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[pct-l] Re: Jets
Kevin Corcoran wrote:
> I know an old guy who told me a great story from his flight-test days
> at Edwards Air Force Base:
> Once in the late 60's he was returning to Edwards, at high subsonic
> speed in, if I remember the story correctly, an F-4.
> Streaking southbound over the Owens Valley, at about Lone Pine, he
> said something on the right side caught his eye, at his altitude, and
> it passed out of view so closely and quickly that he almost didn't
> recognize it as a guy in a hang glider.
> He was at 15,000 ft.
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I have seen the spot where the hang gliders take off--they take off
from a parking pull- off on the road to Horseshoe meadow, about 15
miles up the mountain from Lone Pine. They take off from an elevation of
almost 10,000 feet. I can imagine the thermals rising from the Owens
Valley up that mountain wall must be awesome, so I can easily imagine a
hang glider ascending on those thermals to 15K. It takes a truly gutsy
individual to fly that bird.
I was buzzed by a fighter jet while crossing Mosquito Pass in Emigrant
Wilderness in about 1976. It came over so low, loud and fast that I
dropped to my belly in the dirt. Just another wonderful and
unforgettable backcountry experience.
Marion