Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. Just got off the line with my friend Gordon Boettger, who I know many of you follow now.
Had an epic flight with him a year ago in the wave in the Sierras. It was just a taste of some of the really big stuff he has done, including a couple of flights over 3000K out and backs in the Sierras, and flying with NVGs, night vision goggles, and flying all night and all the next day. That big flight of his was, well, the two of them were over 17 hours. And back on December 19th, just a couple of weeks ago, he did it again, except this time he went downwind again with his buddy Bruce. And he took off in Minden at 3 o'clock in the morning and got up in the wave in the Sierras, and then hooked a left-hand turn and flew across Nevada. Nevada, hit all those big mountain ranges, and then flew across southern Utah and the Sangre de Cristos, and crossed the entire Rockies, which has never been done in this kind of distance in a glider, especially at night.
And then flew all the way to Dodge City, Kansas. It was over 1,100 miles. He spent a whole bunch of that time up above 24,000 feet, 24,000 to 28,000 in the middle of winter. Of course, it was freezing cold. And this is the story. It's the longest flight that's ever been done downwind in wave. So yet another record chalked up for Gordon and Bruce. And I just had to chat with him and find out how in the world they put this together. To give you an idea of where they thought they were going to go and calling it out in advance, he sent the retrieve team off a day before they even took off. So he kind of knew where he was going to end up. More or less. And nailed it.
And it all worked out. I can't believe what Gordon's doing. It's super inspiring and a lot of fun. And you've got to head on over as you're listening to this to show notes and see all his videos and pictures. And they flew across the swell and some awful beautiful country. But basically crossed half of the United States, a big chunk of it at night in a glider, without an engine, flying mountain wave downwind. This is the stuff of legends. So cool. Enjoy.
Gordon, you're a madman. I got the coolest message. That was about a week ago now, right? Yeah, on 19th. Yeah. Just right before Christmas. 19th? Uh-huh. Yeah. I got the coolest message from a buddy of mine. And he said, are you watching what your friend's doing? What friend are you talking about? You've got too many friends. He said your name. I just. He said, oh my God, send me the link. And holy cow, man. So take us through it. Give us the summary of what you and Bruce just did. Set it up for how you saw it coming.
So basically, this has been over a 40-year-long dream of mine. And that was to essentially get up as high as I can in a mountain wave and simply fly as far downwind as I can. And I live in, obviously, a really good place that allows me to do something like that. So I've been. I've been doing this, doing some of these attempts for years now. And the weather just lined up just good enough, actually, on the 19th of December for me to do this. And the fact that I have the night vision goggles, I'm not limited to daylight now. So essentially, any day of the year, I can do this. So I've been just like hardcore. I've done some big flights in the wave along this year. And I've done some downwind attempts in different gliders.
But I've never gotten east of the Rockies. That was my goal. To get as far as I could east of the Rockies. And there was a gentleman by the name of Jaak Kuttner, who was with NCAR, National Center for Atmospheric Research. And he was part of the Sierra Wave Project. And he was essentially the guy that invented, or not invented, he discovered mountain wave in Germany. And he passed away a few years ago at like 103 years old, but was still very, very active with mountain wave. And I met him several times. And he had this whole idea of, you know. It's, I think this idea goes way back to the 50s and 60s of getting up as high as you can in a glider and end up in Kansas. And that's essentially what I did. I fulfilled his dream. I fulfilled my dream and a lot of other people's dreams.
So it's really freaking cool. This is
Wizard of Oz shit, dude. It's awesome.
So, you know, and I think bottom, with this whole flight, the reality came true. The dream came true. And I also realized that we can go further. With this, using a few different methods, and one of which is utilizing thermals way downwind, you know, east of the Rockies. Because obviously east of the Rockies, you know, the waves, there's nothing else to generate wave for the most part east of the Rockies. So that would mean gliding from the Rockies, from a wave situation like I did into central Kansas, and then using thermals from like noon on to fly another 400 miles or so. So. Two different methods. All right.
So what time did you guys take off? How far did you fly? What was your average speed? Give us some of the nuts and bolts here. So we
took off at 3.09 local Pacific Standard Time in the morning.
Not when you and I did it.
Yeah. You're used to that, right? You've done that with me. So you know what that's like. So we took off at 3.09 in the morning. The intent was to try to get off a little sooner. But as you know, because you've been there, the equipment issue. Oh, my gosh. It's just ridiculous. It's just ridiculous the amount of stuff that has to go in the cockpit. And so you can't, you really can't rush anything. But I had filed a flight plan with ATC and I had an IFR flight plan in the system. And I don't know if people are aware, but I do have.
Yeah, let's look. Okay. So ATC, IFR. Just explain those real quick for the non-glider folks listening.
Yeah. So for the non-fixed wing folks that don't fly higher, you know, basically what I'm having to do. Any time you're flying from 18,000 feet above, you need to be on an IFR clearance, IFR flight plan. So that means you have to file, put a flight plan in the system and activate that system. And you're basically under the control of, under air traffic controls. You're basically under their control. Because
you're in Class A airspace. Exactly. So Class A airspace. Basically the whole way. Yeah.
So Class A was, it begins at 18,000 feet, goes on up. So since this flight stuff, this wave stuff does. Happened above 18,000 feet. I worked years ago to get some letter of agreements with the centers, Oakland Center, Salt Lake, Denver, and the Seattle Center to go operate a glider, you know, VFR in Class A airspace. So I'm operating under a letter of agreement, but filing an IFR flight plan per the LOA and operating VFR in Class A airspace. With, under the control of ATC. So I'm squawking, I'm talking to them and they're assigning me blocks of altitude and I do file an IFR flight plan.
So that IFR flight plan I filed was, basically followed the route that SkySight showed where there would be adequate wave to climb the continued downwind. And I actually declared Garden City, Kansas, and I actually made that, I actually, that's just, that's an 18.
Ridiculous. You're giving away, you're giving away the goods. Right off the bat. That's just ridiculous. Anyway. Oh my God. It's crazy. So you called it, you, that's where you were, you called it. That's where I'm going to land.
