MIKE'S LATEST LONG ONE

The drama last Saturday revolved around my main pin. It lives in the plane: either in the spar or on the back deck; or in my hand moving between the two. I can’t recall a time when it was ever anywhere else. Yet when I tried to build my plane early Saturday morning it was nowhere to be found. In addition to several wild conspiracy theories, it occurred to me that I had refilled the oxygen during the week and that the pin is a bit in the way. Although I don’t remember doing so, perhaps I had moved it to the oxygen supply cart?
I called my daughter who was by then driving out with a friend to crew for me. She drove back to the house and miraculously found it setting on my tool box in the garage. I have no idea how it got there. She made tracks getting it out to desert, and I was in the air by 10:43; albeit without ballast, having decided the added flight time was worth more miles than the added speed.
But it turns out the lift in the mountains behind Crystal were less than spectacular. I spent an hour wandering between Lewis and Baden Powell without ever getting above 10,000’ before deciding to head on my way anyway.
Out on course, things went much smoother with strong lift starting at Rosamond and clouds above 15,000’ starting just beyond the rock pile north of Kelso. I made no turns for 130 miles, from abeam Waucoba Peak to near Gabbs; part of which time, from White Mountain to Boundary Peak, I was pushing my rough air limit to stay below 18,000’.
Though Katie was out in front most of the way, I still had about an hour to ridge soar the Toiyabe Range before she arrived at Austin. We got a foot in the door at the International Café just before closing time. On the way home we visited the ghost towns Goldfield and Rhyolite, which have turned into artist communities, and, leaving the trailer behind temporarily, dropped through Titus Canyon into Death Valley.

Mike Koerner