The flight on the HOLC.

The flight on XContest.

On Sunday with conflicting and mixed soaring forecasts, but with agreement on a
day with southwest winds, Kent Robinson, Belinda and I headed out to get towed
up at the Heritage Creek Airfield northwest of Dallas/Ft. Worth. Dave Megard
lives on the private grass strip and has a trike there in a large hangar that
also houses Greg Chastain's (and Dave's) Swift, a Millennium belonging to Kent,
and other gliders. When we arrived around noon Dave was mowing the grass near
the takeoff area.

Kent and I got ready right away. Kent's Millennium was just hanging in the
rafters all set up, but he had to do a little work on it, so he was a bit behind
me. The idea was to go as far to the northeast into Oklahoma as possible. Thin
cu's were beginning to form near the airfield and there were plenty of cu's in
cloud streets to the northeast. The wind was blowing up above at about 20 mph,
and it was also somewhat strong on the ground quite cross to the runway facing
to the southeast (150 degrees).

Kent had built a sturdy cart and I setup watching the wind sock next to me
display the strong wind to my side. I have launched plenty of times in cross
wind conditions, but I'd rather not. It is great to have a cart to hold onto in
these circumstances, and I was sure going to hold on this time especially on the
right side.

Kent wound up the trike and we ran down the runway. I came off fine, but then
got hit by the turbulence coming off the hangars to the south. at about twenty
feet. It was rough and I was banked up higher than I had ever been on tow this
low. I got it under control and got hit again. Got it back and then was up and
down behind the trike with big bows in the rope. Fortunately the tow rope didn't
break my weaklink. The tow rope was long and not Spectra, so I think it was
absorbing the shock loading. I felt that the weaklink should have broken at
least half a dozen times, and would have normally. I would not have wanted that
to happen under the circumstances.

After we got to about 500' things smoothed out and I was able to keep the trike
pretty much on the horizon. There were no cu's nearby so I just held on and
waited for us to blunder into some lift. At about 1,900' AGL (elevation there is
900') we did over a wind swept pond so I pinned off and climbed out at 101 fpm
2,800' AGL. No nearby cu's but I could see them 10 km to the northeast.

After losing the lift I went downwind at about 50 mph over the ground with an
average wind speed of 17 mph, until just before the cu's I found weak lift at
1,000' AGL (135 fpm average) and held onto it until I climbed up to 4,300' AGL.
The ground below was all green from all the heavy rains that Texas has
experienced this year. Climbs were slow but with the perfect wind I was going
well.

While I had taken off under the outer layer of the upside down wedding cake that
is the Class B airspace for Dallas/Fort Worth, I didn't climb up to it's bottom
layer height until I was well outside the airspace. I hadn't realized at the
time that I was under airspace as I thought we were further west of it, but I
didn't have an exact idea of where the airfield was when I looked at the nearby
town of Decatur on SeeYou before we headed out.

According to later reports there was quite a bit of airliner activity east of
the Heritage Creek Airfield going into the Alliance airport. I didn't notice any
air traffic.

The ground below me was wide open with a few scattered gas wells, and houses on
ten acre plots or bigger. I knew I was headed in the right direction to keep
away from airspace near Sherman and Ardmore (Oklahoma). I also knew that there
was a northeast heading road going out of Decatur (which is north of the
airfield) to Gainesville, Texas, the northern most town in Texas on interstate
35. With innumerable places to land I was just watching the clouds and trying to
stay in the cloud street.

The lift continued to be quite weak for the most part although I would hit some
bits of 400 fpm. I wasn't able to get back up above 4,000' AGL, but I could
always find lift and all I had to do was stay in it and let the wind carry me. I
crossed the Red River which is the border between Texas and Oklahoma, an hour
and forty minutes into the flight. I had just spotted a wind mill factory on the
northwest corner of Gainesville and saw lots of big blades packed out in the
storage yard.

At first I didn't realize what the approaching body of water was, then it hit me
that this orange colored river was the border, it was the Red River for an
obvious reason. I had never seen it so full of water.

It was nice to see interstate 35 so I had a good reference to my location. I
hadn't studied the map all that closely other than to know that I could head
northeast and there wasn't a problem with airspace from here on out. The houses
were now few and far between but the land was open and there were a few roads.

I could see trees ahead to the northeast near some lakes. I had seen the lakes
on the map but wasn't quite sure where I was with respect to what I had seen
earlier. It turned out I was in the perfect spot just north of the big lakes and
south of the next set of lakes. I was headed (as was the cloud street) right up
the only highway that headed off to the northeast between the lakes.

I was trying to get up high (4,000'+) to get a better view as the wind took me
toward the trees. I could see that there were open fields but I was hoping for a
better look at the fields beyond, if any.

East of Marietta, I got a call from Belinda in the truck. She had been helping
pilots at the field and was behind me. She had turned into a gas station and the
truck had died. I didn't have a way to get picked up any more.

Between 90 and 100 kilometers out I decided to head back upwind to Marietta and
land close to a house so that I could call Belinda. I had good radio contact
with her in the air but had left my phone back at Kent's in Plano, packed to go
to Europe. I headed for a nice big field on the eastern edge of own and landed.

I took my time breaking down as I knew no one was coming to get me soon. Just as
I finished packing up Gerry Raddy pulled up in his four wheeler and asked if I
would like a ride up to his house. His wife had seen me in the field and
wondered why no one had come to pick me up and if I needed help. I loaded the
glider on the little roof and away we went.

It turns out that Jerry and his wife, Lenna, run the Marietta Veterinary clinic
which was just east of where I landed and their house is just west of where I
landed so she had seen me in the field.  When I told Gerry what was up with
me, he insisted on driving me back to Gainesville to connect up with Belinda.

By the time we got there, Belinda had the tow truck driver putting the Dodge RAM
on the tow truck. He dropped it off at his place and said he would call in some
mechanics to fix it tonight (on Sunday night). Gerry said that he wasn't going
to leave us until it was all straightened out, so we took him to dinner at
Chili's.

Arriving after dinner back at the tow business, the mechanic and his side kick
were working on the truck and said that the injector pump was dead. I knew two
years ago that it was on its last legs, so it was about time. They couldn't get
a new one that night, so we said keep the truck for a month, we'll come back and
get it after going to Italy.

Gerry drove us back to his house in Oklahoma where the glider was. Kent was very
nice to come and get us after landing near our launch point. Kent said that he
couldn't get up over 1,000' AGL and just found weak lift. He tried to make it
back to the Heritage Creek Airfield, but the wind was too strong. He stayed
around the airfield (after he got his Millennium back to it) and pulled up some
other pilots.

Thanks to all for all the great help!