Arty's Ultimate Ultralight Adventure

Thursday evening, May 7, 2009

I’m sitting in my tent at Santa Rosa Airport, feeling completely relaxed and happy after a filling meal and a wonderful shower at a close-enough-to-walk-to Travel America Truck Stop. I’ll try and recap the experience of this afternoon.

Randy and I landed on a red dirt ag strip on a large cattle ranch. Nothing much in the near vicinity except dried grass, sharp-spined mesquite and prickly pear cactus. We could see the farmer’s house in one direction and the barns half a mile away in another direction.

After posting my blog, I got out my tarp and seat pillow and lay down to try and nap. Struggling to stay straight and level in the Drifter really tires me out! I listened to the wind howl, and began counting the periods of relative calm and how long they lasted, then the periods of gusts and their duration. Twenty seconds of calm, now thirty seconds…was the wind going to die down enough for me to gather my courage and take off?

I was fairly comfortable on the tarp, even though after a while I could feel the knobs in my spine and the rivets on the back pockets of my jeans. But I didn’t want to drag out my sleeping bag since I kept hoping that “in just a little while” the wind would die down enough that we could take off. There was surprisingly little dust – actually none that I was aware of. Strange, since we were on a dry cracked red dirt strip. I dozed and listened to the wind and Randy polishing some of his ti-downs. He’s discovered that most people like the “bling” of the sparkly polished ti-downs, even though it doesn’t affect use, of course. It was hot – Randy’s thermometer read 101° in the shade. But the wind made it very bearable.

I’d landed at a little before 1:00 p.m., and by 5:30 p.m. either I was deluding myself or the wind really had let up – a little. Randy had been astoundingly patient – never pushed me or even asked if I was ready to try flying out. Just sat and relaxed and did his thing while waiting for me to give the word.

By 5:30 I gave that word, and we taxied slowly back down to the other end of the runway. I held onto the brake as I applied throttle – it was a pretty rough runway and I wanted to leap off the ground. I also didn’t want to swerve off the narrow strip into the mesquite or prickly pear! With the amount of headwind we had, it was an easier take-off than I’d expected. I wanted to get high and into smooth air. Full throttle; I glanced down at my Anywhere Map and saw that I was climbing out at 23 mph!

I climbed to 8500’ – ground elevation was about 4500’. The air was smooth, smooth, smooth! Why hadn’t I been willing to try this sooner? Virtually no thermals, just strong, strong headwind. I did get bounced up to 9700’ – and enjoyed it there until I remembered that heading west you’re supposed to be at even thousands plus 500 feet. Reluctantly I came back down to 8500’. I applied almost full throttle the entire flight – and it still took me an hour to fly the 34 miles to Santa Rosa!

Tomorrow we’ve agreed to get out early – and I know we will!