On February 19th a few of us went to Paiute for some potential XC action. Wayne, Scott, and myself all flew from the Paiute launch in the White Mountains, and all three of us had great flights that day. I have now put together the video of this flight, I hope you enjoy it. It was a 62 mile out and back from Paiute, to Nevada, and back. Pretty amazing for February!-

You can also find the entire flight track here in full Google Earth 3D (in the top right box labeled ‘Flight File’ you can click on the ‘Google Earth’ link, and then click ‘GPS 2.0′ file for best viewing, or just scroll down to see the 2D track)

Here is a brief description of the day, and how the events unfolded while on-route to becoming one of our best February flights to date-

Today I had the most amazing flight I’ve ever had to date during the month of February- a 3.5 hour flight from Paiute north to Nevada, then back south to near Flynns and then back for a final shot north to Paiute LZ! The flight was 62 miles long, and was an out and back. Altitudes were over 14K quite often, topping out at 15,100 feet. Not bad for mid-February! Lift was strong, with some thermals averaging 1,600 fpm (8 m/s) and a few peaked out even stronger it felt like.

Scott Vincik, Wayne Sayer, and I all took off around noon and headed north after being dropped off at launch by Paula Sayer(Thanks!). They launched before me and got out ahead by staying on the front line, but then I got high and stayed there, and made up time by taking the deep line. They turned back around Mt Montgomery and I kept going past Boundary Peak. From there, we all headed back towards Paiute in the headwind, and after a crazy-good glide out front, Wayne’s luck ran out and he landed about 5 miles shy of the LZ. Scotty meanwhile got low as well, and scraped his way in to the LZ after fighting to get back up (and a broken speed bar). During this time, I stayed quite high and stomped the speed bar to as far south as Silver Peak (next to Silver Canyon and Flynns) before turning back and flying back north to Paiute LZ.