Arty's Ultimate Ultralight Adventure

Saturday, April 11

I couldn' download these pics yesterday, when we landed at Ft. Stockton, but I wanted to share them.
Ft. Stockton is a big fire center spot - we saw lots and lots of firefighters from numerous national forests, as well as their planes.

It was at Ft. Stockton that Randy's shopping cart tail wheel finally gave out. However, he had a spare and changed it out in a jiffy.

We left Ft. Stockton this morning with winds blowing hard ? up to 26 mph ? and coming right at us from the east, just the direction we wanted to go. It was dicey taking off, but once up in the air it was fairly steady. Of course, I was back to making only about 33 mph over the ground. Randy was soon out of sight; he said later that the terrain was so boring that he had no incentive to fool around sightseeing; he decided just to get to our next stop, which was supposed to be Ozona, TX, and wait for me there.

I plodded along ? and that?s just what it felt like ? plodding. A couple of times I was only making 19-20 mph over the ground; how wonderful that it didn?t last long before I was back up to 33 mph! After 45 minutes the steady headwind became turbulent, and I spent the next hour fighting the wind, wrestling with stick and rudders. I had enough gas to get to Ozona, but after 1.5 hours of rough flying, I was ready for a break, so I radio?d Randy and we diverted to Iraan ? pronounced Ira-An, after the founder of the town and his wife. Here we are at Iraan.

Dwayne Cash, a local accountant (isn?t that appropriate?) took us into town for gas. He looked skeptical that we would take off again, since the wind was increasing. Randy was ready to go again, but I wasn?t interested since the wind gusts seemed to be increasing. Instead, we took a long nap ? me stretched out on a flatbed trailer and Randy inside of a drift boat, both stored in an open hangar.

The wind finally slacked off to what it was when we had left Ft. Stockton, so we took off just before 3 p.m. My forward speed was even worse this next leg ? averaging about 30 mph. When we landed at Ozona, the FBO operator and her husband came out and informed us that the weather was worsening to the east ? thunderstorms. I called Flight Briefing and the briefer verified that there were thunderstorms to the east of us, as well as low ceilings. Even though it was only about 4:45 p.m. and we had covered only 124 miles, we decided to spend the night. Especially since Mary Jo ? who?s been working at the FBO for 41 years! ? said we could put our planes in a large empty hangar, along with our tents. A thoroughly filling meal at the local Sonic hamburger fast food place (thanks to a courtesy car) and now we?re bedding down, ready for tomorrow?s adventure