Many pilots wonder what it really takes to
set a world record. Some wonder what it's like to fly at a place like Zapata or
other world class sites. Cloudsuck answers these and other questions while
telling the story of how I set the current Distance World Record for Rigid
Wings. Over this winter, I am pleased to make the book available as a gift to my
readers in serialized form. Each Monday, another chapter will be available for
you to enjoy here on the Oz Report. The best read is the one in it's entirety,
and both the soft cover book and an ebook are available to purchase here:
http://ozreport.com/cloudsuck.php. You can find the Kindle version on
Amazon.

If you enjoy the serialized installments, you may wish to skip the text below
and jump directly to this week's chapter, including any graphics or pictures
here: http://ozreport.com/docs/Cloudsuck13.pdf

I hope you enjoy the book and this week's chapter as much as I enjoyed writing
it.

With Tiki resting, Belinda and I went
out to the airstrip the next day for another attempt. Upon driving out to the
runway we found that the towrope had accidentally been cut. Launched was delayed
while I spliced the rope. Belinda finally towed me up around 11 o'clock — again
a little late.

The cumulus clouds had started forming at nine, so we were
indeed late and not taking advantage of the day. The winds were light and there
was more east in them than would be optimal. It sure would be great here in
Zapata, I thought, if only the wind would just come a bit more from the south.

I got away from the airstrip finally, but it was slow
going. I could only average about 35 miles per hour for the first three hours; I
didn't feel I was going to set a record at that pace, considering how late I had
started.

Gary was still emailing his early-morning forecasts from
Wichita. That morning he had forecast overdevelopment in the Zapata area, and
sure enough it was just behind me. I could see the cu nimbs forming and rain
coming out from beneath them. I was racing as fast as I could to get away from
the clouds. At a hundred miles out I chose the wrong course line and missed the
next thermal. That put me on the ground at 106 miles from Zapata.

As we drove back the sky was full of cumulo-nimbus clouds,
and it started to rain on us. Listening to the report on the weather radio, we
heard that the next day should be better, but with a chance of early
overdevelopment.

I continued to be quite discouraged. My flight this day had
actually been a lot of fun, but I had only gotten 106 miles — nowhere near the
record. Worse, I couldn't see in the forecast the kind of conditions that I felt
were necessary for setting a record. The conditions that Gary had seen during
the last two weeks of June didn't seem to be present anymore. I was having
serious doubts about whether I would have a chance this year.

It was now early August and six weeks past the summer
solstice. Sunset was earlier. The high-pressure system was not setting itself up
in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico like Gary had predicted. It seemed like the
record season was over. And after all, Dave Sharp had already won Larry Tudor’s
crown.

Tiki and Dale had gone back to Hobbs. Belinda and I would
be leaving Zapata in a few days to go to the last national hang gliding
competition of the year, the Lone Star Championship, conveniently located eight
hours north in Hearne. I had only a few days within which to set the record.

On Wednesday the ninth, Gary’s 8 AM e-mail forecast was
better than I had expected. He wrote:

10 am:

Should be cumulus at about 2,000 feet AGL. Light but
workable lift, better than yesterday at this time. Last night it looked like
today could be at 2500 feet to 3,000 feet by 10 am but more moisture than
predicted came in overnight.

You might wish to re-examine your leaving height and weigh
the trade-offs between abundant clouds with possible organization or some
streeting and the safety net. This will give you more time on course (of
course). If I had the choice of adequate clouds at 2000 feet or blue at 3000
feet I'd take the clouds every time. Today, more than the other days, it will
benefit you to get off earlier. I'm seeing a better airmass definition as you
move toward Laredo...as you enter it, you'll just be swept up into a superb
flight path along the ideal route. At 10 am in Laredo the cloudbase should be
500 feet higher than your launch, the lift will be stronger and better
organized, and the winds will be stronger and from a better direction. Expect
winds at cloudbase to run about 5 mph stronger (20 mph plus) and from about
155-165 degrees. Get up there as soon as you can.

For your launch, winds at the surface about 135 degrees at
12 mph. Winds at cloudbase about 150 degrees at 15-18 mph.

Gary was forecasting winds that should be plenty strong
enough for a good effort, and with a bit more southerly component than I'd been
seeing. I hadn't seen many cloud streets develop over the last few weeks, and it
sure would be nice to see them this morning. Cloud streets, long straight lines
of cumulus clouds aligned with the wind, would indicate that the lift was
organized. It would be quite a bit easier to stay high under them then under
scattered cumulus clouds.

Gary was obviously very excited about the day and was doing
everything he could to encourage me. I really appreciated that, but wondered if
he wasn't overstating things. The center of the high pressure was still way too
far to the north, centered over Mobile, Alabama. I wanted it down right in the
middle of the Gulf of Mexico.

