Gordon and Mitch
I had the wonderful experience yesterday of flying in the Sierra wave with Gordon Boettger, who many of you know. For those who don’t, Gordon with co-pilot Hugh Bennett, recently twice broke the U.S. soaring distance record for two-seat open class sailplanes, flying 981 miles in the same type of glider we flew yesterday (a Duo Discus).
Several pictures of the flight are attached and should be viewable below within this email.
The day was of moderate strength and petered out toward the end. We struggled to climb initially and I thought there was a good chance that we’d be on the ground less than an hour after we took off. In fact, we landed seven hours and five minutes later after flying 477 miles. It was a “just ok” day distance-wise for Gordon, but a great learning experience for me since I have no cross-country wave flying experience even though I have a lot of summer cross-country thermal flying experience. Gordon is an instrument-rated pilot (his day job is flying for FedEx) and was able to obtain a clearance for us to fly up to 22,000 feet (our high point, as I recall, was 21,500 feet).
I have a new respect for cross-country wave pilots after this experience, in particular for Gordon, Kempton Izuno, and Jim Payne, who have pioneered using the Sierra wave to fly long distances. It is a magical experience, but a bit humbling seeing and feeling how much power is contained in the air flowing over the Sierra.
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