The Long Game: Chasing the monster

A year and a half ago I recorded a podcast with Gordon Boettger, a sailplane glider pilot who had just broken the unofficial world distance record flying a sailplane 3,055km in a single 17-hour flight using night vision goggles in the Sierra mountains of California and Nevada.

To do it, he and his copilot Bruce Campbell used strong wave conditions, which set up in the lee of obstacles in very strong winds – in this case a long and high mountain range. Paraglider pilots like you and me witness wave most clearly by seeing roll clouds or lenticular cloud formations, but avoid flying in wave for obvious reasons (we’re too slow to fly in wave).

Strong wave conditions have taken down commercial...