KOERNER'S LATEST

Mike Koerner has been making very long cross-country soaring flights for decades, including a 900-miler some thirty years ago, into Texas. Mike's also a very good writer. Here he tells of his most recent flight, one of the rare few ending short of diamond distance. No number of miles can measure the savvy and tenacity with which he always outflies the field. Enjoy!

Friday, July 17, was a really good day. My flight, not so much. I launched into clear skies at 9:15 (thanks Crystal). I released on the second ridge in lift, but it was ragged and gusty. Moving south toward Mt. Lewis, I encountered heart-stopping turbulence. Working the gusts I was eventually able to climb into smooth wave. The lift topped out at 14,000 feet and I headed on my way. It was 10:30.A 29 knot tail wind made for a long glide; but that's all it was - a glide. No more wave and no thermals. The glide brought me to the base of the mountains west of Baker without enough altitude to get over them. I used ridge lift on the south facing slopes to make my way around the mountains instead, stepping from West Cronise Dry Lake as an alternate to Baker Airport. But rather than jumping off a cliff as soon as I had Baker made, I stayed in the mountains using the ridge lift to look for thermals.Eventually I got one up to 7000 feet and headed across Baker and into the hills to the northeast. I was climbing in good lift over the radar station, looking forward to the line of cu just beyond Cima Dry Lake, when all of the sudden my vario went quiet.Now, I know Dale favors a pure form of soaring, using the seat of your pants rather than electronics to figure out when you're going up. And I appreciate that. I grew up back when there were hippies too. And complements of a wasp who nested in my static line some years ago, I have (unfortunately) had the opportunity to soar without any instrumentation at all (or at least none that I could decipher). And I was able to stay up. for a while, in the middle of the afternoon, over an airport.But that's not what I was doing on Friday. I was flying cross-country. Every time I declare a new alternate I'm betting my plane I can make the glide. Even with margin on the plane's performance, I need to react quickly and appropriately to sink and lift. Without the audio vario, that means keeping my head down and my eyes on the needle while cruising.  Similarly when thermalling, and especially in these very gusty conditions, I needed to watch the vario continuously to stay in the lift. And even at that, I wasn't doing very well. Despite strong lift under the cu mythermalling (never particularly crisp anyway) was downright sloppy. I would lose a thermal, go back to look for it, then head on my way to the next cu. I never made it cloud base. Also, by watching the vario instead of the sky, I failed to notice that some of the cus I was headed for were dead or dying. Concentration on the vario compromised my traffic scan too, which is particularly unfortunate in the Las Vegas area. I was transponding the glider code (1202) but only seeing airlines tail-on, after they had past. The coup de grace came in the airspace north of Vegas which is controlled by Nellis Air Force base. Usually (on Saturdays anyway) there is hardly any traffic. They've always let me in right away with some comment about maintaining my own navigation and then the typical glider questions: Do you have an engine? Where did you take off from? Etc. But this time the controller was talking fast and furious. It was several minutes before I cut in with my request for clearance into class bravo. He asked my destination and he asked me to ident, but didn't offer clearance. Instead he went back to talking a mile a minute to a whole slew of other aircraft.I waited patiently, over flying the perimeter of his airspace but still above its vertical limit. That couldn't last. I was gliding down toward it. With only a few hundred feet left I cut in again, "I need a clearance to enter class bravo now," I said.I was just about to declare an emergency as there was no way for me to avoid an incursion at that point, when he said something about there being a large military exercise underway with many aircraft in my area. The controller cleared me into class bravo and directed me to maintain a heading of 030. I think that's probably the direct route to the end destination I had given. That won't work. I have to head for lift, or an alternate landing site within glide, not my end destination. At that time I was heading for the cu at about 350 degrees magnetic."I am unable to maintain a heading or altitude," I said. I probably should have thrown in airspeed too, just for good measure. There was no response anyway. He went back to spewing commands to a seeming multitude of disciples.The next time I glanced out the canopy I saw a fighter moving very fast from right to left in front of me. It was too far off and too fast for me to identify. However, I could see it was deeply banked to the left (I was looking at the top deck) though with no readily apparent turn rate. I also noticed that the cloud I was heading for had disappeared.I decided to throw in the towel. "Nellis approach, glider four zero zero Charlie Foxtrot is abandoning the mission and returning to North Las Vegas for landing."The controller instantly responded, "Make your turn to the left, please." And then continued, "Contact North Las Vegas Tower on 129.7". At that he went back to his minions.Was there really an aircraft so close on my right that turning that direction would have risked collision? Or did the controller expect my turn radius to be similar to that of the fighter that had passed in front of me at high speed?  I don't know. But I'm not going to fly again until my audio is fixed.Mike Koerner

Thanks Mike. Keep it UP!