Gold Distance and Diamond Goal by Bob Wander Tuesday, May 2, 2000, was a very nice day for me. Up at 5:30 AM and outside to assess the weather. Looked and field good, and so I started rounding up the kit needed to fly XC this fine day. With all gear loaded up in the trusty Toyota van, it was off to the Faribault Airport arriving at 9:15 AM Several hours were consumed preparing for flight, including rigging the Salto and making and installing the turnpoint camera mount. Paul Ratzlaff served as OO and as crew and he was a great help in making the final preparations. JC Cunningham was nice enough to print and give to me a Kevin Ford thermal index plot, and we agreed that things looked good, although it would likely be blue most of the day, if not all day long. By 11:30 AM, without cumulus and without much of a trace of thermal breezes, I was beginning to wonder if I had overestimated the weather for the day. But, I had a crew and I had a glider and a towplane ready to go, so launch into an uncertain sky occurred at 12:55 PM. Release from tow at 2600' AGL and then open the airbrakes, notch the barogram, close the airbrakes and back to the thermal we had mashed through on tow. Trouble was, it was gone. I floundered around looking for lift for another 1300' of altitude loss, and finally connected with the house thermal over the FBL golf course. One hell of a notch on the barogram, that was for sure. On up to 6000 MSL we went. Off to the races. The first leg was from FBL to St. James airport, and it was burdened with worry. It took quite a while to make Mankato, stumbling along in blue skies with little clue as to where to look for lift. I got low and had selected an off-field landing area when a thermal appeared out of, as was going to be typical for this day, nowhere. Watching farmers working their dry fields gave some signs of lift as the dust trails they created either went up (hooray!) or down (ick). Climbing near Mankato airport I was racing to get to a very tall smoke cloud that was arising from a burning farm field well west of Mankato. Some farmer was sure burning something there, and I could see the smoke column extending well up above 7000' MSL. My current thermal was an annoying piece of junk, so I departed for the smoke. It was uncomfortable to leave the Mankato airport behind and set out from fairly low altitude to some perceived bit of heaven that, if it failed me, would leave me out of reach of any airport, and would force me to select a farm field and go plowing with my pretty little Salto. But, speculations like these are what cross country soaring is all about, so off I went in search of a better life. Got to the smoke column at about 2600' AGL and climbed wonderfully in the smoke, topping out at 7400' AGL and newly confident that I would at least manage to make the first turnpoint. Time to head out down Highway 60 (I had chosen this route in part because navigation down this highway would make the first leg easy to navigate, with Highway 60 pointing the way down the rest of the way to St. James). Lake Crystal and later Madelia fell behind as I did my best to find a rhythm to the thermals and avoid landing out. This leg took some stern stuff, as the continuing blue skies give no hint of cu or haze domes. At this point in the flight, I assessed my chances of finishing the course as no better than 50%. Any thermal guessing had to be done by watching smoke columns here and there and by watching the dust plumes from farmers working their fields. Fortunately, this tactic worked well enough to get me to St. James two hours and fifteen minutes after release from tow, at 3:15 PM. Certainly my speed was nothing to be proud of, but on the other hand I took some comfort that I had not yet fallen out of the sky. So far so good, but clearly my speed would have to improve significantly in the second leg. Snapping the St. James turnpoint photo was easy as I had hooked a reasonable thermal at 2800' AGL near the airport, climbing to about 5000' AGL. I set out to the southeast for Lake Mills Iowa at 3:15 in the blue afternoon. It was getting pretty evident that there were going to be no CUs today. That is a disadvantage in a way, but on the other hand you just fly straight down your courseline looking for lift - no reason to divert unless you see strong evidence of a thermal at your altitude, and these cues were absent this day. So, I cruised on at around 70 knots, with the lovely Salto proving that it could run decently as well as climb adequately, and sure enough the southeast wind that I was expecting to develop in the afternoon was getting stronger, and there were invisible streets along the way. Dolphin flying part of the time, and stopping to thermal whenever I got below 4000' AGL was the plan. It worked. I wasn't very fast on this leg but was quite a bit quicker than the first leg, and I began to realize that the constant expectation of off-field landing was gradually being replaced by the amazing realization that I had a better-than-even chance of making it all the way around it I didn't screw things up. Halfway down this leg things began to come unstuck, and so I had to scramble in some junky turbulent scruff to struggle back into the optimum altitude band. Blue Earth airport was abeam my position on my courseline, and I thought there was a pretty fair chance that I might have to glide over there in the event I couldn't climb. But as things turned out, my wannabe thermal began to gain a little strength and I was able to get back in the saddle and head out again for Lake Mills. Crossing I90 was a pleasure, as was penetrating into Iowa. Well ahead I could see the lake that gives my second turnpoint its name, and as I got close I could see the little grass strip just north of the lake that I needed to jam into my turnpoint camera. I went into this turnpoint kind of low, to minimize drifting backwards during thermal circling. Snapped the turnpoint pix at 4:45 and then found a considerate thermal within one mile of the airport. It wasn't a particularly good thermal, and racers likely would have passed it up in favor of a better thermal down the final leg, but I was very much remembering a previous Diamond goal attempt I had made in the 1980's where I missed the diamond by four kilometers, and I had no intention of repeating that feat. So, I climbed slowly but confidently, letting the southeast flow drift me northward toward my final goal - Faribault airport, 56 miles to the north northeast. Leaving this thermal, I had the pleasure of seeing Albert Lea Airport from my vantage point of 6000' AGL. I recalled many pleasant times there, doing badge camps and racing and partying to all hours with the inexhaustible Jim Hanson who holds sway there. I felt really good. I set out at a leisurely 55 knots gliding straight toward FBL. Groundspeed was indicating that I had in fact a 15 knot tailwind, and I probably would have made it on final glide, but it would have