139 from Pine in 99

[bb_secretary]

The link below is to Tony Deleo's article about his US Foot Launched Open Distance Paragliding Record Flight 13 years ago. The flight stood as the US record for 2 years, but I think it still stands as the current Pine Mountain record after many years of capable pilots attempting to go further on substantially higher performance equipment.
http://paraglide.net/log/amigo/tony_deleo/1999_08-28_pine_139.htm
This recollection is noted as Tony is slowly waking after a couple weeks of unconsciousness due to injuries sustained in a flex wing hang gliding crash at Sylmar on 6/30/12. Diablo may have completed his last foot launched flight, but his footprints endure.

[Ramey]

sometime around that era, Robert Millington and John Grenald flew from pine mountain to Ballarat - 175 miles. I know this for a fact as I was sitting in the car that went to pick them up.

Robert Ramey

[*jp*]

Tony has the rare honor of setting local site records in PG, flex and rigid wings. There's his 139 mile PG flight from Pine, his 200+ mile flight to near Las Vegas from Pine on the ATOS 2-3 years back and let's not forget his 100 miler from Plowshare to the Antelope Valley on a HG back in the Team Topa days of the early '90s. I don't know of any other pilot with that kind of trifecta.

[sd]

sometime around that era, Robert Millington and John Grenald flew from pine mountain to Ballarat - 175 miles. I know this for a fact as I was sitting in the car that went to pick them up.

Bob, there have been many hang gliding flights longer than 139 miles from Pine, but I think Diablo's Paragliding flight in 1999 is still the tension wing distance mark. I'm not sure what the current Hang Gliding record from Pine is. My personal longest flight was a 179 miler from Pine to Ludlow in 1988. http://paraglide.net/log/1900/88/ludlow/88_09-10_pine_to_ludlow.htm, but I'm certain that mark has been extended. Diablo has logged numerous flights over 200 miles including a 228 miler from Black Eagle in 2005 http://paraglide.net/log/amigo/tony_deleo/05_06-24_228_miles.htm. Not sure what his longest from Pine is, but I know it's more than 179.

JP, my recollection of Tony's flight from Plowshares is that when we got to the bottom of the hill the locals opted not to carpool up because they didn't perceive the conditions to be good. Team Topa had driven over a hundred miles to get there, so we were game. Tony was in the lead but opted to land by a pay-phone next to highway 14, about 107 miles from launch because his radio had gone dead. I went about 10 miles further (115 to 120ish miles ? from launch) skirting the south side of Edwards, but my thermals were drifting from the south west toward the restricted airbase. I could climb when drifting with the flow, but when I'd leave the shallow trajectory thermals to crab against the south component with the bar pulled in I got progressively lower with each saw tooth iteration back out to the road.

Unfortunately, I don't have a log entry for the Plowshares flight and my memory is progressively fading. I do recollect it was a really hot day so if you had a clear path to drift downwind you could stay up and eventually climb out. Marcia Quayle was chasing in the old green van that was originally outfitted by Todd then traded to Tony and eventually to me before we finally wore it out building the Skyport.

We've prodded Robert to post his memories and hopefully he'll find time to put a few on paper before our recollection fades.

Just read Nancy's update indicating Tony is off all sedation, still unconscious, but slowly starting to stir.