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As our plan moved ahead, dates were agreed upon and RTKH came along right at the same time. I was torn between the two, but in the end decided on the Marfa trip. There was a lot of preparation to be done. Burt sent out a long list of projects to ready both oneself and sailplane for both the long journey and flying in the rugged conditions offered in the area. Oxygen is mandatory as flying at just under 12,500 MSL is normal on an average day. Field elevation is 4,850 MSL. We also had a preparation meeting held in the upstairs area at Montgomery Aviation. Thanks to both Ron Clarke for lending the benefit of his wealth of experience and Don Taylor who had downloaded waypoint data and prepared some sample tasks for 300 and 500kM flights. Our meeting was just the tip of the iceberg in becoming adequately oriented to this beautiful but inhospitable geography we were about to fly in.
My preparations included some deferred maintenance on my trailer including replacing the wheel bearings, which were a minimum of 15 years old and patching up some hangar rash to keep the dust out. I believe the trailer to have been one of the more dust proof places in Marfa. Also purchased were sectional charts, a first aid kit, another Camelbak, and a few components to complete an on-board landout kit. The extra on board equipment led me to do a trial Weight and Balance from which I was happy to conclude that the ship would fly. It was not the weight but the placement that had me concerned.
I invited Gene Bouchard, a former colleague at General Electric in the mid-seventies, to accompany me as he needed to get out and away for a bit and I needed some help with the driving and hopefully, not any retrieves. Gene arrived as planned the evening before departure. I already had the trailer at home, ready to go, all we had to do was to pack the Mountaineer.
The road trip was the Bob Hope movie part. I had pre-arranged to meet Terry Wools and Bill Paris at the truck stop at I-70 and SR 39 at 6:00 AM for breakfast. The restaurant was only partially full; that seemed odd for a restaurant of that sort on a weekday morning. The reason became more obvious when we realized there was just one server, and the food was marginal at best. We were already running late and had not yet left the metro area.
I had driven about 2 or 3 hours when I asked Gene if he wanted to take over. His response was "I guess I should have told you I've never driven a car pulling a trailer, but I'm willing." The road was not crowded, and I thought as long as you don't go too fast or too slow, the Interstate is probably one of the safest places to do this for the first time. Gene fell into place perfectly and quickly became very comfortable with the open road driving. He never wanted to go through a city area, gas station, or park however; as he was concerned he might hit something. That was good enough for me, we switched off at or near those places as necessary, and he did a great job driving almost half of the total 47 hours and 2880 round trip miles. Even though our driving days were long; with time for meals, fuel stops, rest stops, and overnight stays, we were never too fatigued to be safe drivers.
I had gone to AAA for maps and Tour Books and checked MapQuest for the suggested route we followed most of the way to Marfa. The only segment I did not care for was I-44 across Missouri and the discovery that it had replaced old US 66 in that area. Actually, it looked and felt like good old 66 was the foundation for the westbound half of I-44. When the SUV and trailer were both on the pavement at the same time, I attempted to sneak a peek at the surrounding countryside.
When you spend any amount of solid time with even an old friend like Gene, you learn some things about them you never knew before. I never realized that he could not stand the late Mel Torme (a former glider pilot) or that he would spend all of the next 24 hours other than when CDs were being played, speaking, singing and trying to remember all of the words to the song "Route 66" and getting the names of all of the cities passed in the proper order. It soon became my mission to keep the CD changer freshly stocked while I was resting.
I got lost in the Tulsa area, thinking that the "Creek Expressway" vs. the "Business Route" would be best. Based on how many times we had to drop $1.05, no toll takers, no bills, no nothing to get off for; I became convinced that the Creek Nation had successfully lobbied the Federal and Oklahoma governments to let them have a portion of the Oklahoma Turnpike instead of a casino full of slot machines.
Our information indicated Oklahoma City to be very close to half way, so we chose to stop there for the night. It is a short distance from Oklahoma City to the Texas line. A sobering fact considering that other than that segment; the entire second day would be spent on Texas highways and we would still be a fair distance from both Mexico and New Mexico when we reached Marfa. We had both spent a lot of time in Texas on business trips and Gene had also gone through Army Basic Training near El Paso, but we were both struck by how much greener everything was than we expected.
The trip around the Ft. Worth area was interesting. We passed a huge aircraft manufacturing plant located on a military airfield, perhaps the old Convair plant, and saw an old DC-6 or 7 climbing away from Meacham Field. Probably operated by a Central or South American freight carrier.
