New Calif Distance Record

[oj]

I'm not going to steal his thunder, but I will say that the California State PG Distance Record has been passed from one SCPA member to another.

Big, big congrats to the new top dog. We look forward to a detailed flight report.

[Tom Pipkin]

By now everyone has heard it was Dean Stratton. Once Deano set his sights on Tom Truax’s record, it was just a matter of time.

Truax’s record stood for 6 years. I’d be surprised if this one lasted 18 months. If Deano doesn’t better his mark this year, weather permitting, he will next. And lets not forget Andy Palmer and Rodger Marsh have been gunning with him, I wish all 3 of you the best of luck.

I’m sure I can speak for all SCPA club by saying that “we couldn’t be more proud of him”!

[Forger]

Hmmm, glad to hear somebody was able to take advantage of the weather. There was more than standard moisture in the desert air out here in the AV with some nice thermals marked with vertical development over the peaks and streeting in the convergence zones.

I was trying my best to ignore it while I was busy packing up the car and cleaning the house for my move to Vegas this week.

Come on Deano, sate our thirst with at least a quick synopsis of the day's stats!

[Chip Bartley]

way to go Deano

[pengoquin]

Way to go Sky King! Looking forward to hearing the details of this incredible flight.

[Forger]

Damn, the suspense is killing me. Will somebody at least post the launch spot and total distance flown?

[andy]

Well over the last three weekends the Owens has been amazing. Late last Fri night Dean called me saying things were shaping up better than the last two weekends. We drove up early sat morn with not a lick of wind all the way up, but there were high cirrus and mid level clouds so we were wondering? We headed into Lone pine and there were cumis building over the Whites, we ate breakfast-(big mistake) and by the time we hit the road cumis were popping everywhere. We got to launch and the clouds were forming right over our head, Dean was laid out and launching as I returned from the bushes, and started climbing. He was on course before any of us punched off, not because we were dallying, but because it had started to OD over us and the cycles were very light making it difficult to launch, finally it opened a little and the three of us remaining launched, I got on course first, but the ridge to whitney was completely shaded, I did get one climb after launch, but dirted at portal road, Rodger was already on the ground, Sebastian the 19 year old Swiss pilot that was with us was last to get on course and found the ridge reigniting from the opening that came just as I dirted. He made 67 miles, ending at flynns.
Dean was long gone when I got in the car, but it looked incredable along the whites with a cloud street solid from Westgard pass to Boundary peak, at probably 19k. I looked at that and thought somebody could get below it and glide without losing for 50 miles, and he did.
Anyway we buzzed up to Benton without radio contact, until we finally we got a reply" I'm at 114 miles and 15k". OMG! It was 4 pm and I'm doing the calcs, at least 2 hours of flying left, and he's high, we may have a new record! So we chased and finally made contact at Luning Nevada. We were able to watch Dean try to get that last climb that didn't start drawing until he was on the deck. It was a huge black bottom cloud right over our head about 10k over.
I'll let Dean tell the rest, and I'm sure there will be a good story of his stategy, the weather was textbook for everything imaginable.
His GPS read 147.5 from Walts.
The next day looked good on paper, but alas it didn't pan out for me. We launched a little earlier, no clouds but good cycles and amazingly strong-(2000fpm) big climbs, but smooth and big once over 12k. I was getting 15.5 and leaving early to make time. When I hit Whitney I could see lentis forming over Mammoth, but I didn't feel anything until Onion Valley when as I was going through 15k I was punched out into a full over the top wingover that I pulled out of only to be swinging into another with lots of turb. I headed out to the front points and made a couple more climbs that were unremarkable, but by this time the clouds over boundary were starting to flatten, and the lentis were spreading fom west to east. Because of the chase sitch-none-and the probability of getting worked some more, I threw in the towel and landed at the rest stop before Big Pine. As I was packing Rodger landed just across the road from me having had, as he said, the strongest ride of his life in a ripper just above portal road.
I am just hearing today that our swiss compatriot made over a hundred miles flying for 8 hours on a 1-2 glider into Nevada where he ended up sleeping overnight and hiking back to civilization today. We loaned him a radio which he never used and left numerous messages for him, and Rodger called Kari this morning and they were calling the sheriff, when Sebastian made cell phone access and called to report in.
So in hindsight I made the wrong(?) decision, but I did get back in time to make it to work today, and the Owens isn't going anywhere so that 100 miler is still waiting for me.
These last three weekends have been awesome for learning and getting used to my new glider-targa2- which I really am having fun with. And the joy of being part of Deans record flight is second only to me doing it. I am really proud and happy for him, what an awesome pilot and mentor for me. Thanks Deano!