been close. Also, I had often encountered miles of 800 fpm down air, and I was reluctant to get low anymore as the day was getting late and I had few indicators that there was still good lift down below. So, north of I90 I stopped to retank in the worst thermal of the last four hours, but satisfied with my decision that this would in fact absolutely guarantee final glide to FBL and a lovely diamond to stick in my lapel pin. Final glide went well, although working my whizwheel final glide calculator I could see that punishing sink was not keeping me tremendously fat on the glidepath. But, after a time, 12 miles out on final glide it was obviously a sure thing, and so I put the prayer wheel away, took some drinks of water, called FBL Unicom to announce my intentions, and then put the stick forward to go whizzing along at 100 knots and enjoy the high speed ride the rest of the way to FBL. A nice high speed pass over a trafficless airport at 1100 feet, then a mild wingover and down to the business of landing the Salto. More water, traffic and radio check, and into the downwind leg we went, landing at FBL at exactly 6 PM. Time from tow release to landing was five hours to the minute. I received a warm welcome from JC Cunningham (NOBODY makes Diamond Goal on the first attempt!) and an even warmer welcome from Paul Ratzlaff, who was delighted to see Salto and me return not only because I had earned a glorious victory but, more to the point, I had returned to FBL and saved him the rigor of a late night retrieve after landing out in some god-forsaken field in Iowa. Ratso also reminded me that we needed postflight pictures of the glider in situ at FBL, and he took them for me. He even raced off the WalMart to get the film developed, and had the pix back in under an hour. The turnpoint pix were good and as OO he also checked out my 27-year-old Replogle barograph. Everything looked fine, and so I felt pretty smug there for a while. Diamond Goal at last was in the bag. And, it was extra fun to contemplate that this was my first XC flight of 2000, and also the first XC flight in my Salto. I absolutely love that glider; it was my first choice to buy over all other types known to me, and I was very proud of my bird's reliability and performance. She did me real proud, and she was a genuine pleasure to handle and to fly all day long. An elegant, small glider with GlasFlugel bloodlines, she's light, responsive, very strong, very safe, and quite reasonably fast - I couldn't possibly ask for more in a glider! V-tails forever! This flight, worrisome at first and then increasingly confident (for the most part) as the day progressed, was one of the most fun flights that I have ever had (and I have 7,000 prior flights from which to choose!). It was a gas, and it offered a wonderful solitude, as no one ever answered any of my calls on glider frequency (I was trying to raise Ratzlaff, my crew guy, to advise him of my intentions but he never heard my calls). I really enjoyed the feeling of relief from daily cares and the wonderful concentration it takes to make a long cross country flight. Completely engaging, and often exhilarating at the same time. Very good for the soul. Thermals were rather turbulent and tough to center all day long. I don't remember ever making the exact same circle twice in any thermal. And, as cu were non-existent, I adopted a technique that I had learned from Ron McLaughlin several days before. Ron had learned a trick or two from our mutual friend Rex Mayes of California, and he passed them on to me. The trick that was most useful was the "tough to find the core" trick. If I encountered a worthy bump, waited until the vario seemed to have peaked, and initiated a turn to center the thermal, more often than not there was absolutely nothing there after 90 degrees of heading change - no thermal at all. So, rather than flounder around looking for a core, I simply turned right back onto my course and headed out, to minimize time wasted trying to center a core that probably wasn't worth the trouble, or wasn't even there at all. This little tactic saved me, I am confident, at least fifteen minutes of time on course and gave me a little discipline to glide on to (I dearly hoped) better stuff. Several days after this personal milestone flight, I boarded a Northwest Airlines DC9 to go to Dallas to do a safety seminar there. I got lucky on three counts. First, the airplane was to depart on time. Second, I was able to finagle a first class upgrade with a window seat on the left (east) side of the southbound airplane. Third, for some reason, our route of flight out of MSP took us well to the west of the metro, and so I got to see out my east window virtually my entire cross-country course of several days before. I could see FBL airport, and Waterville, and Mankato, and as we flew over Lake Crystal I could see almost all of my second leg, from St. James to Lake Mills Iowa, and could still see the way home from Lake Mills to FBL. I was kind of stunned by just how large a course this was, and that I had set out to conquer it in a motorless aircraft. I think if I had taken this Northwest airlines flight the day before my Diamond attempt, I would have said the hell with it and just stuck around the airport. I was also, after some reflection, struck anew with a sense of wonder about how marvelous a sport this cross-country gliding thing really is. After all, in almost any other sport, if you set out to give it your best, you at the very least usually get to finish your swings. The golfer gets his eighteen holes, and the amateur baseball player gets his nine innings, and the racquetball player gets his ninety minutes in the court, and the football player gets his four quarters. They may play well or they may play badly, but at least they get the full measure of their sport. In cross country soaring, on the other hand, chances are pretty good that you won't complete at least some of the larger courses you have so long schemed and dreamed of flying. All of your plans, all of your tactics and your strategy (not to mention a noticeable chunk of your pride and self-esteem) go into the dirt with you when you fall out of the sky and scramble your landing into some out-of-the-way farm field. In almost unbelievably rapid sequence, cross country pilots go from being kings to being serfs, alighting in a cloud of dust and finding the sudden silence and loneliness not at all to their liking. Then as your reward for landing away, you get to begin the always arduous process of notifying and locating your crew, extricating yourself and your mount from the muck, and getting back at home again, often as not long after midnight, and sometimes not even before noon of the next day. That is just the way it is in this cross country soaring thing. And the marvel of it all makes me quite proud to be associated, in my own way, with all you other cross-country junkies. This is truly the greatest sport.