That's what I, I accomplished my goal and I overflew it. And I was talking to Kansas City Center. Actually, they were so, so awesome. So I, I overshot Garden City at like 11,000 feet, went through my finish gate, which is a thousand meter line. I went through the finish gate and hit my, it was a 1700. Well, it was. It was a 16, it was roughly 17, uh, it was Minden to Garden City was 1,661 kilometer declared goal. Pretty cool. And then I continued on to Dodge City because what I can do for, for an FAI, so I can get two records out of this. So I qualified for two records, distance to a goal.
So that's a, this, uh, pre-declared goal that I put in my, in my, uh, flight logger. Right. And then I had. A free distance, which, uh, which was essentially Minden to Dodge City where I landed. So I, so I qualify for two Continental records out of that.
How does it work in your world? And in our world, we have to have, uh, an observer. Right. We, same thing. Same thing. Yeah. So we have a day
logger and, um, you know, so the observer, uh, who was Jeff Resnick, uh, he was there for the launch. And so he observed everything. And then, you know, we had to set landing witnesses and, uh, you know, all that. I thought all that logger stuff is, uh, you know, uh, preserved in the logger. Those of you
listening, you can't see this. I'm doing that whole thing where you put your hands on your head and you're going mind blown. Yeah. It's pretty cool. And you set, you set off your friends the day before you even took off for the retrieve, right. Or something. Yeah. Cause it's Thursday. This
thing covered some miles. So, so it was, it was a little kind of a ballsy move. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. First of all, I had to find a crew and, and, you know, like a hundred percent of this stuff is on me. I don't have a team that's doing the flight planning or any of that stuff or getting the glider ready. It's just the, it's, it's a ton of work and it's, it's absolutely exhausting. And part of you, there's that devil on your shoulder. That's wanting the weather to kind of fall apart. So you can just go to bed and forget about it and not have to spend five days prepping and losing sleep. Cause I,
every pilot knows about, you know, the deal.
And so, yeah. Yeah. You know, then the other party is going, I want to go for this. So Gary Itner, who happens to be 17 time national soaring champion here in the U S he, he actually called me up and said, I'd be happy to do it. I get nothing going on. So.
To run retrieve. Yeah. So I said. He towed the trailer out there and everything. So I
went down and met him at the, uh, at the Minden airport, got the trailer ready. Cause you know, I, I never used the trailer, you know, I hardly ever use it. So I had to get the trailer ready and get my truck ready. And, you know, fill it up with guests and said, all right, here's the, here's the deal. We're not taking off till Friday, but I want you to leave on Thursday and head east as far as you can. Cause we'll probably catch up to you. And that's, that's exactly what he did. He blew out of here on, on Thursday. We flew on Friday. He blew out at like 6 0 AM on Thursday. I got a call like at 8 PM on Thursday night and I'm trying to get some sleep and I'm not sleeping, but I get a text from him. He goes, Hey, I made it to grand junction overnight in the grand junction. And so I'm going, holy shit. I hope I didn't now you're vested though. That's
kind of cool. Now you're, now you can't back out. Now
I'm fully committed. And I think that was kind of a good thing in a way. Cause now you're, you're really driven. It's like, okay, I got to get this. I got at least get that far, you know, to, to grand junction and, you know, hopefully it don't land 50 miles east in the desert. You just don't know what this game, you know, the deal, you know? Yeah.
Hey, so we, we covered this in the first show and those of you listening. I. Highly recommend you go back and do that. That was the 3000 K, you know, 17 hours up and down the Sierras, uh, and you explained way, but give a quick recap on the conditions you need, the conditions you had, why does this set up? It, it just keeps going. I mean, the first thing I was thinking about when I, when I read this, I mean, we, you and I could see it that night. We could see these wave harmonics, you know, with the clouds and then clear and the cloud, and it just went as far as you could see off in Nevada. With the night vision goggles that night. So I could see it, but I think a lot of people have a hard time imagining what really, what happened. Yeah. So, I mean, simply if you're not flying up and down the range in way, like you normally do, or down in the Perlan project, down in the Andes, you're just sending it.
And that, yeah, you're what you're doing is you're
using a different wave system every time you climb. And unlike riding up and down the Sierras or riding up and down the Andes, as soon as you turn tail, you're out of here, go eastbound. It's like, you're looking for a whole nother wave generator, a mountain. Or something to generate that wave. And for those people that aren't aware how mountain wave works, basically you get high velocity winds that are running for the most part, perpendicular to some type of topographical feature being, you know, let's, let's call it a mountain just to be simple, because that's what it is. But that, that air rushes up and over the mountain and that basically spills down the valley floor and causes a balancing effect a lot like a, like a boulder. When you see a boulder in a river or, you know, a submerged rock. And you can see the, the harmonics, you know, when that, that water flows over that boulder downstream, you'll see harmonics.
And that's exactly what's, what's going on with mountain waves. So the, the, the unique, unique thing about the 19th is that what we're, what we want to look for on a downwind flight is kind of what we call a zonal flow where the jet stream runs pretty much, it's like a 270 flow all the way to the Rockies. And that hardly ever happens. It's very rare, you know.
Dead West.
Dead West. And to get it, to get it run, to, to get it to run, give you basically a, for the most part, a westerly flow from, from the Sierra to the Rockies is, is very uncommon. And you could, you could wait, you know, you could have that one or, once or twice a year or once, you know, once every two or three years. So the fact that I wasn't working, had the whole month of December off, I, you know, had the opportunity to go after it. And I saw this about a week out. I, I, I was at home and not, cause I'm always looking at the weather. It's like a surfer's looking for a big swell at Nazare or something. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm scoping out the jet stream going, whoa, wow. This thing's actually going zonal here. You know, this is, this, I gotta keep, I gotta keep an eye on this. A lot of times, historically, I've seen it go zonal. And then within a day or two, just it's whacked.