[Dean S]

First, I received so many congratulating calls over the last 2 days that I lost track. I started returning some of them yesterday and I’m sorry if I haven’t gotten back to you yet. I really appreciate the calls and I’m doing my best to catch up. The amount of calls I received really supports my thought that we have one of the best pilot communities around. We’ve got a hell of a lot of excellent pilots and a wealth of info available to the up and comers. That strong information base certainly helped me achieve one of my flight goals this last Saturday.

So, you want to know what happened – do ya’. Ironically, I wasn’t supposed to be in the Owens this last weekend. Brendan was competing in a mountain bike race this last Sat. at Elings park and I had somewhat committed to going to support him and have some fun harassing his competitors at the same time. Thursday and Friday nights weather check of the Owens convinced me I needed to change my plans and I quickly kicked Brendan straight to the curb…sorry Brendan. See how I am! Plenty of moisture had moved into the area on Friday with Saturday looking to be the day to go big. With Andy and Roger on board, along with Sebastian (a friend of Rogers) and my girlfriend Lori, we headed up to launch around 10:00 with cumis already lining both the Sierras and the Whites. With it looking so good so early, we all wondered if it was destined to OD. I was on course shortly after 11:00 and staying just ahead of the OD that handcuffed Andy and Roger on launch. Conditions started to really turn on just after Whitney Portal and thermals were breaking off in the 1200-1400 fpm range boosting me easily to 15k each time. After crossing Onion Valley thermals were topping 1400-1600 fpm and it was getting increasingly more difficult to keep under 16k in order to keep warm. Considering the strength of the thermals they were surprisingly easy to handle. I made good time to Kid Mtn., which is a couple peaks North of Tinemeha, and decided to take the elevator up stinkin’ high and make the crossing. By this time the White mountains had a well established cloud street hovering above them and it looked like easy work down the Whites as long as I was able to connect to them. Repeated attempts to raise chase was failing but I‘d heard enough radio chatter already to know that the over development had already consumed Andy and Roger. Bummer, I really prefer not to fly alone.

Thanks to a partial cloud street attempting to bridge the gap between the Sierras and the Whites I had a very buoyant glide and connected just South of Flynns on the Whites around 10k. Moments after connecting I was rocketed to cloud base (stinkin’ high) in a monster thermal that was obviously in a bad mood. I took aim North and the glide was so buoyant running under the leading edge of the street that I didn’t need another boost until near the end of the range. One more quick boost and I found myself staring down at Boundary Peak and the gateway to Nevada. Now, Boundary Peak represents the 96 mile mark from Walts and the peak is over 13k high. What that means is its celebration time for those seeking a 100+ miler. Something would have to go very, very wrong in order for you not to surpass 100 miles at this point. Maybe something like what happened to me the previous weekend near June Lake. Maybe, but not today. Again I attempted to reach chase but I came up with a big, fat zero; where were they?

