"The rising wave of air on the downwind side of the ... range"? I have flown powered aircraft many times North and South along the Sierra Nevadas and have encountered some very powerful standing waves - but not a rising wave on the downwind side.
I'm inexperienced in gliders. I have great respect for the accuracy of Avweb, where I first read this quote. It would be great if a gliding expert could make sense of this. Boyd Munro ----- Original Message ----- From: "Leigh Bunting" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Soaring List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, April 22, 2005 12:13 PM Subject: [Aus-soaring] From Avweb SAILPLANE POSTS NORTH AMERICAN DISTANCE RECORD A California glider pilot has been quietly working away at breaking the North American distance record, with a flight of 1,212 miles in 13 hours and 17 minutes on April 3, breaking his own unofficial record of 1,130 miles set eight days earlier. Gordon Boettger flew a 33-year-old Kestrel 17 sailplane along the rising wave of air on the downwind side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range during a lee-wave storm. He reached heights of 27,000 feet, and the canopy of the plane was sometimes covered in ice. Boettger, 37, soloed in a glider at age 14, flew off aircraft carriers during eight years in the Navy and now flies MD-11s for Federal Express. -- Leigh Bunting Colonel Light Gardens South Australia <Open Windows and let the bugs in> _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