You get this big dip in the, in the, in the, you know, in the, in the low pressure system. So. What
do you mean by that zonal? Explain that. And is that, you know, when you and I flew, it was kind of Southwest as I remember. Right. It wasn't zonal. It wasn't like that. But then we got hammered by kind of an atmospheric river. Right. And they shut it down. Was this, is this pre, post? This is, yeah. What are we looking at here? So, yeah,
the, it's a prefrontal type system. And usually when you, when you have a, like when you and I flew, we had a pretty deep trough that came through. We were, we had a south, a southerly kind of a southwesterly type flow over the Sierra, which is favorable for the Sears. But within, you remember when I said we got to, we've got to be on the deck before one o'clock. Cause it's going post-frontal. In other words, we're going to start getting a northwesterly flow. And, you know, that, so the whole direction of the, the flow changes and you really don't want that on a downwind flight because, you know, the winds are so strong and you can't, to deal with 60 or 80 knot crosswinds and, you know, and, and a lot of times it shuts the wave down. And another big issue to is, is the moisture content, you know?
And so there's been, there've been so many days where it looked good downwind. But you go, all right, once I get to Utah, the whole Wasatch is completely clobbered or the west, west end of the Rockies is completely clobbered with moisture. And that's obviously a dangerous situation you don't want to get yourself into. So you, you don't even do it. So this day was lined up in the sense that the, the, the flow, we, the jet stream was basically running. It was just running in a straight line from west to east for the most part of 270 type flow all the way into Kansas. And then the, the other good thing, the advantageous thing is that there was very little moisture. So those two things combined, that's when you start kind of locking on. And then, and then you start looking, looking at sky site and seeing how feasible this is between, you know, getting from here to the Rockies.
Because Rockies, Rockies, you know, typically generate very good wave. The Sierras generate very good wave, but this, it's the in-between points. And that's exactly what we had on this flight where there were some soft spots and sky site. Just freaking nailed it, you know? And those soft spots mean you just, you have to change gears. You have to slow up, be patient, take the slow climb, get high. And then because getting to the Rockies, you got to be high at those big peaks, you know? And, and with those type of winds, I think, I mean, I had people from Denver saying that stuff was, you know, I mean, they had gnarly, gnarly winds, you know, that day. So you don't want to be in a, in a glider over the Rockies, you know, with 70 or 80 knot winds over the, over. the peaks you know that gets to be really dangerous so what
Did you have, in general, you said about 60 knots, kind of 60, 65 knots, you know?
and um, so 80 miles
an hour
Yeah, which is, which is good. And when you're, you know, you know, just same thing with you're flying at a much slower speed than than you would flying up and down the Sierra. Like when we flew, we were, I mean, we were just lighting our hair on. It was insane. Whereas this, you really want to stay up high. Your true air speed is much higher. Your ground speed is going to be much higher with that, that higher tailwind. And the higher you, you are, typically the higher the tailwind, the higher the, the wind speed will be. So, so the what
Was your kind of average when you were leaving the—when you were going on glide, when you were leaving the wave for the next one? What, what's your—give me an idea of your glide ratio. What do you get with
the 65 knot tailwind, you're—I mean, you're over 100 to 1. Oh no, it's insane. So, oh, you're
just yeah
Yeah, and that's, you know, Gavin, that's the difference between, like, when you're going up and down the stairs, like we were. I mean, you're just, you're, you're trying not to pull the wings off because you're, it's so strong sometimes. Um, whereas this, you're flying it for the most part at best l over d speed because you're letting the wind do the work. So you're, you're typically like 60, 65 knots, but you're clipping along with 160 knot ground speed, or, or something, you know, 150 knots, and
Would you say the the overall experience is less intense or more intense?
It's less, it's less intense in the fact that you're not, you're not operating, you know, it's, it's like taking a skateboard down a hill, you know, and you're, you're just about to get speed wobbles, you know, when you're going up and down the Sierras when it's that strong, you know, like you just, you just ride on that line of, you know, VNE, and you don't want to hit turbulence, you know, so you're kind of, you know, you, you know, your hair's standing up on the back of your neck going up, but, but going downwind, it's relatively comfortable, and you're not getting the, the air leaks in the cockpit, you know, that you're, that you get when you're doing a 150 knots indicated, you know, 100, uh, doing 60, 65 knots downwind is very, very comfortable. The, the stress level that you do have to deal with is like, okay, now I have to, now I'm looking for a different wave source, right?
Because as soon as you go down, you
We're talking about you've got this, you've got this area that you got to clear. I mean, the main spine of the Rockies, Colorado, where you—you knew you were gonna, and I've never done that. Yeah, and around Monticello, yeah, I never, never made it before. But you also got on Skysight, which I understand was just dead on. Yeah, amazing. Shout out to Matt Scutter, uh, putting these things together for you guys, but the—you had this area that you knew, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna take hours climbing there if necessary. Yeah, I mean, you're—you're, and it's—it's, you didn't have to do that, but you—you—you were willing to. You had to get super tall. Yeah,
Exactly, because, uh, you know, and it's wild looking back. It everything was just so textbook, because even three days out, I go, "That three days before the flight, I said that that wave in Monticello, west of Durango, because that whole area was soft, I'm gonna have to take a climb. If I, if I don't get up there, I'm landing in Durango, 100." You know, and that's what does
Get up there mean what? Like 28 grand, I think, if I think...