I checked out the windcast on Intellicast and it showed
more east in the wind than I wanted. But the windcast is a forecast of the
surface winds, and Gary was saying that as I got higher the winds should clock
around twenty to thirty degrees more to the south — that I should not be put off
by the windcast showing winds at 135 degrees from the southeast.

As on our earlier flights, I wanted to fly north-northwest
near Highway 83 starting where it splits off from Interstate 35 ten miles north
of Laredo. The windcast showed the winds becoming more southerly the further
north I went. I was hoping that the winds and Highway 83 would line up so I
could travel fast downwind near the highway, instead of having to head out
cross-country into areas with few roads and no easy retrieval if I went down
early.

At eight o'clock as I was reading Gary’s e-mail, cumulus
clouds were starting to fill the sky. Soon the ground became almost completely
dark as the low-level clouds filled in, their bases only about 1,500 feet above
the ground. The clouds were thicker than any we'd seen so far in Zapata. As we
drove on the gravel road northwest to the airstrip we could see the cloud
shadows moving almost as fast as the truck at forty miles per hour. Still, on
the ground the wind conditions were mild. It was spooky to be under this low,
fast moving dark mass of early morning clouds, while on the ground the winds
were light.

Belinda and I were at the airport by nine, all by
ourselves. I had set my glider up the previous evening, so it was ready to go as
soon as we got to the hanger. Gary and Dave had made a little cart that
consisted of a couple of six-inch wheels, an axle, a two-by-six plank, and some
hooks to tie down the base tube of the glider. I put my glider on this cart and
we used the truck to haul it the two thousand feet down to the north end of the
runway. With Belinda driving slowly, I rode my bicycle and held the wingtip to
steady the glider from side to side.

This thrown-together half-solution of a cart was always a
cause for concern. If a strong gust should come from behind up the runway, it
would be easy for the glider to be pushed over and smashed into the truck.
Balanced out on the wingtip as I was, I couldn't possibly have stopped this.
When the other pilots had been there to help, someone else had held the wing tip
while I rode my bicycle and held the keel to make sure the wind didn’t raise it
up. Once the truck got moving as fast as the wind, then there was no problem.

As I worried about the wind pushing up the tail of the
glider, something else happened. The rope that held the nose of the glider to
the truck came undone and the glider fell back onto its keel with a loud bang. I
came flying off the bicycle, but landed on the runway without too much loss of
skin. Thankfully, there was only cosmetic damage to the glider.

When we finally got the glider down to the north end of the
runway, I noticed another problem. One of my spoileron control wires was kinked
and had a broken strand. The kink was enough to reduce the load that wire could
carry by about half, and the broken strand reduced that capacity even further.
Earlier, during the spring competition season, I had replaced the stock wires
with thinner ones to reduce my drag. So now I had a kinked and damaged wire that
could handle only a reduced load to begin with. If it broke in the air, that
would make turning the glider or even flying straight nearly impossible.
Weighing the safety issue against the costly delay of changing the wires, I
finally decided the loads on the spoilerons should be small enough that I would
take a chance.

A few minutes before ten I was ready to go. This would be
my earliest start so far — if I could stay up. Belinda had driven the truck down
to the center of the runway. I attached the tow rope to the bridle, which was
tied to my harness at the waist and overhead to the carabineer that connected me
to the glider. I radioed to Belinda the signal to start the tow: “Go, Go, Go!”

“Stop! Stop! Stop!” Just as I had started up, I found my
bridle lines were tangled, and radioed to Belinda to stop the truck. Yet another
delay as I straightened out the lines and got ready to go again. This time all
systems were go. It was 10:15.

The winds were a little over ten miles per hour on the
ground, just as Gary had predicted, and they were blowing straight up the
runway. As Belinda drove down the runway at about twenty miles per hour, it was
very easy to run and get into the air and then climb up behind her. What a
testament it was to this launch site, I thought, that even early in the morning
we could pretty consistently get up after releasing at less than a thousand
feet.

The thick clouds had thinned out by now, but there were a
few small cu's over the runway and they showed me a light thermal right at the
center of the runway. I pinned off at thirteen hundred feet, dropping the rope
conveniently right on the runway, and started climbing at about two hundred feet
per minute.

As I circled up the clouds were forming streets again, as
they had earlier in the morning. I knew that I needed to stay under the street I
was climbing under, at least until I could get far enough away from the airport
to have a safe landing area with an easy retrieval. Cloudbase was only 2,200
feet. The street was heading right toward Laredo.

Continue reading here:
http://ozreport.com/docs/Cloudsuck13.pdf