Once west of Ft. Worth you start to get a better grip on how big BIG is. The rolling land of North Texas flattens out and the horizons fade away to greater distances. There is not much between cities. The land becomes visually more arid as you travel west and is very dry by the time you reach Midland and Odessa. There perched on the tops of solitary ridges of maybe 500 feet we saw huge windmill farms in two locations, one boasting over 100 of the really large ones similar to those we saw last fall in Pennsylvania. This is also the business center of the Permian Basin, home of the west Texas oil industry. The obnoxious junkyards here are full of discarded drilling rigs, horse heads, pumps, pipe and tanks. The oilfield is everywhere with hundreds of producing wells visible in every direction. In some areas you can smell the crude oil, which has spilled on the ground. In nearby areas salt and alkali flats run for miles and near Monahans is a large area of sand hills similar to the sand hills of western Nebraska. Interestingly, according to Burt Compton, it was Midland-Odessa oil money that brought the National and World Soaring competitions to Marfa in the late sixties and early seventies. People like the recently deceased Wally Scott, Al Parker, and others who were avid soaring pilots, just bought and brought those now historic contests to the area. We passed but did not have time to visit the CAF Museum at Midland.
Burt had advised me to get off the interstate at Pecos and take TX 17 direct to Marfa. With only 105 miles to go, you feel as if you are almost there, but that is a mirage. Once on the two-lane highway, we got the close-up view. Pecos Municipal has a dirt strip and a few crop dusters in an old wooden hangar. There are many abandoned farmsteads with broken concrete irrigation flumes, many abandoned houses and businesses, and where you see people, a lot of substandard housing. There are many huge ranches too, but they tend to put their home and buildings away from the roads. Probably more in the middle of the tract of land and out of sight from the road. There are many private airstrips on these large ranches. We immediately noticed Pronghorn Antelope grazing near cattle. When we reached Fort Davis we knew we were close with signs for the McDonald Observatory and Mt. Livermore, 8,378 MSL, the highest rocks in the area. On leaving Fort Davis, we passed a huge green house, just one of many in the area used for hydroponics production of produce.
The Marfa Plateau is basically flat, and if you buy that you also realize it is somewhat rolling with its semi-desert landscape punctuated with low buttes, boulders, ravines, creek beds, more rocks, cactus, mesquite, tumbleweed, and a few places you might land out without breaking your glider, body, or both. John Byrd, resident cross-country guru and former US Team Member knows a fellow living in his community near Blue Mountain who has shot a dozen Cougars that were killing livestock just this year. Burt Compton gives a thorough briefing to all visiting pilots concerning dos and don'ts, including basic survival needs and local conditions.
On our first full day following our group briefing, Terry Wools, always first to be ready to fly was chomping on the taxiway with Don Taylor close behind. In no more time than it took to launch Terry and Don, a large thunderstorm, which had been born in the mountains east of Marfa, made it known it was moving in our direction. The surface winds picked up carrying some dust and a few drops of rain. The reaction of the rest of us was to run for the hangar where we hurriedly shoved gliders and left room for Terry, Don, and Burt's towplane. By the time that job was done, Terry had announced his approach and runway, the storm was closer, but no heavy rain yet. Terry was on his downwind when the wind shifted 90 degrees to the West. Burt advised a landing on the other runway and Terry did an immediate 270 to the right rolling out on short final with a wall of dust and wind up to 38 kts in his face. He made a perfect landing and rolled right into the dust cloud. Bill Paris drove out to retrieve Terry to find him in the cockpit with spoilers deployed, ground flying Triple Tango. He remained that way for a half hour until they deemed it safe to tow the glider back to the hangar. Meanwhile Don Taylor had not appeared for a landing and his whereabouts were unknown for a while. Then, a phone call that he had landed at the McGuire ranch south of Marfa was received. Miriam Taylor had just hitched up the trailer and was leaving Marfa Municipal when Mrs. McGuire's co-pilot arrived with Don. Don said he had spotted the strip about 6 miles to the South, which is available for emergencies, and that he could neither get around nor through the storm. When he landed, the crew was just putting the Cessna-Jet in the hangar and had offered Don a ride back. The rest of us realized we were a bit tired from the trip and decided to sit the balance of the afternoon out.
Due to the moisture being pumped in from the Gulf of Mexico by hurricane "Bill", the next two days saw mid-afternoon overdevelopment with scattered thunderstorms that could be avoided. Both days saw good flights, but no one felt comfortable enough to try a distance task and altitudes were insufficient for a Gold Altitude gain of 3,000m. On Sunday I got a 2.6-hour flight spending my time playing in the low mountains to the east including the two for obvious reasons referred to as the "Dolly Partons," and running up north to Fort Davis. Burt's towplane a C-152/180 with climb prop and STOL kit did a respectable job, considering the 7,000 ft + density altitudes reached by launch time each day. Burt had advised us of the long take-off rolls necessary to become airborne. We also noticed that the ground effect was equally lessened on landing. On Monday, a release in lift soon turned to sink and I was shortly back on the ground. After a short wait, I took a relight and managed a 1.6-hour flight. On landing, I somehow snapped the temple off of my sunglasses and decided to put 8C in the hangar and make a run for Alpine, hoping to find an optometrist shop where I might get them repaired. We got there at just a few minutes to five, and after cruising the business district and failing to find one, bought another pair in a drug store. Marfa is such a small town, that none of these specialty businesses could survive there. Due to the far west location in the Central time zone and Daylight Savings time too, sunset was at about 9:00 PM while we were there. Gene and I decided it would be interesting to drive directly to Fort Davis and drive around the scenic loop thru the Davis Mountains. It was well worth doing, and turned out to be the only opportunity to do so. The scenery is impressive and wildlife abundant, we saw a large herd of Big Horn Sheep, some Mule Deer, and of course Pronghorn Antelope. By the time we had dinner in Fort Davis, it was after dark by the time we returned to Marfa.