24 um would have been fine, and the the other option for wave before I crossed into the Rockies, I I told you earlier, was was to go you Mount Peel, which is south of Moab, is pretty big individual peak out there, and that that was forecast with similar type strength of Monticello, maybe a little stronger, but that being further north means that, you know, you're you're jumping into a wider expanse of the Rockies, and that just to me was gnarly, and I go, I I don't want to, I don't want to do that, because if I don't, if I don't catch wave and I end up down at 16 or 17,000 feet, you know, with 70 not ridgetop winds or whatever, it was bad, bad place to go, and I'm like, I don't want to do that, I don't want to do that, you know, so I I what I did is I tracked, I took the southern route towards Durango and then jumped in kind of on the southern end of the Rockies there, and then because I had fallout areas to the south
Durango being one of them, and and a few other spots, and so that was the safest route, I think. And it actually, it worked out absolutely freaking beautifully, you know, so
from your track log, which is really cool, and those of you listening, this will all be up on the on the post, and I'm going to you, you must go check all this stuff out, so it'll all be there. But on the track log, it didn't look like you didn't have a low save, right? I mean, it was, it was pretty textbook, like you said it
Was it? Was I stayed high? I took the, uh, I was very patient with the the slow climbs because I expected it. Impatience would have, would put me on the ground and way short of my goal. And, you know, this being a another thing, Gavin, I want to point out is is the, you know, if if you don't have, you know, if you've got to land by sunset or if you can't go into the evening time, then you're pressed, you know, and you can't be patient. You say, you know, you have to say, well, I need to press because I, I need to be down before dark. Well, I've got night vision goggles, so in my mind I'm like, okay, if I land in somewhere on the east of the Rockies, it's totally flat, right? If it's 10 o'clock at night, I could care less, you know? It means I'm up for 18 hours, you know, it's a long flight, but you know, I'm willing to do that.
And the fact that I had the the goggles to to put on again, you know, if I needed to, was was very comforting.
that night yeah
Yeah, yeah, if I—if I had, because I'm losing two hours of daylight going east, too, so that's not—it's not in my favor. So I'm—I'm running against the clock, um, so to speak. So that—that kind of hurts you. And before the—before the NVG days, you know, this downwind flight, I never would have made an attempt because the days are way too short, right? So, um, so my—my downwind months before the night vision goggles, that my downwind months were limited to pretty much, you know, end of March, April, May, and that gave me long enough days to—to, uh, to do that. But then, so...
It just totally opened up. Oh, yeah.
Now, now I've got a two and a half months window versus a basically a 12 months window now. I mean, I, I took off what, three days before the the shortest day of the year, you know? So that's great. It's insane, you know? And I mean, we're
Is it as a, so you know, as a newbie, I've only done this once with you, and you know, you, you had me walk around in your backyard with them, and it was just makes you want to go have a party. I mean, those things, looking through those things is incredible. Yeah, they're nuts, but you know, you've got the experience now. Is there any difference for you in terms of comfort level between daytime and nighttime? I mean, is flying at night just standing
up and flying at night, is that the difference between daytime and nighttime?
Standard operation operating procedures. There's no, there's no increased risk of not risk, but is there, is there any added intensity, intensity to, uh, when you're flying at night, or is it just become part of the? It's because they're beautiful, but for me, it was super disorienting, but I was like, "Where? What the hell is he doing? Which way are we pointing?" At you know, the whole thing
You know, if you do it infrequently, it's, it's very intimidating every time you do it because you're like, "Whoa, it's, you know, as you know, it's a very claustrophobic feeling." You have a much narrower field of vision, um, you have to keep your scan going, and it, and it takes a couple hours actually to feel like, "Okay, now I'm getting in the groove." These, these are, this is comfortable now. Luckily, what I did, uh, four or five days before the flight, I took the NBGs and I took my buddy up and, you know, it was just dead calm, but we flew up and did a touch and go up into Lake Tahoe airport, pitch black, you know, and, um, and that gives you a sense of comfort. But it's, but the key with these things, you can't ever let your guard down, you know? And one interesting thing about this flight, and I talked to Walt Rogers, and who's a meteorologist, I talked a few people about the strategic, uh, preparation of, "Okay, when do I take off?" Because this wave was working for like 24 hours, right?
It was working for a, so I could have taken off at 10 o'clock at night, two in the morning, six in the morning. But what I was thinking about, where do I want to not be with those night vision goggles in one of those places? Because I hadn't been over the Rockies, was over the Rockies, I'm like, "I don't want to end up there." I didn't want to take off at like six in the morning at Amenden and go, "Shit, now I'm, now I'm crossing the Rockies at freaking six o'clock at night in pitch black." You know, I just, I just, I was just a little so
finding a bomb out or an airport or something, just it just adds too much, yeah, plus
You don't know what's going on with the winds. I could have a 30-knot cross when I'm, and that's typical with wave conditions. You don't know what you're dealing with, you know, with the winds. It's just, and I've had some gnarly landings on the goggles, and I'm sitting in the back seat, you know, just because I'm, I'm much taller. There's a lot more room in the back seat, but and it's, it's, it's gnarly, you know, then you're fatigued, you know, you're landing in a crosswind. So I didn't want to put myself in a situation where I'm crossing the Rockies. I mean, it was gnarly enough to cross all of Nevada, you know. We finally, the sun started coming up, but the freaking cockpit was completely iced up inside. You know, I was like, "Jesus,"
Oh yeah, I wanted to ask you about that and some of your pictures. So, how does that work with the NVGs? Can you, well, I
had enough of, uh, enough. I know you don't
like to scrape on? No, you can just
That just makes it worse. Um, so what happened? The clear vision panels typically work really well. This time, there was a little leak between the the clear vision panel and the canopy. There was a little, you know, in the foam or whatever, it had separated, so moisture had spread between the clear vision panel and the canopy, and that essentially stayed there for most of the flight. But yeah, it was—you talk about disorienting. It's pitch black, and you got the, you know, the ice encompassing most of the most of the canopy inside. And that's another thing that you got to really be careful with because, you know, you know NVGs are aren't going to get you through a fully iced-up canopy. Now you're flying on instruments, you know, so that's kind of what was what was happening. So I'm flying in way—I'm flying on instruments going from 160 knot ground speed to all of a sudden a five knot ground speed parking in the wave, and it kind of threw the Alex computer off.
It's going, "What the hell's going on?" So I was looking at the computer going, "Why is the map doing that?" Then I had my ForeFlight telling me I was doing something totally different. So your brain is—which your brain is over-processing this stuff, and it's just—it's really fatiguing, and you have to stay totally focused, you know? And now you're still trying to talk to—you're talking to ATC, you're trying to You know, and there's just a lot going on. You got the O2 thing going, so the first three hours was just... first three hours was pretty, pretty hectic, you know, and
How cold was it compared to our flight, um?
