hey all xc and kens journey went well today they had great weather great flying and both reached lone pine they are resting and getting ready for tommarrows flight at 6am a big achievement for any triker
It's a little before 5 in the morning Saturday. Dawn is at 07:05 now. Were getting ready to attempt a flight over Mount Whitney 14,505' . Going to try and climb to 16,000' for overflight. We'll see ....
xc is now airbourne for his long climb to 16k and yes he is going to use 02 the weather window looks good . its roughly a 2 hour climb to 16 k . he will burn some where around 12 gallons of fuel getting there. good luck be safe and most of all turn your go pro on.
congratulations xc ken and ground support karen janet and daughter niq and of course them wonderfull poochies. iam happy to tell that xc has successfully conquered 14.505 mt whitney in the sierras. his performance in his tanarg was much better than expected so he opted out at 17,202 ft and over whitney.he got some help with lift took 55 minuites to the summit. fuel burn was roughly 5 gallons much better than calculated. temp at 17,202 ft was -8.5 c (17f).xc told me his hand got quite cold and it was chilly with wind chill. ken climbed with him to 10,000 ft and they are both back on the ground . i think were going to see some most exelent video cant wait. congratulations xc
Hey Geo, yes one more night in Lone Pine. It's been very nice, then Ken is going to give Karen a tour of the valley, I'll gas us up and clear the hangar of our junk and then all of us home.
Fantastic flight! What oxygen system did you end up using? Was it a pulse system? How well did it work for you? The photos look great. Looking forward to a first person account of the flight.
Hi @Firstlight, the O2 system is about an 8 year old pulse system I borrowed from a HG buddy (Thank you Craig W !). I think it's made by Mountain High. It operates off of a 9V battery and a small bottle of O2 about 1 foot long by 4" diameter. It gives a pulse of O2 when you inhale through your nose. It has a setting to come on around 10K' but hadn't started by 12K (density alt), so I switched it to manual. It's supposed to give more frequent or longer O2 bursts the higher you go, but I couldn't tell the difference. That being said, I think it worked well. I got short of breath once when I noticed I had forgotten to leash a camera and I was holding my breath trying to get it leashed one handed with fat gloves on (which I didn't want to take off because it was so cold). I was kinda surprised by that and started sniffing the O2 in big gulps and the SOB went away quickly.
Ken was following me at a slightly lower altitude and talking to me on the radio making sure I wasn't getting stupid (or stupider ;). One of my tasks was to call out the aircraft performance every 1000' of density altitude. Now we have a chart of performance at various altitudes so my spreadsheet calculator can be much more accurate in time to climb and fuel burn-- I initially calculated a 2.3 hour climb at 5+GPH (=~12 gallons total)-- So I took 16 gallons. However, the actual climb was about 1 hour at 4+ gph, so I didn't need to take as much weight in fuel.
Lone pine is almost 4K feet, so the climb was another 13K. The last performance number I got was ~ 40FPM at 17,200 meaning that to climb to 17,999 would've taken almost another 10 minutes and I felt I just couldn't stand the cold any more (I had only planned on climbing to 16,500 anyway. Whitney is 14,505).
I had had Craig's O2 system for over a year waiting for the right time to go. Just when I finally saw a window to go this fall, Craig had emailed me-- Come on man, can I have my O2 system back or what. I said, yes, jut give me to next week. @Rebel777 was asking us to go to Copperstate, but I couldn't go, this weekend was my last chance to do Whitney. Fortunately, the weather was perfect which made the climb relatively easy. The funny thing was that little weather changes for both Ken and I actually made getting home the most challenging part of the flight. The fact that we took extra fuel with us, regardless of what the weather man "predicted" helped. I went to a lecture recently that described that weather accidents are one of the most common, and THE MOST LIKELY type of accident to kill you. We've all got to continue to try and be careful and plan contingencies for unplanned weather, etc.
