LeMars

Since moving to Kansas, my thoughts have often drifted towards making a flight back home. I grew up in Northwest Iowa and learned to fly there. Thanks to many flights home in a club 172, the terrain and route is well known to me. It’s a challenging direction to soar though, with many obstacles.

The wind is often strong out of the south, as we know, but it is unusual that the south wind and soaring weather extend far enough north to allow a flight that far. My northbound flights previously have usually ended in southern Nebraska, with two landings in Southeast Nebraska around Falls City and the Kowbell flight to Burwell. Keith Smith made it to Minden, NE once in the PW. John Wells and I just made it to southwest Iowa once. The terrain itself is not a problem, but crop coverage is. As those of us who have ventured north know, by the time you enter Nebraska, the farmland transitions away from open wheat stubble and into fully grown corn and soybeans. For a flight at this time of year, this requires a very conservative airport-to-airport approach.

Additionally, the weather pattern that brings the south winds means that you will be flying towards a front, usually having thunderstorms and the associated high cirrus blowoff, rain, etc., that is normally not good for soaring conditions. This tends to cut flights short. On my Kowbell flight near Falls City, I believe I landed about 5 PM.

With all this in mind, I could not resist the forecast for Saturday of the Vintage Meet. TopMeteo indicated that a flight into NW Iowa and perhaps beyond would be possible. How could I say no? It was a weekend so Leah could chase. It was a Saturday so we’d have Sunday to drive home. Ideal. I took off at 10:58 AM as a thin cu field was developing around Wichita. After a high tow to slightly above cloudbase I released and set off downwind. Newton was my first bail-out point. But steady albeit weak lift was encountered under each thin cu and I steadily started working north.

Conditions working north were generally pretty good with no real worrisome low points encountered. I was taking it easy, making an effort to just stay high and let the wind do the work while the day developed. Nearing Manhattan I had to shift to the east a bit as the clouds started to dry out. Kansas City Center confirmed that the Restricted area was cold, which was nice as I was headed right through the middle of it. The lowest point of the flight was encountered right around the Nebraska border, but I made a pretty good recovery and kept on creeping north.

I was hoping that the day would really pop, maybe start to street up, and I would have a few hours in the peak of the afternoon that were really off to the races. In reality, I rarely was able to line up more than two or three good climbs in a row and spent most of the flight in sort of survival mode. Almost all the thermals were organized and easy to work even though the wind was 20–25 mph out of the south. As I passed Lincoln, NE I reached my high point for the day, two climbs just over 6,500 feet. Lincoln approach was advising me that there was a TFR in effect for the Nebraska football game that afternoon. I was well outside of it and I never did get a good view of the stadium.

As I started to look north towards Sioux City, way out in the distance I could start to see signs of the end of the day. I should have started to angle east much earlier but the wind line had been too tempting. The clouds abruptly ended just south of Sioux City and I was in severe survival mode! I had to work crosswind to stay in sunlight and with cu. Approach was advising me of rain showers 30–40 miles NW of the field. I kept Sioux City in glide as I worked crosswind and pondered my next move. I hopped over to a nice looking private airstrip east of Sioux City and then worked for a long time in 1 knot lift to finally drift far enough and climb high enough to have a comfortable glide to Le Mars. There were no more airports crosswind and the clouds were out of reach. After a nice 350-mile flight, my soaring day was over!

I arrived with plenty of height and had a nice look around. Landing was no problem. Leah was only an hour or so behind. Life was GOOD. A quick call to family revealed that my sister Josie was visiting friends just one town over, so they came over to say hi, arriving about the same time as Leah.

Le Mars happens to be the home of Wells Blue Bunny and is the self-proclaimed Ice Cream Capital of the World. Extra good news is that the Blue Bunny Ice Cream Parlor is open until 10 PM on Saturday nights. So if you’re ever in Le Mars, Leah and I highly recommend it.