It was, yeah, it was. It was, it was definitely colder, you know, because we are, we are up higher. Um, we were operating, it seems, when I get, whenever I get, it seems like the 24,000 foot point, when I'm above 24,000 feet, it's just like, it just gets like, just
Colder, and then we get down to 20,000 feet, I'm like, "Oh, it's nice and toasty. It's nice down here." So it is nice to get low sometimes, just to kind of recalibrate your body and go, "Oh, my man, you know it's not, not so bad." Yeah, it, it's, it was pretty, uh, the first three hours was pretty, pretty gnarly. There was the, the toe out was, um, you know, uh, we, we actually got ready in the hangar, got in, got in the glider in the hangar this time, so we're not having stuff blow away on the runway and stuff. And then Melissa was out there helping, and so we had three people out, uh, supporting that, the launch, and we took off on runway one-six, and when we pushed out, the winds were like five-nine. It was like nothing, and I go, "Oh my god, this is so rare to take off, such a pleasant way to take off, and no wind." And as soon as we got to the end of the runway, it was, it was like the winds were 230 at 18 gusts and a 32.
It was freaking howling. It was just like, "Oh," and I go, "Man, I can't believe this. You know, I gotta take off in this crap." And, um, so, uh, so we, you know, we had two people holding the wing down because it was like a 70-degree crosswind. It was just howling, and, uh, so I got the motor started, and then I'm going, "Okay, what do I—" I'm listening to the AWOS, listen to the winds. I go, "What do I do? I just sit here and wait for the winds to die?" I go, "It's not going to die down." So I said, "The hell with it." And so, you know, I just took off, and then we just got the crap beat out of us. The rotor just right
off the bat
It was right, right into it, three in the morning, and I hadn't slept in probably two days, and I just go, "This is why do I need this?" And then the wave was really funky out of here, you know? So it was a really slow climb, and you know, probably three, not you know, probably you know, one and a half meters, you know, per second, you know, one half meters per second climb initially. And then finally we got up into the flight levels above 18, got my clearance, and then kind of worked our way down to the southeast and picked up a couple key point climbs at sky site was showing, and those actually worked out well. So, so it wasn't a, you know, I did a little deviation of the southeast first to get a climb over Mount Grant, over by Walker Lake, by Hawthorne, and
Talk me through, so you know, when when we did it, it was you're you're flying in the way the whole, I mean, you're just you're just in the way. And then, so when you ping off and go downwind, you're making the jump to the next big feature, you know, in this case that the toyabies are the next really big feature. We looked at that when you were showing before we started recording, and you're getting an over it, you're you're diving off into the lee, you're finding the wave, and then what are you doing? You're just pointing right right back up wind and just and just, yeah, you have to be really
You have to be really... so typically, when you leave the way, you'll hit the the down cycle, so you're going to hit that strong sink. So you got to push over, you got to... you got to speed up to that and get out of there, because you could be going down, you know, you know 10, 15 meters per second, you know, it's just... it's crazy. So you got to... you got to get out of that as quick as you can. And then, so you negotiate your speed based off of your your sink rate. So, you know, like I said earlier, we didn't have... we didn't have too many massive sink rate situations, and we actually deviated around some of that stuff based off what Skysight was showing. And it was interesting because the deep blue areas that Skysight shows, that's heavy sink, and that's always on the leeward side of the lift, you know, it's always downwind. And so what I would do, is what Bruce and I would do, is we would fly, you know, uh, just like to the
softer sink or whatever, and then go downwind. So there's a lot of kind of shucking and jiving, so
There's still some going north or going south, you're still, and then I've got to tell perpendicular to the wave and I've
Got to talk to ATC and say, "Hey, request deviation left or right, of course, for for weather, 10 mile or whatever," see? Because you're on an IFR flight plan, and they actually expect you to stay on that flight plan. They can—they'll let you deviate from that, basically, that line that you filed to be on. They'll let you deviate, but you got to tell them that you—you'd like to even deviate because there could be traffic you don't know, so you can't was
IFR stand for instrument
flight rules, so instrument
Flight rules, okay? So you've given them a line with a bunch of waypoints, yeah? And that's essentially
What I did, and those waypoints were those lift points that Skysight was showing, and so I had probably 18 points in my IFR flight plan all the way to, uh, uh, all the way to Garden City or Dodge City, and and and I pretty much flew that route, you know, plus or minus maybe 10 or 10 miles left.
So that is so cool. And so one of the things that I always, when people ask me about our flight, I always, yeah, I, I say all this, the stuff that you expect to hear about it, but I always talk about the, the comms with the tower. That was one of my favorite things that night was not only the comms with the tower with Oakland, but it was talking to the other jets, right? You know, one point somebody, you know, United 908 or whatever, going into San Francisco, gets on and he goes, "Hey, wait a minute, what? You're, you're in this on purpose and you don't have an engine?" I mean, that was awesome. It was just, he was like, "Wait, wait a minute, it's the middle of the night, you're out here because you want to be? What the hell's wrong with you?" That was so cool. So did you, did you have any fun chats like that as you're, yeah, I'm riding halfway across the United States, so
yeah, I mean, it was fairly quiet to, uh, you know, once I got into Denver, the the the chatter got to be a lot more, and it was, it was really busy because being, you know, ski season, you know, you had everyone flying into Aspen, and all the big, you know, uh, the private jets, and then you had the commercial traffic too. But there was, uh, uh, yeah, there was a guy that I, he was, I don't know if he was Southwest or something, but he goes, "Hey," he goes, "Hey, Denver. Uh, you get—you got time for a question?" And you know, I'm just flying, and he goes, "Denver Center, goes, yeah, what's—what's up?" He goes, "Hey, that—that glider, is that a glider you're talking to?" Yeah. He goes, "Where did... where did he start from? And how high is he? And where is he going?" He goes, "Well, he's... he started in the Lake Tahoe in the Reno area, and he's at flight level 280, 28,000 feet, and he's trying to make it to Dodge City." The guy goes, "Holy cow, you know, it's unreal." He goes, "Good on you." And what's interesting is, um, one of the like the Denver center controller, you know, because I've got the Instagram thing going up, I've got the Starlink in the...