The fourth day was the best I experienced with no overdevelopment and higher cloud bases. There appeared to be good lift under about one of every 10 CUs. My nemesis seems to be maximizing altitude, so I've been concentrating on my thermalling skills in order to get longer glides and higher speeds trading-off for thermalling more often in weaker thermals. I've a long way to go. It showed up this day as I struggled at the 10,000' level and heard the others telling of 12,500'. At one point I passed DT as I looked up to say hello. I went southeast with a goal to reach Cathedral Mountain, 6,816'. It looks like a church, complete with tower. I could not get there directly as I was too low, so I went further south to get to high ground sooner. That worked well, so I stayed over high ground and kept making progress over the shoulders of two other mountains, one peak at a time. It is an awesome view from above, as long as you do not think too much about the fact that much of the ground below is rugged, vertical, and solid rock. It was obvious that the lift was abating as I was losing altitude over and around Cathedral Mt. I became very focused on centering the lift and yaw string, and looking for signs of a fresh CU that would get me back up. I had several outs in preferential order; the abandoned Presidio County-Marfa field, a large WWII field which was the site of the competitions mentioned earlier, about 12 nm WNW and right along US 90, Alta Vista, a private strip on the site of a small WWII training field about 13 nm to the WSW but located on a secondary road, and my chosen next goal of Alpine, a public field about 13 nm to the north which did not look reachable over the surrounding hills lying between. So I just slugged it out for a while with departure altitude in mind if I had to run. I finally got high enough to clear the hills to Alpine and headed that way. Once I had Alpine made I was met with simultaneous relief and heavy sink over the north face of the hills. I called for Gene to hitch up the trailer and head for Alpine. He did with Bill Paris' help and was on the road quickly. Alpine lies in a bowl, pretty much surrounded by high hills, except for the passes where the highways and railroad go through. We were advised to stay away as it tends to be a sinkhole, so I fully anticipated that in helping me lose altitude as I made an approach to the field. As luck would have it, I hit about +8 kts on the averager and again had Marfa Municipal in sight for the first time in about 2 hours. As soon as I had final glide altitude to Marfa and over the mountains in between, I called Gene on the radio and asked him to turn around and go back to the field, which he was pleased to do. After I passed over the mountains the fun really began. The air was blue between Alpine and Marfa but full of Big Texas sized thermals. It was easy to top out at 12,700' on the way back. With a spiral here and there and porposing. It took me quite a while to get down, just cruising, enjoying the ride, and relishing the experience I had just had.
The next day was to be our last. Due to the late hour of the solar noon, there is almost no way to fly, leave that afternoon, and get anywhere on the way home to spend a night. But initially we planned to do that on Friday with an overnight stop in Big Spring. Gene also had been talking to a girlfriend in Michigan who wanted him to stop for a visit before he went to his summer cottage at the beach in New Jersey for the rest of the summer, so he was eager to head for home. Thursday's flight turned out to be a big disappointment after the previous day. After the normal tow to 7,000' and getting off in lift, I erred in not leaving quickly enough for the south where the clouds were higher. When I did leave I found very strong sink between the airport and town. In fact, I quickly got below glide slope only 2 miles from the field. I went back to the house thermal, the hydroponics plant and got back up to 10,500' but was never able to get away towards the clouds, which had receded further south. The main factor being the extreme turbulence both up and down which persisted. I finally got tired of being beaten up and decided to land and pack the plane for a departure the next morning.
Our trip home was through Dallas and across Arkansas as recommended by Bill Paris. We passed Caddo Mills, a soaring site; Hope, AR, Bill Clinton's hometown where a sign declaring that had been defaced by paint thrown upon it; Forrest City, AR home of the Memphis Soaring Club; and near the Mississippi River flood plain a large crop dusting operation with a fleet of turbine powered Ag Wagons close to the interstate. The route gave us different scenery for part of the trip and a reduction of 1 hour and 50 miles drive. We arrived at Terry just in time to dump the trailer in Kurt Ristow's spot before the rain we had been driving thru since we crossed the Mississippi at Cairo, IL hit. At home, a single malt on the rocks was in order in celebration of a safe and fun trip. I really appreciate Gene's willingness to come along and help, his company made the whole trip easier and more interesting.
The tough question is would I do it again? I think the conditions were better in early June but do not know if that is a normal pattern or not. It was a long and expensive ride for 9.6 hours in the air but the experience is so different from Indiana. On the other hand it was comforting this past Sunday to drift among the clouds between Noblesville Airport and Boone County Airport and have at least one landing opportunity within reach at all times.
Jeff Melin
July, 2003