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The Tonopah, Nevada 2007 Story  

by event Honcho Rick Barber

The Tonopah Soarfari turned out to be a good event! We had a total of 11 glider pilots being towed by Jeff Campbell from Telluride Soaring. Although there weren’t very many CU’s, everyday was soarable with flights as far north as Austin and as far south as Lida Junction. Most days started weak with start times around 12:30 to 1:00 but getting much stronger as the day went on. Most flights were in the 5 to 7 hour range with no land-outs. John Heater brought his Sparrow Hawk all the way down from Washington and got his first flights over 23 minutes in it!

Tonopah airport is situated on a WWII Bomber training base with hundreds of acres of paved open space and two nice runways too! Photo by Rick Barber

Our intrepid Tow Pilot Jeff Campbell all the way fro Telluride,CO.  Photo John Medley

Four pilots showed up to fly on Saturday, which turned out to be the best day of the week. Release altitudes were as low as 700 feet AGL with 17,999 feet the max. Late in the afternoon a small cloud street formed, which Dan Fitzgerald ran from Austin to the Whites.

Sunday didn’t start off to well when John Medley, the first tow of the day, fired up his engine after release. Most pilots waited a while before take off. Ten pilots ended up flying and, again, the lift got better and better as the day went along. Dan Gonzales and Rick Leffingwell found themselves in a shear line and flew towards Silver Peak without having to turn. They finally had to divert towards Goldfield to keep from going above 18,000 feet! Mike Ziaskas had a nice save at 500 feet AGL above a ranch 30 some miles northwest of Tonopah! The day sure ended well.

Monday was predicted to be the weakest day of the week. In the morning it was fairly cool and there was a lot of haze in the sky due to smoke from the Tahoe fire. Everyone decided to take this as a no fly day. Instead, some folks went off-roading and exploring the back country where they saw some beautiful areas, wild mustangs and a heard of white tail deer. Others went out scouting the landing areas north to Austin. All in all, a very nice day!

Photos by Rick Barber

The BMW stayed behind for the off-highway exploration day. Photo Larry Tuohino

The Motley Crew minus Photographer Larry Tuohino

Tuesday started out windy and just kept getting windier as the day went on. Five pilots took off into 20 mile plus winds and blue skies. We had to stay fairly close to Tonopah, but Larry Forqueran went as far north as Manhattan and Larry Tuohino went as far south as Lida Junction. We still ended up with flights in the 200 to 300 kilometer range!

Post-Flight "Yakkity Yak". Photo by Rick Barber

Wednesday was a very good day with all 11 pilots flying in blue skies. Most pilots went north with altitudes averaging between 16,000 and 17,000 feet.

Thursday, the last fly day of the trip, didn’t start off too well. We had a lot of thermals coming through the airport early, so we started taking off around noon. That was a mistake as a number of pilots ended up landing right away!  The day turned out to be very choppy and windy at altitude. Even so, all 11 pilots got up and a few had some pretty good flights with Rick Leffingwell getting very near Kingston!

Overall, we had a great time in Tonopah. It left us all wondering, if it’s this good with blue skies and temperatures around 90 degrees just think what we can do with hotter temperatures and cloud streets going everywhere! The town itself isn’t much any more since the mines have closed down, but there is one very good Mexican restaurant, which we frequented often, and the Best Western was the place to stay if you wanted a room. The area is beautiful to fly in with many good landing areas that are fairly accessible and not too far apart. The airport is very big with a 7,000 foot runway. Launches were fairly quick since we could release right over the airport at 2,000 feet or less. For those staying at the airport, they were able to stay with the gliders out on the tarmac. We were also allowed to land on the tarmac right in front of our tie downs, which made it very nice at the end of the day. This was a great experience and I’m looking forward to my next trip to Tonopah!

Tonopah from above 10Kft! picture by Rick Barber