in the cockpit, and um, what's... what's really neat about it is that it's neat about this stuff now with the technology is we're able to share these like live feeds. I mean, I'm up at 26,000 feet doing a live feed. I boot up the Starlink Boom, Instagram says you're live and people are checking in from all over the world. I mean Australia, Norway, and you know the Germans are all over it, and they're not getting any, it getting any sleep. You know, these are nine hours later there, and they're just, just, just floored by what's going on. And so that this whole thing goes viral, and then next thing you know, everyone's watching on FlightAware because I'm on an IFR flight plan. So, so now everyone can see what's going on. You know, they're going, "Holy crap, the guy's crossing the Rockies in the glider!" So it's, it's really getting everyone.
It gives, gives you know, the, the gliding air soaring really good exposure, you know, and gives even pilots that aren't, aren't glider pilots, gives them the, you know, the, just blows their mind that you know you can do this in a glider, you know? And, uh, what's needed, the point data. You know, I think we talked about this before, but the point A to point B stuff is really cool because people don't understand the triangles. I mean, we, we understand it in the, you know, in the gliding, the PG world, you know? It, it's, we get it, you know, and the out and returns and that stuff. But your average show, they go, "Well, now where are you going to go?" Point A to point B is what they kind of expect, right? So this is a point, point A to point B, and so it was pretty, uh, you know, spectacular for a lot of people, and I mean I still
Still, step outside and I go, "Holy shit, I can't believe I just flew the single across the freaking Rockies." You know, you know, just
Mind blown, I mean, I remember getting out, I was put sticking my thumb out in Texas. We were down there trying to break the world record a bunch of years ago, and this guy in a truck and his girlfriend pulled over and, uh, I was trying to just describe, you know, I was just the middle of Texas and I mean, and compared to what you're doing, this is ridiculous paragliding speeds, you know, I'd gone 300k or something, but that's, I mean, it's all related in a blink of an eye, it is. It's all relevant. It was so funny when he was, you know, and I was explaining him, okay? Yeah, we, we took off in Hebronville, uh, you know, down by Corpus Crispy, and we, we towed up and then, you know, and then I flew here and he was just going, "So you jumped out of an airplane up above us, right, right here?" No, no, no, no, there's 300k south of here, and he's just going, "Wait, but where, where's the motor, man? Where's the thing? Where's the stuff to do it with?" And I know, "No, it's on my back." And say, "Yeah, just people, just wait, what I mean, if"
I, if I could do what you guys do with the paraglider, in other words, just push the damn glider down a hill until it has enough airspeed to get off the hill and then get up and wave and do that, could you imagine how cool that would be? Just completely motorless.
You know how you do it is pretty, but hey, I gotta ask. You said something when we first started off, and you said, "You know, you might get one or two days like this with the zonal flow a year," so obviously really rare, really special. But also, I'm a man, I'm trying to just think. I mean, I've been a lot of places on on the planet. There can't be that many places on earth, how many are there that that provide for this kind of? I mean, it's a really—that is the most mountainous state in the in the lower 48. I mean, it's a really good—it's a
Really good question, so South America is out of the questions. You'll end up in the water. Um, you got one, yeah? You got one range. And so there's, as far as I can't think of anywhere can you, there's no other place in the world that that would allow you to do this on a downwind, uh, attempt. It going downwind, not crosswind, and wave like in the sure, but to use a full-on downwind attempt, I think this is probably the best place in the world. I mean, from, from logistics and everything else, and just topography, the way it's laid out now in it's, I mean I
guess, topography-wise, Canada's pretty similar. You know, you've got all our ranges kind of extended in there, but you don't have Nevada, you don't have right, you don't really have... I mean, BC, Alberta, to an extent, you know, and
then you've got all the other places in the world that are
Their rocky spine is the same as our rocky spine, but I just can't think of anywhere, yeah.
I don't anywhere that this exists like this. Anyone listening has any ideas? I mean, throw them out, but yeah.
Yeah, let us know you
know, it's funny what I—I always mention people. I said, "If—if we can, if we just had one mountain in the middle of Kansas, imagine what that could have done for me," you
could go
could you go
To the East Coast, could you go away? How far can you get from 30,000 seed at 101, so...
Let's, well, I mean, I went as far as I could because, uh, you know, I got to, well, I got to 28,000 feet and and there might be a possibility, a possibility for me to get up the. So let's back this thing up. I'm limited to 28,000 feet because flight level 290, 29,000 feet, there's this thing called RVSM, reduced reduced vertical vertical separation minima, and that basically allows airliners or, you know, or traffic in that, in those altitudes from two nine, from twenty-nine thousand feet to twenty-nine thousand feet, and that basically allows airliners or, you know, or traffic allows them with a thousand foot vertical separation. So because of that, there are tight equipment like, uh, stringent rules and on what's got to be on board like dual autopilots, you know, and all kinds of stuff which a glider can't have.
And so when I, when I established the letter of agreement, um, that I have, they said, "You're not going to be allowed in RVSM airspace, okay?"
and so
that might so
28 is your limit.
Correct, that might change. And the only time I would need that to get above 28 is on that final stretch off the either the Rockies or the Sander Cristos, um, and if I get, if I really get above, if I get above 30, I'm going to need a different O2 system, which I have a pressure demand system, and I'd have to, I can equip the glider with that. And so the possibility, if let's say if I, if I, if I do get into RVSM airspace, basically I'm allowed above 29,000 feet, then I could, uh, essentially climb up to 38, 40,000 feet and go downwind from there. And then that's a whole different ball game. Now you're, now you're clipping on another 10,000 feet on top of what I'm allowed right now. That's, that's another, you know, at least 200 miles, at least I
was gonna say so, 200, 400 miles
So yeah, um, so that might be, that might be in the cards in the future, but
As it stands, it's a, it's
Kansas midday on a, on a, on a thermal day, right? So you can exactly, then you fly thermals till the end of the day.
