Category: Uncategorized

Getting close to another century flight.

1hour 15 minutes

Smooth

One year several years ago, during The Gathering at Monument Valley, Russ and a very young Dallin spotted a Steer’s skull on a tandem flight.  They landed, retrieved the skull and flew back to Gouldings Airstrip.  It was one of those EPIC father and son moments.

Imagine the stories that boy will tell his grandchildren fifty years from now.  Bravo!

No drama.

Spoke with the airstrip manager and got permission for Tom Spears to land and leave his trile at Shell Creek when he comes to visit.

We were not able to get him launched before I had to leave for a doctor appointment.  He was a bit timid when it was time to commit and aborted before getting the wing fully loaded.  

The second flight was a little dicey.  Mike and I launched in fairly thick ground fog and once airborn were absolutely unable to see the ground.  We flew east for about 5 miles then Mike decided to go for a new personal altitude record and I played around at 700 feet.  The fog was getting thicker instead of burning off like we thought.  It was still pretty close to the ground …. Probably thinning out at 100 feet.

Mike had no problem and descended to a perfect landing on the first pass.  I on the other hand, circled the field for at least 10 minutes looking for a hole and failing that, looking at the few landmarks that were poking through the fog to be sure I was going to come in on the runway.  Landing was a non event…. I committed and lined up to come in from the North end of the runway.  It was a total white out for a few seconds but quickly I saw the Eastern edge of the runway and set down adjacent to the DC-10 hanger.

Got in a short bumpy flight at Placida after waiting an hour for the wind to come down.  Then sat through two days of fog waiting for it to burn off.

I woke up at 6am to clear skies and no wind so I pulled on the silks and headed out to Shell Creek.  It wasn’t planned,  I didn’t do any of the normal things I usually do the night before a flight so I wasn’t too surprised when I discovered that the battery was dead.   Last flight at Placida I’d had to jump it and apparently wasn’t in the air long enough to give the battery a good charge.  So… I laid out so that the trike was at the corner of the field and parking area.  I put the wood block in front of the tire and gave it a jump.  The wing caught on something (probably the truck antenna or parking stump) and I was able to recover it from a tip touch and make a nice take off.  bad technique….during set up.

A few flights at shell creek

Nice take offs and landings