1986

[Rick Masters]

Flight log entry

June 23, 1986
Horsehoe Meadows Road #71    Walt's Point 9100'    Sierra Range    Owens Valley, Ca
Pacific Wings Racing Express    Other pilots: Steve Moyes, Charlie Baughman
Launch time 9:50    Landing 19:30
Duration 9 hr 40 min    Distance 178 mi XC to 15 mi N of Gabbs, NV
Wind T.O. 10 E    Landing 0     Temp fairly warm at altitude
Clouds     High cirrus moving in from the south. I flew north on the edge of the shadow. Light south wind all day and through the night.
Quality    Super-good thermals. I pushed out more than usual in small thermals, staying as high as possible.

I was third off launch after Steve Moyes. I stayed high and slow for a change. I crossed the valley from Mt. Tinnemaha with 16,000'. A thermal NW of Big Pine took me to 16,000' again but I lost everything and thermalled up the south spine of Black Mountain low. I caught one on the side of Coldwater Canyon and worked up Paiute to about 21,000' from 6200'. I left Boundary at 14:00 with 20.000'. Reached the cinder cone at Candelaria with 19,000'. Down to 9000' at Tonopah Junction, then up to 19.000' to cross over Mina, NV. Lots of good pilots got drilled at the base of Luning Pass. I drifted over them, very high. It was slow-going to Gabbs. I crossed Gabbs with 500', waved at 4 or 5 gliders below, and drifted on 0 sink for 13 miles north. Almost took a light thermal into the indian reservation but left it, favoring landing in a sand wash because I knew it might be rough. It was. I nosed in after a full flare, flipped over on top of the sail. No damage, thanks to the sand. I unhooked and turned around, a guy in a pickup was offering me a cold beer and asking me if I wanted a ride into town. Five hours above 17,000'. What a day!
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    It was June 23, 1986 and my 71st flight from Walt's. I was flying a Pacific Wings Racing Express, a very hot European ship with 52 battens, I think, and 1/8-inch side wires for aerobatics or extreme turbulence. JC Brown snidely called it the "Excess." It might as well have been a rigid wing. It had a superior glide to any flexwing but it flew like a board. Rainer Scholl had put drag rudders on it to help deal with the pronounced yaw but they seemed too small. I took them off. I didn't like the idea of anything draggy out there. You just had to think ahead and use an adverse yaw technique with your body as a rudder to turn it. It was a wonderful wing, actually. I loved it. This was before Mike Grisham broke the left leading edge in a failed launch at Horseshoe.
    The wind was straight in at 10 mph. I was third off launch at 9:50 a.m., right behind Steve Moyes. I stayed high and slow for a change. It was fairly warm up there. There were high cirrus clouds moving in from the south. I flew north on the edge of the shadow all the way. A light south wind blew all day and all through the night. The thermals were super - gentle and smooth. I pushed out more than usual and milked the lift, drifting on the high westerly flow. I crossed the Owens Valley from Mt. Tinnemaha with 16,000'. A thermal NW of Big Pine took me to 16,000' again but I lost everything and thermaled up the south spine of Black Mountain low. I caught one on the side of Coldwater Canyon and worked up Paiute to about 21,000' indicated from 6200'. I left Boundary at 14:00 with 20.000' indicated - which was probably no more than 16,999 with altimeter drift. Reached the cinder cone at Candelaria with 19,000' indicated. Down to 9000' at Tonopah Junction, then up to 19.000' indicated to cross over Mina, NV. Lots of good pilots got drilled at the base of Luning Pass. They probably had been trying to race each other. I drifted over them, very high and very smug. One was my friend Geoff Lyons who died in a motorized sailplane at the north end of the Whites a few years later. He told me later he was surprised and impressed to se me pass above them at such altitude. It was slow-going to Gabbs. I crossed Gabbs with 500', waved at 4 or 5 gliders below, and drifted on 0 sink for 13 miles north. Howard Gerrish was there. I yelled down, asked him to chase me. He refused. Too tired. I saved his life in an auto accident a couple of years later 95 miles east of there. I wasn't too tired.
    It was 7:30 p.m. The morning's coffee and I had been in the air for 9 and a half hours when I caught a light thermal low that wanted to take me over the indian reservation out toward Austin. Without a chase crew or a map, I let prudence override my go-for-it-ness and left it. It was pretty weak, I told myself. It was pretty late, I told myself. I'd probably break my leg out there and get eaten by something, I told myself. But I left it reluctantly because I know about the glass-off that was due to set in along the Shoshone Range. That thermal would have taken me toward North Shoshone Peak where the evening glass-off set up. Larry Tudor had used it when I chased him with Lori Judy for 221.5 miles a couple of years ago. It was sweet. I knew it was there and I chickened out. Oh well. Live to fly another day. Regret it the rest of your life...
    Nothing is flat in the wide open desert, although it looks flat as you descend. It's a little joke the devil plays on idiot hang glider pilots who fly too far and too long. The ground can be very hard. It looked hard as I desended above Highway 361 at the western edge of the Broken Hills. The ground was at 4,500 feet. Don't ask me what the density altitude was - it was bad. The breeze was coming up the slope toward the Broken Hills. There weren't any flat spots. The choice was to land uphill and downwind, or upwind and downhill in severe density altitude. Nice. I should have stayed in the thermal and taken my chances.
    There was a narrow wash with sand and boulders. One little stretch, about 70 feet long, was clear of boulders. That started to look beter and better. I set up my S-turn for it. I had to nail it. I rotated and slowed down as much as I dared. I was still hauling a**. It was one of those "Oh f**k" moments you try to avoid ever having througout your entire life. But I cheated. I chose sand on purpose. I can't run 20 miles an hour. Forget about having a hang glider on your back. But I tried. It worked until the first step. I fell, the bar dug in, the nose dropped and planted itself, I flew forward into the sail, the glider somersaulted and I ended up flat on my back on the sail, looking up at the sky. No damage at all. Thank the sand. Sand will save your sorry hang gliding a** in the wide open, easy-to-land-in desert.
    But I really had to pee. Nine hours and 40 minutes, you know. I was in pain. I didn't even unhook. I straddled the nose and tugged hard on my hang strap, rotating the glider from its kingpost to its nose, then upright. I was pissing out my harness bomb bay, experiencing incredible releif, when a voice behind me said, "You want a beer?"
    Did I pause? No. Did I want a cold beer? Yes. When I finished, a quart lighter, I zipped up, turned around and there was a guy and his wife parked in a truck at the edge of the wash. "You want a ride into town?"
    They dropped me off at the only restaurant in Gabbs. Charlie Boughman was there. He'd arrived late, after everyone had left. Neither of us had a ride. We ordered dinner. I had a hamburger. Charlie asked the waitress if she had any fish. I'll never forget the look she gave him. Like, "Fish, in Gabbs??? What's a fish? Are you insane?"
    We carried our gliders to the highway and split up. It was dark. I was fried. I think some chick with two kids let me tie my glider to the passenger side - I always carried nylon straps for that - and she drove me all the way to Independence. What luck. I don't know what happened to poor Charlie. Probably eaten by something.