Correct, so when you do that, you're gonna have to strategically plan your takeoff time, right? So you, you don't want to get there, you don't want to get to Denver at, you know, 6 p.m. because guess what? You're gonna have to park in the wave all night long and sit there until the next morning, and so
Now you're gonna run into battery.
Issues O2, and then fatigue type situation were to take off, let's say, at 8 p.m. here, and then give yourself 12 hours to get to the Rockies or the Sangra de Cristos climb up, you know? So you're doing an all-nighter, you know, from all the way to the Rockies, and then get to the, you know, let's say the the Pueblo area or something, and get there like eight or nine in the morning, take a climb up to 36,000 feet, and then glide for two or three hours, and then end up somewhere else. And then you're gonna have to take off at 8 p.m. and then get out in Kansas, or the other option would be to run down, uh, run down the Sangra de Cristos in the wave crosswind, get in the Albuquerque region, climb as high as you can, and then end up in Texas, because the thermals will be a lot better.
And then, you know, and then you're gonna end up in east of Dallas or something like that. And then if you can do that three or four hundred miles and thermals that way, then you know, you're well over 2,000 kilometers, you know, possibly 2,500 kilometer downwind flight, so
What's the what's the record, uh?
2,300 kilometers, roughly. Um, that was done by Claus Olman down in Argentina, and but he flew along the Andes, so it wasn't—obviously, it was not a downwind flight—so he flew from the southern end and it flew
That's the longest one-way flight, but he was flying wave correct?
That was all, yeah, yeah, it's all done. The wave, so, so...
Was this flight that you and Bruce did the longest downwind wave flight that's ever been done, uh?
Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. I never thought of it as long as downwind, yeah. And I think it's, you know, it's, it's by far the longest flight in the northern hemisphere, you know, a straight, straight out anyway. But yeah, it's the longest downwind flight, yeah. It's the longest downwind flight. How
Much did this beat yours by, because you've done some really long thermal
flights, so I, I, yeah, I mean I've done some downwind flights in the wave and in my old Duo Disc, in the Duo Discus glider, and then before that I did some in my, in a 1971 Kestrel 17. I ended up in Steamboat, Colorado. That was a single-place glider, but that was before we had Skysight, and so everything was kind of just, you know, visual cues. I mean, that's a whole nother—that was a gnarly flight with, uh, holy crap, um, but that ended up once I got to the Wasatch, a wave shut down and end up, and I end up thermaling the rest of the way from basically the Wasatch all the way to, uh, all the way to Steamboat with, with that glider, any
Any downside is, is I mean, as a purist and someone who's chased this your entire life, is is is Skysight kind of like having Google goggles. I I new pilots come to me all the time, "Google made goggles that you could see the thermals," and I go, "No, that'd be awful. It would end the magic of this old right." You, I agree.
You know, nothing's 100 with these weather models, right? There are times where you look at something, you go, "Okay, well, it's actually a little stronger over here," so you just don't, you don't know. And, and, uh, um, you know, we're kind of testing the—the, in a way, testing the accuracy of Skysight. I mean, it's, you know, it's, it's never 100, right?
sure but
On this day, it was, I would say, I'm not
Sure, if it's 100 percent, but I'm not sure if it's
Very accurate, and and it's funny because if I, if I start, you know, after this flight, I, I started really thinking deep about my past flights where I didn't have Sky. Say, we're old school, right? We're just, we're looking out and going, "Okay, that peak right there should generate wave," you know? Let's say there's no, there are no visual cues like, uh, rotor clouds or lenticulars, which I've had a ton of times. I just, I haven't had any cues at all of, of waves. So I'm visually looking at a mountain going, "Okay, well, it's, I think there should be some there," and I'll cross over a, a nice solid range. I go and, and there's nothing. Like, what the hell's going on? There's, why is there no wave here? You know, it's, it's perpendicular to the wind, you know?
And it's, what's, and so you keep, you keep on going. But then you kind of think, well, I wonder if it was, you know, now I'm, now looking back and having Having dealt with Skysight, it could have been three or four miles to the left or right of me. I don't know. And the number of times I parked in, you know, a half meter wave climbing. half a meter, you know? Now I'm going, God, I wonder if it was like going up like five meters per second, a few miles away. You don't know that. Sky Saint aids you in that, you know? And going, okay, so
It's really sped you up. I mean, yeah, it's really helping. Yeah, and then
Especially at night, um, you know, it's, it's, it's a huge help because if you have no visual cues, you know, you're kind of doing on the night vision goggles, which you're doing, you know, uh, back in the day. And you know, when you didn't have Skysight, you're just looking out and you're, you're trying to hit those peaks. Now, what, what Skysight does, it's good is you, you learn from these models. I'm looking at the stuff almost every day and you kind of remember like, that peak is always working, that seems to always work, you know, like the toy over near Hadley, that seems to always work. Wheeler Peak, southeast of Ely, I've, I've gone downwind in the duodiscus. We ended up in Gunnison, Colorado, on that flight and I used the same two points.
