Happy TrikerAirborn XT Outback, Air Creation Tanarg, Evolution Aircraft Revo

1250

SZP and 125 other airports

GP020107_MP4

By Happy Triker
  • 1 of 3
GP020107_MP4

Flying over Reo Grande Pyramid (13,812 feet/4,213m)

Comments

  • Happy Triker

    I reached 15,000 feet in a trike first time.

  • white eagle

    Nice henry i went to 10,5 in my redback. How good were you climbing at 15 in you new revo.i like to get high in my trike.feels like your just floating like a baloon with a great veiw. Listning to pink floyd comfortably numb.

  • Wile E Scott

    Holly lack of O2 Batman! Glad you had a parka on. I'm toying with the idea of doing this soon. Just to say I have really; no good reason. I'll be capped out at 10k with my Sport certificate but I think I'm going to wait to do it in my Tanarg. A little worried about a long descent with my old grey head 582. The 912UL would most likely fair a bit better coming out of deep freeze.

  • Happy Triker

    Hi Scott, you can fly 10,000 MSL or 2,000 AGL, whichever higher under sport pilot license.

  • jeff trike

    Henry, which airport are you based out of on this trip?

    You should check out Creede, if you haven't yet.

  • Happy Triker

    Hi Jeff, that is the exact airport we stationed. Chris, Randy, Ron and I. The airport altitude is almost 9,000 MSL, take-off and landing was a bit challenging.

  • Dinga

    OMG! Henry, awsome 15,000' :-) nice work. Thats look great from there and White Eagle i'm with you how good would that be floating along up there in a open cockpit with Floyd playing LOL :-)

  • white eagle

    Thanks dinga when i went to 10.5 last year .i was listning to comfortably numb. I was at the polsen fly in .it was unuasally warm at altituide just chilly. I was watching my buddies joe hockman and j ebb working a ridge for lift in their soaring trikes way below me. They looked like little bugs. I think its a good idea to go up high exspecially if you fly mountains alot.nice to have an idea of what you can climb over. Also we all were thinking about flying over to mount mc donald peak. I wanted to just see how my throttled down glide ratio would be and how far a reach i had from 10 thousand .its supprizing to see that  you can make multiple airports from a good altituide.little did we know that henry tom and geo were already over there buzzing  mcdonald peak. So it was really good to see their video to know what we were in for in soaring trikes.my soaring trike was down so i was flying my airbourne red back. Dinga you fly mountains alot . I think about the difference between the laminar air  in the austrailian out back  and  flying alp type mountains.definatly hones some skills.

    Henry how about another look at your mt mcdonald footage in here?

  • jeff trike

    Henry, is that Chris DB, and Ron from Taos?  I would like to hear some more details on the trip.

  • Leo

    NICE Henry!! I've missed out on a lot of cool shots!! Looks like you're loving your new Revo! :D

     

  • TrikeCFI

    Have some great stories with oxygen systems, or lack of. Hopefully yours is reliable. 

  • Happy Triker

    Hi Jeff, yes Chris and Ron flew from Taos to Creede. Randy and I trailered out trikes. We flew around Creede for few days. We had some epic flights over San Juan montain range.

  • Happy Triker

    Hi TrikeCFI, my oxygen tank is pretty small but it has 5 step adjustment and it last up to 3 hours, if I use a nose canal. What was your stories ?

  • jeff trike

    Henry, was that picture taken at sunrise or sunset?

  • Happy Triker

    Jeff, that was at sunrise.

  • TrikeCFI

    OK here is my first story about oxygen or lack of.

    This is long ago and far away when I believed that hang gliding was the only way to satisfy our primal aviation dreams. It was Telluride Colorado during the hang gliding festival and aerobatic championship.. Hang gliding launch point of 12,000 feet MSL plus. The trucks struggled up the pass on a scary road to unload the gliders and then hike them up to the launch point.

     

    I was advised by all the top industry experts that oxygen was essential . Simply hiking the glider up 500 feet to the launch area was exhausting without oxygen. OK I understand. I got a cheap medical tank with pressure gage and flow valve, no flow gage. Used my crude oxygen system and got   some energy to hike the glider up the hill to the setup area. This oxygen system was very crude and not efficient. It was simply an oxygen bottle and a line/tube  that  came into the mouth.

     

    My first oxygen system.

     

    Yea baby oxygen. Power and intelligence at altitude. I felt it. It was awesome. Breath of life at altitude.

     

    All the trials and tribulations to get launched as part of the hang gliding festival with the Telluride Air Force and I got off.

     

    What a relief. Now I had to get high rather than sink and get flushed to the toilet gods. I cough a thermal and rocketed up over the rocky mountains  in Colorado to 20,000 feet where they opened the window for hang gliding pilots to go above 18,000 feet.

     

    This moment was a highlight of my life. Something I always wanted to do. Flying around over the Rocky mountains with my friends, free, focus on living, the best time I had ever had.

     

    Then, all of a sudden I felt cold. Like somebody flipped the switch. I looked down at my oxygen pressure gage and it read no pressure.    I was out of oxygen at 20,000 feet.

     

    Not good.

     

    Last thing i could remember is that I looked at my altitude gage after I lost oxygen and I could not figure out what my altitude was after I looked at the altimeter.

     

    I did realize that I had to get down fast. I could not really understand the audio up/down sounds on the vario.

     

    Went into a euphoric sense and did spirals and wing over's since this was an aerobatic event. I finally got down to about 16,000 feet and could read my instruments and understand the audio on the vario still above the Colorado peaks.

     

    Learned that I should get a flow meter and more efficient delivery system.