I headed North and I found a little something right at the CA/NV border, tanked up and took aim for Mina, Nevada. About 10 miles into Nevada I finally heard Andy’s voice break radio silence, it was about time! Andy, Roger and Lori were in Benton and heading my way. Soon after I connected with chase I started to get low at around mile 114 and found myself scratching and sniffing around some low hills. I had gotten down to the mid 6’s but finally found a boomer that had me at 17k within 3 or 4 minutes…nice. It was the smoothest, fattest thermal I had all day. I continued NNE and skirted on the outside edge of some very dark clouds at around mile 130 that were starting to drop their load. While navigating around the edge of this monster I started to get snowed on. The snowflakes that were covering me were very small and would’ve made a great snow cone had I not forgotten the grape juice, damn! I probably would’ve enjoyed the snow more if I hadn’t been so freakin’ cold. It felt like my hands and feet had been replaced with ice blocks. I was swinging my arms below me continuously and kicking my legs trying to get some blood flow to return. This is what I’d been doing the whole flight and it works pretty well, however, the longer I was in the air at altitude the harder it was getting to warm up the limbs. While continuing to skirt around the monster I kept looking East of my position at a cloud street that was nicely formed about 5 miles out in the foothills on the other side of the little valley I was paralleling. It was definitely nicer than the OD street that I was still navigating but it required a course detour and I was banking on better conditions on the backside of this snow machine. This is where I made a critical error that probably cost me 30 or 40 miles because I found nothing but sink beyond the monster and I was flushing fast while approaching Luning, Nevada.

I finally escaped the wrath of the monster but I had dropped to around 9k and the entire valley had shaded over ahead of me. Of course, the foothills to my East that I was eyeing earlier were working great and the street stretched as far as the eye could see. I didn’t have the altitude to make the connection so I took aim for some foothills just past Luning hoping to sniff something out. Without any sun on the valley floor the foothills just weren’t producing so I dropped over the back of them and took a very buoyant final glide grabbing a few scraps of lift along the way that eventually set me on the road at 5:15 and 147.4 miles. Andy, Roger and Lori had finally caught up to me and pulled up just as I was landing, talk about timing! This is the first time that Lori has come with me on a flying weekend. On the way up she had visions of going to the park in town, reading a book and possibly going to a spa in Mammoth. All her thoughts were of relaxation. Instead she spent 8 or 9 nine hours in the car...she gets it now. I said to her when I got into the car, “See how much fun this is”. She didn’t say anything, she just gave me the “LOOK”. At this point everyone was exhausted and we took the very, very long ride back to Bishop for dinner at Whiskey Creek. Ahhh, the good life…

Yes, I was very happy with the distance flown but I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed that I didn’t take advantage of the better line to the East towards the end. I talked with Truax last night about the flight and one of the things he said was that missing that connection would make me hungrier and keep me coming back. He’s right, I can’t wait for my next flight in the Owens. How about tomorrow…who’s in!

I took plenty of photos from the air showing the flight path and conditions. I’ve added comments to most of them below the photo title. In order to see the comments you’ll have to view the pics individually instead of using the slideshow option.
http://www.pbase.com/fllspdahd/record_f ... 7&page=all

147.4 miles in just over 6 hrs.
Several climbs well over 2000 fpm
Stinkin’ high most of the flight, I really needed a space suit!

[irene]

Woah, thank you so much Andy and Dean with these great descriptions. And congratulations to both of you for these amazing flights.

[Ben H]

Nice flyin Dean!!! Thanks for the awesome recap....any chance you could post the .igc or .kml flight log so that all the dreamers like me can check out your flight.

Thanks Man, Ben

[Bo Criss]

Beautiful Deano. Congrats on a spectacular flight. The pics are cool too. When you say stinking high, how high is that? They're kinda looking like NASA photos to me.

Way to go!

[Randall]

Excellent, Deano! It was just a matter of time.

I think an expanded version of your story, with photos attached, should go in the USHPA magazine (among others).

[Ron M]

Nice piece of flying Deano. Did you hear angels singing as you touched down?

[JimmyZ]

Nice flyin' Dean. Great pics too!

[Skippy]

Nice one, Dean... If it wasn't for your feet showing up on one of the shots, one could think you were in plane instead! You've got cojones...
Congrats,
Skippy