ashamed of my short flight!

Incidentally, the post-flight stories included some encouragement to get
the data off my GPS and this short flight has also turned into my first
ever OLC scored flight:

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...Id=-2086961590

32 points, woohoo!

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software

At a comp in England last week someone made a scoring flight of 700
metres - less than half a mile:

http://www.gliderracing.co.uk/2007/ER/76R_ER2007.htm

And scored 1 point.


Dan

Those short flights are not always a short retrive.
On my first contest I
went through the start gate and 'lawn darted' into
a valley just short of a
runway. The flight lasted about 15 minutes and 10 miles
but it took 14
hours to get me home. You'd think I would have learned
something from
that. Nooooo.
Chuck
At 22:00 01 July 2007, Dan G wrote:
At a comp in England last week someone made a scoring
flight of 700
metres - less than half a mile:

http://www.gliderracing.co.uk/2007/ER/76R_ER2007.htm

And scored 1 point.


Dan

True, all too true.

I decided that a 90 degree crosswind at 20kt gusting to 30kts was more than
I should attempt in my Nimbus 2C so I landed into the wind at a neighboring
strip 3 miles away. The retrieve took 3 hours.

The first guy to show up only had a pickup, no trailer. (My car had the
keys in the ignition and the trailer hooked up to it.) "I came to get you"
he said. "With what?" "Where's the trailer? I asked. He pointed to his
passenger seat. "You can come back with it", he said. "Let me get this
straight, you want me to leave the glider unattended in a gusty 30 knot
wind?" Anyway, it took three more round trips to the airport before my
trailer arrived.

I'm finding that with all this 'no landouts' style flying, the very concept
of how to conduct a retrieve is getting lost.

Bill Daniels


"Chuck Griswold" wrote in message
...
Those short flights are not always a short retrive.
On my first contest I
went through the start gate and 'lawn darted' into
a valley just short of a
runway. The flight lasted about 15 minutes and 10 miles
but it took 14
hours to get me home. You'd think I would have learned
something from
that. Nooooo.
Chuck
At 22:00 01 July 2007, Dan G wrote:
At a comp in England last week someone made a scoring
flight of 700
metres - less than half a mile:

http://www.gliderracing.co.uk/2007/ER/76R_ER2007.htm

And scored 1 point.


Dan