While in cadet flying school at Marianna, Florida the Donaldsonville bridge was one of the challenges that was passed around that you had to fly under it if you were really a good pilot. One day a gaggle of us kind of formed up and the leader took off and headed for the Donaldsonville bridge, we were all solo at that time and practicing aerobatics in the T-6 a really sturdy airplane, that could absorb a good bit of abuse. I ended up as tail end Charley and was the last to drop into the river bottom for the pass under the bridge, it wasn’t long until I was having trouble controlling the airplane with all the propwash that had proceeded me in the course between the trees that went down both sides of the river. Just as the we rounded the last bend before the bridge came into view I could not handle the turbulence any more and I pulled up and accepted that I had failed. It was just too risky. I kinda had my tail between my legs because I had not made it under the bridge with all the rest in the gaggle. We got back to the base landed and went to our flight training rooms and the announcement came, “Pilots of tail numbers, they called off about 10, were to report to the chief of training office immediately’. Yep, they all got washed out the next day. My guardian angle had intervened again. Some might call it luck but as I look back on my life I am pretty sure I had a guardian angle. And I have never professed that I am the least bit a religious person but I have to thank some one for all the luck I have had.

At Albuquerque one day on a local four hour mission I noticed noticed lenticular clouds over the Sandia range and they were stacked about three high, my soaring exposure encouraged me to investigate. At about 24,000 with both engines at idle I was still able to climb at 100ft per minute or so, not much but it was lift I eventually got to 27,000 ft and by then another lenticular developed above me. I moved a bit to windward and was soon at 31,000 the engines still at idle. I played a bit between best Lift over Drag and Minimum sink. I didn’t matter much because I was still climbing albeit very slowly. This was fun. I extended my flight plan and called the Squadron to let them know what I was doing, Yeah its hard for some to comprehend that an airplane can take off on a four hour local mission and extend the flight time to seven hours. Eventually I shut down one engine because I was still climbing with both engines at idle and did not have any lenticulars above me so I figured that this was about as good as it would get. Even with one engine shut down I gained a little altitude on some laps up and down the the lenticular and lost a little altitude on some laps. Eventually the squadron called and demanded that I land immediately, I had only been up for a little over six hours. The ops officer knew where I was and what I was doing but the commander insisted I land ASAP. My glider just did not want to come down, I kept running into those up drafts and I loved playing in them, they come so seldom. Fighting the two motions, get down now or riding the wave as long as I could, I finally calculated that I had already spent more time in the air with a standard fuel load than any one else so I was happy but my glider just would not give up that altitude that it had gained without a fight. It took me almost another hour to get back on the ground. Flight time 7 hours 20 minutes and I still had over 4,000 lbs of fuel remaining. I could have stayed airborne another two hours, because with only one engine running I was using way less than 1,000 lbs of fuel per hour at idle. Any how it was one of those flights that I might have caught some flack for but I learned so much about the up drafts in waves and under lenticulars, a privilege that most will never be inclined or privlidged to know . By the way, son Robin has his first Lenny 30,000 ft in a glider that he got during wave soaring at the Air Force Academy. I never got that high with out an engine even if it was at idle. Flying was fun… And I got paid to do it. Bob