The wind forecast - 6 days out from April 16th - WOW

The wind forecast - 3 days out from April 16th - still WOW.
I start arranging a task (below), an airport (Williamsport - very friendly now), a towplane to meet us there (thanks Butch) and some company on the flight (thank-you John, more than I can ever repay)

The Task - pretty simple, a double O&R. 1st O&R = 1670 km and 2nd O&R = 550 km. I had about 14 hours of daylight and 1,400 miles to go.

Yes this is big but you all know I think big. Possible - yes, likely - no. Could break 6 world records, could not even get in the air, could break me.

We had a great welcome at Williamsport where we arrived the night before, assembled, watered and rented a hangar for the night for all 3 birds (Butch's Husky in the background).

This was the picture at 10:30 pm April 15, the night before.

That finger going down the ridge towards Tennessee was a concern but what long ridge flight hasn't run into some weather. Basically this told us to go south as fast as we could and if the low kept moving NE, we might get home.

Here is the forecast for Williamsport at the time that I got up at the motel on the morning of the flight.

Great ridge conditions and cloudbase rising. Still unknown whether we will be coming home or having a long retrieve.

Here we are minutes before takeoff, yes those are snowflakes and the ridge has clouds just at the top of it.

Carmen is cold, I am raring to go.

Here I am minutes after takeoff.

Just as I am leaving Williamsport. I am thinking maybe I'll just fly to Eagle Field.

The ridge was very strong.

BUT - things improved.

Here I am near Tyrone, just past Eagle Field in the scheme of things.

John is about 10-15 minutes behind me.
I decide to push ahead fast and he will probably catch me when I hit a snag.

Definitely yellow arc airspeeds especially since I had to slow down and sideslip a little to get this picture out the side.

Sorry, no more happy pictures. At Bedford, since I wanted to see how far I could go before I had to make my first turn of the flight (just straight ahead flying since takeoff), I just slowed down before the gap and climbed a high as I could, straight ahead, just 3000 msl. I could see a snow flurry starting just on the other side of the gap. I decide I had to go straight across, right then, to have a chance of getting past the flurry. I got to the other side low, with a good field below me to land in if I could not slide up the ridge. However, it was no problem climbing up the front ridge and I raced thru the light flurry. I hoped John could do the same but I had my doubts.

Once past the flurry at Hindeman, things improved again. There was no more snow on my flight. Unfortunately, John was not able to get through the flurry and he had to land at Bedford. We had been talking to each other up to that point so I knew he had landed. I could see no reason not to continue since things had improved. I got through Keyser and Scherr with just a couple jumps ahead to valley ridges and after Seneca Rock things really got going. I was regularly seeing 140 mph ground speeds. Cloudbase appeared to be at least 4500 feet and I was approaching Snow Mountain quickly.

I can still see this vividly, the ground was rising up to the 'corner' before Snow Mountain and the cloudbase appeared to be descending until it almost came down to the top of the 'corner' there. In hindsight, this lowering of cloudbase by a few hundred feet should have been a big clue to what I was about to fly into at that last spine before you get to Snow Mountain.

View from the 'corner' looking windward down the 'spine'. Photo from the Striedieck Cessna 180, days afterwards.

I don't remember the impact. The first thing I remember was pulling on my left thigh to get my left leg out of the mess but the leg didn't follow the thigh. I did it 2 or 3 times before I realized it was broken. I grabbed my phone out of my shirt pocket and I had 1 bar signal. I called Carmen and told here I had crashed, that I had a broken left leg a broken left arm and that I was near Snow Mountain. I told her my battery was low and we decided that we should hang up, she should arrange a search and then call back. After a couple unwanted call backs that drained my battery, John Good called and I said I was on the 'last spine before Snow Mountain', then my battery died but I was happy, the right man knew where I was.

K1 - April 16, 2007 - beginning to end