Pretty Long Flight Without a Throttle By: Tom Coussens Posted: September 26 2002
Last Saturday I flew the longest continuous flight in my entire flying experience of over 30 years: 4 hours! And I didn't even touch the throttle, 'cause I didn't have one. Pretty stark contrast to my more recent history at the other end of the tow rope, where the longest flight is about 8 minutes. Yep, I done soared my butt off in a 1-26, hopping from thermal to thermal, bippity-bopping all over the desert, mostly above 10,000 ft. Max altitude was 11.8, max distance from Krey Field, probably 15 miles. That was when I was circling Crystallaire, watching a sleek, swoopy glass ship probably giving a demo ride, just flying back and forth and not racking it around.
I was the 5th off the ground at 1:30 and I released at 1700 ft AGL (4700 MSL) into a great blue boomer. I had intended to release a lot higher, but it was too good to pass up. Went on up to about 9.2 and headed south toward the San Bernardino mountains, but found nothing but sink. I thought the flight was over and I was heading back to the field when I got a save from a former Luftwaffe pilot with 129 missions. He and his orange and yellow sunburst 1-26 made a great marker. I hopped outta that thermal at 9.5 and flew west toward a circling Blanik, who promptly leveled out and flew south, so I noodled around and found a nice one that took me to 10.5. Back to the south again, I found sink down to 8.5, then searched over a gravel pit and found a turbulent piece that brought me back to over 10.5. At this point I figured I wasn't so sure I wanted to go into the hills, so I headed north and found a boomer to 11 plus just south of Krey. I saw a lot of guys struggling below me, who must not have seen me, because they didn'y try to join me.
After 11.3, I flew to the north of El Mirage and then toward the southwest, hopping from butte to butte, till I thought, well Crystal isn't that far, what the hey. Once I circled the place, I started back, pushing the nose down to a blinding 60mph (I thermaled at 40) and hitting sink. I was beginning to feel pretty chagrined at my impulsive decision, when I felt the characteristic bump and rattle of another thermal. I stood the ship on a wingtip and climbed from 7.5 to 9.5. OK, Krey was made, the shadows on the ground were getting long, but if I could get one more thermal, I'd take it, just because I hadn't had enough fun yet. Sure enough, 2 miles from the field I found a ragged, narrow piece of air, the last of the day, and rode back up to 9. So there I was in the cool of the evening at 8.5 over Krey (up there, anyway; it was still 85 deg. on the ground), it was 5:15 and all the ships and towplanes were tied down, save one 1-26 in the landing pattern. Dinner and a movie were waiting, so I lazy-eighted and wing-overed my way down to the pattern and landed at a little after 5:30. I raised the canopy and the first thing I heard was Paul Rukoff under the shade tree, "Boy, what an over-achiever!". I could barely walk, but even then I was scheming how to get out there and do it again. Soaring is a drug, like surfing, hang gliding or sky-diving. There is never too much fun! Total cost: $57. When was the last time you saw gliders for rent for $10.00 per hour? And tows for $1.00 per 100 ft? Good ol' Krey!
