Soaring free distance record attempt TODAY!

tonycondon

tonycondon

Gastons CRO (Chief Dinner Reservation Officer)
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Tony
Gordon Boettger and Hugh Bennett are trying again from Minden. This is their first attempt of 2014. Goal is Rapid City, SD. They should be taking off at sunrise in Minden.

Here is their Delorme InReach tracking page: https://share.delorme.com/GordonBoettger

Walt Rogers is providing weather support and will be putting updates on his Twitter Feed and blog: https://twitter.com/wrogerswx and http://scriptogr.am/wrogerswx

Should be exciting to see how they do today. They'll be using mountain wave lift exclusively if they have their way. Probably will be able to follow them on Flight Aware too. http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N55LK
 
35 hour 48 minute retrieve from goal. Yeehaw. It takes soaring talent to hustle ground crew for that.:yes:
 
Is there a criteria for the altitude of the tow in one of these attempts?
 
altitude difference from start to finish must be less than 1000 meters or there will be a penalty applied to the distance.
 
tonycondon said:
altitude difference from start to finish must be less than 1000 meters or there will be a penalty applied to the distance.
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Cool. I wondered.

Looks like one helluva a ride when they get to altitude...some really strong turbulence and tailwinds...
 
if they can stay up in the wave it'll be nice and smooth
 
Pretty Cool!

Will be watching the downwind, wave jumping dash. Thanks for posting.
 
ClimbnSink said:
Yeehaw. It takes soaring talent to hustle ground crew for that.:yes:
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Not anywhere NEAR the talent it takes to call your ground crew/wife telling her you ran out of lift halfway between Minden and Vegas onto the strip at Trixie's Cottontail Ranch and you can find it by the flashing red light by the runway.

Jim

.
 
I hope to the holy St. Potluck he has nav lights on that thing, because he MIGHT yet make it, but surely not before sunset.

Jim
 
06:20PM 42.1006 -111.1356 69° East 153 176 23,000 -3,960 Descending Salt Lake Cent

Ouch

Was revised:

06:20PM 42.1006 -111.1356 69° East 153 176 23,000 -1,980 Descending Salt Lake Cent
 
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Everskyward said:
Wonder if Peggy at the FBO will meet him.
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little late for Peggy but maybe they'll stick around for this one

the real question is whether or not he gets to use the non-existent crew car
 
weirdjim said:
He's at FL290 at 152 knots and amended to land about a hundred miles short at Riverton WY.

Jim
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Amended again to land in Casper...he is past Riverton...

7:33 p.m. 212 MPH at 23,400 ft MSL

I don't go that fast with an engine...
 
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He missed Rapid City. New dest KCPR, Casper/Natrona
 
He does have lights.

New National Multi-place distance record, 740sm

Epic pioneering aviation accomplishment.
 
This is good stuff. I'm envious of those two.
 
The record is great, the downwind wave hopping technique is super cool. Wonder how far that can go?
 
They've discussed parking overnight in a wave, like on the Front Range, after crossing the Rockies then heading out across the plains during day 2 and thermal flying to KC.
 
wby0nder said:
They've discussed parking overnight in a wave, like on the Front Range, after crossing the Rockies then heading out across the plains during day 2 and thermal flying to KC.
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Then figure out a way to get from KC to the PA ridge:yes:
 
Very impressive! So Tony if I understood your answer to Kelvin's question It does not matter how high the tow is too so long as the pilot does not deviate more than 1000 meters up or down from his release altitude to his altitude at his destination?
 
Release altitude penalty is relatively insignificant, especially over a flight of hundreds of miles.
 
Congrats to them on a great flight .
 
AdamZ said:
Very impressive! So Tony if I understood your answer to Kelvin's question It does not matter how high the tow is too so long as the pilot does not deviate more than 1000 meters up or down from his release altitude to his altitude at his destination?
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It's a loss of height penalty. So higher is OK. My limited understanding is that if he loses more than 1,000 meters (3,280 ft) from start to finish, he's penalized 100 times in distance the excess altitude lost. So if finish is 1,100 meters below start, he loses about 6 miles.
 
Lindberg said:
It's a loss of height penalty. So higher is OK. My limited understanding is that if he loses more than 1,000 meters (3,280 ft) from start to finish, he's penalized 100 times in distance the excess altitude lost. So if finish is 1,100 meters below start, he loses about 6 miles.
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So launching from the summit of Everest would be a pretty big penalty if you made it all the way to the Bay of Bengal.
 
yea the idea is that you can't gain an advantage from taking a stupid high tow. in the early 50's a russian woman set the world distance record after taking a tow to over 20k feet. That was within the rules at the time but not considered exactly sporting. Dick Johnson beat the record with the first 500+ mile flight ever, from Odessa, TX to Topeka, KS.
 
tonycondon said:
yea the idea is that you can't gain an advantage from taking a stupid high tow. in the early 50's a russian woman set the world distance record after taking a tow to over 20k feet. That was within the rules at the time but not considered exactly sporting. Dick Johnson beat the record with the first 500+ mile flight ever, from Odessa, TX to Topeka, KS.
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So, has anyone beat Dick Johnson?

:rofl:
 
Yes the current us free distance is over 900 miles. World record is further.
 
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