Comments
anoucement ok for all of us here on alltrikes iam glad to tell you that are own xc triker and ken with ground crew the lovely wives janet karen and niq kens daughter and of course the poochies phoebe , baxter and griffen are embarking on an adventure in triking today and if all goes well with weather a special treat on sat morn treathttp://skyvector.com/?ll=36.62092861862312,-118.35859680401266&chart=301&zoom=2&plan=A.K2.KSMX:G.35.04094098394073,-120.29150390843716:G.35.43277557545032,-118.7937011741146:G.35.64881553971901,-118.46044922100128:A.K2.L05:G.35.66071803910612,-118.38720703350383:A.K2.KIYK:G.36.14571175998792,-117.97888183820564:A.K2.O26:G.36.560283630550046,-118.29267883526495:A.K2.O26:G.36.35229668005273,-117.4002685569759:A.K2.L72:A.K2.0L7:A.K2.KBVU on sat.today ken will be doing the arm from the east from vegas then trick off trina between edwards restricted then over death valley then to lone pine for are special treat early sat morn.xc is currently sitting in his warmed up trike awaiting the fog to lift the weather looks good i will be documenting and posting on his journey over the incredible owens vally and ken over death vally cameras are all on board and rolling and they will have some great footage.be sure to log in for are special alltrikes treat sat morn if the windows hold thanks all
any of you trikers love adventure and i know you do you may want to follow this and a treat for you all on sat morning so stay up on it
hey all xc and kens journey went well today they had great weather great flying and both reached lone pine they are resting and getting ready for tommarrows flight at 6am a big achievement for any triker
It's a little before 5 in the morning Saturday. Dawn is at 07:05 now. Were getting ready to attempt a flight over Mount Whitney 14,505' . Going to try and climb to 16,000' for overflight. We'll see ....
xc is now airbourne for his long climb to 16k and yes he is going to use 02 the weather window looks good . its roughly a 2 hour climb to 16 k . he will burn some where around 12 gallons of fuel getting there. good luck be safe and most of all turn your go pro on.
congratulations xc ken and ground support karen janet and daughter niq and of course them wonderfull poochies. iam happy to tell that xc has successfully conquered 14.505 mt whitney in the sierras. his performance in his tanarg was much better than expected so he opted out at 17,202 ft and over whitney.he got some help with lift took 55 minuites to the summit. fuel burn was roughly 5 gallons much better than calculated. temp at 17,202 ft was -8.5 c (17f).xc told me his hand got quite cold and it was chilly with wind chill. ken climbed with him to 10,000 ft and they are both back on the ground . i think were going to see some most exelent video cant wait. congratulations xc
XC, congratulations on a great flight over Whitney.
CONGRATS DAVE - LOOKS AWSOME
Congrats XC and Ken, be safe
Thanks for sharing your adventure and great photos. Are you guys staying in Lone Pine tonight and flying home tomorrow?
Hey Geo, yes one more night in Lone Pine. It's been very nice, then Ken is going to give Karen a tour of the valley, I'll gas us up and clear the hangar of our junk and then all of us home.
Some pics are posted HERE
Fantastic flight! What oxygen system did you end up using? Was it a pulse system? How well did it work for you? The photos look great. Looking forward to a first person account of the flight.
Hi @Firstlight, the O2 system is about an 8 year old pulse system I borrowed from a HG buddy (Thank you Craig W !). I think it's made by Mountain High. It operates off of a 9V battery and a small bottle of O2 about 1 foot long by 4" diameter. It gives a pulse of O2 when you inhale through your nose. It has a setting to come on around 10K' but hadn't started by 12K (density alt), so I switched it to manual. It's supposed to give more frequent or longer O2 bursts the higher you go, but I couldn't tell the difference. That being said, I think it worked well. I got short of breath once when I noticed I had forgotten to leash a camera and I was holding my breath trying to get it leashed one handed with fat gloves on (which I didn't want to take off because it was so cold). I was kinda surprised by that and started sniffing the O2 in big gulps and the SOB went away quickly.
Ken was following me at a slightly lower altitude and talking to me on the radio making sure I wasn't getting stupid (or stupider ;). One of my tasks was to call out the aircraft performance every 1000' of density altitude. Now we have a chart of performance at various altitudes so my spreadsheet calculator can be much more accurate in time to climb and fuel burn-- I initially calculated a 2.3 hour climb at 5+GPH (=~12 gallons total)-- So I took 16 gallons. However, the actual climb was about 1 hour at 4+ gph, so I didn't need to take as much weight in fuel.
Lone pine is almost 4K feet, so the climb was another 13K. The last performance number I got was ~ 40FPM at 17,200 meaning that to climb to 17,999 would've taken almost another 10 minutes and I felt I just couldn't stand the cold any more (I had only planned on climbing to 16,500 anyway. Whitney is 14,505).
I had had Craig's O2 system for over a year waiting for the right time to go. Just when I finally saw a window to go this fall, Craig had emailed me-- Come on man, can I have my O2 system back or what. I said, yes, jut give me to next week. @Rebel777 was asking us to go to Copperstate, but I couldn't go, this weekend was my last chance to do Whitney. Fortunately, the weather was perfect which made the climb relatively easy. The funny thing was that little weather changes for both Ken and I actually made getting home the most challenging part of the flight. The fact that we took extra fuel with us, regardless of what the weather man "predicted" helped. I went to a lecture recently that described that weather accidents are one of the most common, and THE MOST LIKELY type of accident to kill you. We've all got to continue to try and be careful and plan contingencies for unplanned weather, etc.