A Nevada glider pilot is celebrating an epic flight last week that capitalized on some remarkable weather conditions that were flawlessly exploited by a team of experts to allow him to travel 1,112 miles from Lake Tahoe to the heart of Kansas. Gordon Boettger self-launched using the small jet engine on his Arcus J two-seat soaring plane at 11:09 a.m. UTC and landed at Dodge City Regional Airport 12.5 hours later. He averaged about 94 mph as he rode the westerly winds that roared through that region late last week. Most of the trip was covered between 20,000 and 28,000 feet, and Boettger fought icing inside the cabin as he pushed east.
To stay in the low flight levels, Boettger relied on a weather service for glider pilots known as SkySight, which predicts areas of lift based on weather data. He said it was amazingly accurate and he got the altitude boosts he needed to keep going. The descent to Dodge City covered more than 200 miles. “Well that was a 40-year dream come true,” he said in his account of the flight. “Epic adventure that wasn’t possible without a team of awesome people.”
Fantastic! Looking forward to the story of how long it takes him to glide back to Tahoe 😜
I flew with Gordon years ago when he was a captain at FedEx and he shared his passion with soaring with me. Well done!
I wonder how he was able to get ATC clearance to fly at various altitudes in Class A airspace. That would be a long block of airspace.
That glider is very well equipped with avionics and I’m sure the clearances were organised in advance.