On May 19th Minden FINALLY had wave. We were super excited at the chance to see if the incredible efforts by the Perlan-Mindenites would pay off. We arrived at the hangar literally before the crack of dawn.
Dennis and Cindy were the first to launch in his DG 1001. They reported moderate lift and went for distance, logging 1300+ OLC kilometers. The wave clouds lined up in corn rows to make a fun flight for them.
We continued Perlan’s pre-launch checklist. Jim and Tim were ready to fly our baby. Richard caught the wing flash on Perlan 2 as it took off. When they released they reported 19 knots of lift and she was climbing like a homesick angel. We had already called for the wave window above 18,000 to be open asap, but we called Air Control back to ask if they could please expedite? Jim trimmed it up with spoilers cracked at 17,000 feet and Perlan still wanted to climb! As soon as we got the phone call for release of air space, we radioed to the pilots and up the glider went. Stick raps and doublets at 20,000 feet were good, so they eased up to FL243. They landed back at Minden after 1.1 hours. Perlan Soars! Jackie