Um, this was 10 years ago or more and I used the same lift points that Skysight showed me on this last flight, just west of Wayne's Wonder, Brian Head Ski Area, that whole boom, it was going off just like, so you know, once you start marking those points or remembering, remembering those You can almost kind of count that they're going to work with that kind of a flow, you know, that kind of a direction of a flow, and uh, it's pretty neat. And I, I think we can tap into this thing and go further and things like that, and I've got other things in mind, some three turn point 3100 kilometer flights. I know you do, man, just
Like I said, my bag's packed right here. Uh, so the, what is it, when you, you know, you, it's, you said for three days, basically, you know, the three days leading up to this, you got hardly any sleep. It was exhausting. Yeah, I read your, you know, and your, your flight report, just you guys were worn out, you know, and, and I experienced a fraction of that. I mean, it's, it's, it's a lot. There's a lot going on. I wasn't even flying anything, I was just sitting there, and it was tiring. Um, when you, you know, a week afterwards, when you think back on these just monster objectives that are so bitching, it, what is it that really stands out? Is it the chatting with Bruce and the cockpit? Is it the challenge? Is it the visual? I mean, your pictures
of the lenticulars and the ice and the cockpit. I mean, you're, you've just, you've, you've been dazzling us on Instagram ever since I discovered you a while back. And you know, you, you, you flew over the swell this time, and you flew over the Rockies. I mean, you're covering some incredible terrain. Well, but what is it that sits with you? You know, what do you tell Melissa when you guys are having one of your epic dinners? Jalapeno poppers, I'm
I'm still, I mean, still to say I've been doing this for quite a while now, but I, I still am just blown away. How, whether it's a paraglider or a sailplane, how we can harness this energy and take advantage of it and go as far as we can. I mean, it's, it's, it's mind-boggling, you know? It's just like, I just pinched myself and this is just freaking insane. It's, it's nuts. And you know, you know, we talk about technological advances and things like that, and, and definitely we're using those to our advantage, you know? I think it's kind of across the board, and it's, it's hasn't taken any, any other reward out of it, but it's just, it's just mind-boggling. The scenery and, and just the, the emotional ups and downs you go through, you know?
The, the holy, you know, that, that little devil is going, yeah, I don't want, I don't, I want everything to fall apart so I can just not worry about this. I just want to be a lazy human and go to bed and not stress. But the reward, I mean, that makes, that, that makes it that much rewarding when you go through that suffering, you know? Those ups and downs, those low points, and the ups and downs, and the ups and downs, and the flight like, oh, you know, holy crap, you know this, you know, because there's nothing ever runs perfectly smoothly, you know? And you're, you're taking this, this machine and harnessing the energy and flying as far as you can with it, and he's crazy, uh, in, in this just really extreme, harsh environment, you know? When you're doing it, I'll call it relatively safe, you know?
And it's relatively, in relative safety, but, and, and then when you get to the point where you're like, oh, get to destination, and then to, to hit a goal like Garden City, I've actually made that goal. I mean, it's like, you know, I was like, wow. And then when you touch down, you go, I can't believe this. This thing's in like, here we are, unfazed, unharmed, no frostbite, the, the gliders in one piece, we feel good. It's just, it's, it's a really cool feeling, you know? And, um, I think anyone that does cross country stuff realizes or knows what I'm talking about there. One of the things that was interesting, I—yeah, before I forget—was, you know, we talked about Gary Hitner hauling that trailer out the day before, and we talked about yesterday on the phone, but I think one of the kind of the one of the most fascinating things about this flight is that, you know, he ends up, we end up landing, and within five minutes of me getting out of the cockpit, I called him on the phone.
And keep in mind, he drove from Minden, right? I called him on the phone, I said, "You know, how far are you?" because I'm five minutes out with the trailer. Like, what the hell?
all the way stupid, all the way to incredible
Dodge City, you know? So, um, that was pretty cool, but
Folks, listening, if you're in Europe or something, pull up a map. You got? They flew from California to Kansas. Yeah, this is incredible. It's funny when I did
This podcast, or I did a an interview yesterday with a couple German guys and, uh, you know, I said, you know, for the, for the Europeans, and you know, if you put it in perspective, that's like, you know, I used Frankfurt as kind of a start point, that's kind of our Minden. I said, that's like flying from Frankfurt to Athens, or Frankfurt to Istanbul, Frankfurt to Portugal, or almost Frankfurt to almost Moscow, you know? So that kind of, you know, Melissa actually thought about, she goes, "Why don't you put a ring or give the Europeans some perspective?" Because this freaking country is so bloody huge, you know, it just goes on forever. It's a long way. It's kind of neat to hit, you know, hit it halfway across the country. That's, it's just a, it's been a dream for so long and it's, it's pretty cool, you know, that
Is really cool, Gordon, man. Just unbelievable, so epic. Uh, what an adventure! I was watching the whole thing going, "You gotta be... you just gotta be kidding me. You gotta be kidding me. That's what they're doing is impossible." But it's not. You're doing it. And uh, it's... it's uh, it's truly incredible, amazing. And uh, I can't wait to fly with you again. Oh, thanks for sharing. I mean, I'd love your energy, man. I
Love your energy, I love it. In the cockpit, it's just, you know, Melissa keeps going. If we got, you gotta get Gavin back down here. You two are like, like brothers in the car. You guys just get along. You guys have the same energy. You're just hooting and hollering, just rift tearing through the sky. What do we have? A 200 or something that grounds me that day? Oh my god.
Yeah, 240, remember, because the guy from Europe said, "Hey, you guys almost hit 310 hours or something." Yeah, no, and you said, "Oh, you want to see something?" Yeah, that
was cool, yeah. That, yeah, one gets that was
Cool, did you do some loops at the end of this one?
No, I didn't want to screw up the data logger. Ah, there you go. Yeah, right, getting on the ground, but that's why
You don't want me on those flights because I would be... Come on, man, that's right.
Yeah, that was kind of unexpected with you. I don't—did I even tell you I was doing that? Probably not.
Well, no, that was awesome. No, no, apologies necessary. I loved it. You could hear it in that video. It's right, yeah, that's awesome. Uh, Gordon, thanks, man. I really have been dying to talk to you about this one, and congratulations to you and Bruce and your incredible crew. Thank you, sir, and your wife, uh, and big hugs to Melissa. I can't wait to see you guys.
Hey, thanks, thanks again for taking your time and and sharing this with the you you awesome paraglider guys. You guys are awesome, love it. So someday I'll get up, I'll have to do a tandem with you or something, yeah.
man, absolutely for sure, collapse that thing with my
weight, so anyway, all right, my friend, buddy, nice time if you
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