Santa Ana Flier Hangs In for Record

Hang glider pilot Larry Tudor of Santa Ana woke up in Hobbs, N.M., early last month, looked at the sky and saw the beginnings of a world-record day.

So just before his 11:13 a.m. launch, Tudor signed a declaration of intent to fly his hang glider from Hobbs Industrial Airpark to Elkhart, Kan., 303 miles to the northeast.

He hitched his glider to the back of a truck and slowly ascended. At 4,800 feet, he released the tow and headed toward the sun.

Nearly nine hours later, after flying over parts of New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, an exhausted but elated Tudor touched down near the Pizza Hut in Elkhart. On this one epic flight Tudor smashed hang gliding’s seemingly impenetrable 300-mile barrier, and set world records in two categories: “open distance” and “distance to declared goal.”

The flight was the culmination of Tudor’s relentless, seven-year pursuit of a 300-mile flight. Since 1983--when he broke the 200-mile barrier--he has devoted his life to chasing “the big one” from the Owens Valley of California to the flatlands of Texas and New Mexico. During one memorable attempt, he found himself at 15,000 feet a few miles in front of an advancing tornado. But he also racked up 10 200-plus-mile flights including 268 miles on June 10, 225 miles on July 1 and 255 miles on July 2.

To put his 303 miles on July 3 into perspective, simply combine the true grit of Babe Ruth’s “called shot” home run and the historical significance of Roger Bannister’s first sub-four-minute mile.

Any long-distance flight in a hang glider is basically a race with the sun. The sun is what causes air near the ground to heat up and rise. Because all engine-less aircraft are powered by gravity, they always move downward through whatever air mass they fly in. As long as a hang glider is in a hot air mass that is rising faster than the glider is descending through it, the glider will gain the altitude necessary to sustain flight.

Because he was suspended in a hammock-like harness from the hang glider’s center of gravity, Tudor did not have to waste energy hanging on for dear life. He used his arm strength only to push his body in the direction he wanted to go. His glider simply followed his weight.

Directional control made it possible for Tudor to seek out, then circle and climb in the columns of lifting air that pilots call “thermals.” “Thermaling” is tiring only when you do a lot of it in a tight spot, or if you’ve done it nine hours a day three days in a row.

By flying with the wind as he descended between thermals, Tudor was able to maximize the distance he traveled over the ground. Still, it took every ounce of his considerable skill, patience, experience, stamina and luck to find the 26 thermals it took to get him from New Mexico to Kansas.

Because hang gliders have a cruise speed of only 25 to 35 m.p.h., Tudor knew he would have to be in the air at least 8 1/2 hours. The problem is, thermals are weaker and harder to find at the beginning of the day before the sun heats the air, and at the end of the day when the sun approaches the horizon.

Not surprisingly, Tudor’s most challenging moments--with the exception of a brief scare at the halfway point--came at the beginning and at the end of his flight into the record books.

“I had a big breakfast at 7:30 because I knew it would be my only meal of the day,” Tudor recalled. “Then I called my boss in Santa Ana to let him know about my 200-milers of the last two days. I also told him I’d call that night from Elkhart. Because I was still sore from the last two flights, I took four aspirin just before launch.

“The weather looked good. A low-pressure system over Arizona meant the air would be unstable (lots of thermals) and a high-pressure system to the east meant I’d have a good tail wind pushing me north.”

After launch, the first thermal took him to 6,100 feet. But there wasn’t much lift.

“By the time I was 5 miles from the airport I was 75 feet off the deck, battling to stay up. I had to because I was looking down at mesquite bushes, oil rigs and power lines,” he said.

Finally, after five exhausting minutes, he caught a thermal back up to 5,700 feet and, several miles later, another one to 9,500 feet.

“It was then that I realized I had already survived the closest call of the flight,” he said. “I figured whatever mileage I made from then on would be a treat.”

For the next two hours he cruised between 9,000 and 11,000 feet, at one point hitting a strong thermal that took him to 13,500 feet. Then, 200 miles into the flight, the worst happened.

“I hit air that was sinking instead of rising. In just 10 minutes I was down to 7,500 feet in the middle of nowhere. Worse yet, I’d lost contact with my crew. This was a definite low point. Finally I found some air that wasn’t sinking. It eventually turned into my favorite thermal of the day and took me to 13,000 feet. I was saved.

“The glide in was nerve-racking because it took so long and because I knew how disappointed I’d be if I got this close to my goal and wound up with a 287-miler. Finally, about halfway between Eva, Okla., and Elkhart, I saw I had it made. I was so tired I seriously wondered if I was awake. The evening air was so glass-smooth, I was convinced I was dreaming.

“By the time I figured out it was really happening an electric feeling came over me from head to toe. Maybe it was a combination of exhaustion, elation and dehydration or the effects of adrenaline and low blood sugar. Whatever it was, I had never felt anything like it in my life.

“The feeling lasted a full 24 hours.”

When Tudor got to Elkhart at 8:30 p.m. he had beaten the old “open distance” world record by 16 miles. With 3,000 feet of altitude left he was in a position to go another 15 to 20 miles. But doing so would mean giving up the far more difficult “declared goal” world record.

So he spiraled out of the sky yelling “Help!” He needed to attract landing witnesses to validate the paper work for his two world records.

The world’s best hang glider pilot attracted plenty of witnesses near the Pizza Hut. One little girl kept asking him why he was yelling for help when he obviously didn’t need any.

Tudor’s trek to the most significant flight in the history of hang gliding began 17 years ago in Denver.

He was 19 then and coming off a brief career as a nationally ranked junior competitive chess player. On a visit to a local flying site he found himself mesmerized by the brightly colored primitive hang gliders that were skimming across the ground.

“I was lucky to survive my first two years in hang gliding,” says Tudor. “I’d believe anything I heard or read in a book--and I was willing to try anything to get better quicker.”

As hang gliders and hang-gliding techniques improved, so did Tudor. His love affair with cross-country soaring got started in 1978 when a friend gave him a copy of “Soar America,” a sailplane book which chronicles the record-breaking flights of sailplane champions such as Wally Scott and Ben Greene.

In the late ‘70s Tudor was the third pilot to break 100 miles and in 1983 became the first to go over 200 miles in a flight.

Tudor’s devotion to cross-country hang gliding is complete. He constantly reviews motivational literature and is especially interested in the psychology of peak performance. A strict vegetarian for more than 10 years, Tudor works hard to maintain his physical fitness.

As of June, he was the No. 1-ranked hang glider pilot in the world, according to the international ranking system published in Cross Country Magazine. For the last four years he has worked as a flight representative, test pilot and sponsored competition pilot for Wills Wing Inc., a Santa Ana-based manufacturer of hang gliders.

What’s next?

Well, Tudor is looking past the merely impossible 400-mile barrier to an incomprehensible 500-mile flight.

“What I’d have to do is get a really good day where I could fly 250 miles in thermals to a ridge I know about,” he said. “If conditions were right, I could soar all night in the air deflected upward by the wind against the ridge--then fly another 250 miles the next day.”

Laugh if you want. But within the hang-gliding community, the smart money is on Tudor.

WORLD RECORD SET

On July 3 at 11:13 a.m., hang glider pilot Larry Tudor of Santa Ana took off from Hobbs, New Mexico and flew 303 miles to Elkhart, Kan. The 9-hour trip broke the 300-mile barrier, hang gliders and beat the old “open distance” world record by 16 miles.