Extra, Extra, Read all about it!
http://www.sdnn.com/sandiego/2010-02...l-speed-record
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Local pilot Jerry Jackson, 60, recently broke the world round-trip transcontinental speed record in a plane he built in his garage. He took off from Montgomery Field on Saturday, Jan. 30, at 6:11 a.m. and arrived back in San Diego on Sunday, Jan. 31, at 6:21 a.m.
Jerry Jackson broke the round-trip transcontinental speed record in the plane he built, the Feral Chihuahua. (Carmel Valley News)
The National Aeronautics Association, in Washington, DC, awards the record, which is for piston-engine planes.
Jackson flew the 4,200-mile trip to Jacksonville, Fla., and back in 24 hours and 10 minutes at 174 miles an hour, including three stops for fuel. Jackson shattered the precious record of four days. (The old record was set two years ago by a plane that flew to San Diego, then waited two days for ideal weather before returning to the East Coast. Each leg set a record, but the total round trip took four days due to the two-day delay. )
The distance of Jackson?s flight was 600 miles longer than Charles Lindbergh?s 1927 historic flight from New York to Paris, the first nonstop flight between the two cities. The highest altitude he flew was 17,000 feet and the lowest was 4,000 feet, and at times his ground speed exceeded 310 miles an hour.
By day, Jackson is an engineer at Kleinfelder, but at heart he?s an adventurer. In addition to his aviation affinity, Jackson also holds eight skydiving records.
?I?ve always been into airplanes ever since I was a little boy,? said Jackson, who has been flying since 1976.
In 1993 he started building his own airplane in his garage. The RVGA two-seater took him four years to build, the last year he finished the plane in a hangar at Montgomery Field. He built a second airplane that he sold, but kept his original, named the Feral Chihuahua. It is the Chihuahua that takes him and his wife, Nina, on weekend getaways to Napa or to see family. It was also the Chihuahua that took him across the country and back in record time.
This wasn?t the first time Jackson has tried the transcontinental record. He tried last year on Feb. 4, taking off in th evening. A number of things went wrong with his instruments and he had to land in Abilene, Texas. Additionally, he had the flu and the 4 degrees Fahrenheit temperature in the cockpit didn?t help.
?I had to limp my way back home,? Jackson said of his first effort.
This time around, Jackson knew what he?d need to do to make it work. He spent six months upgrading his engine to go faster and making his gas tanks bigger.
He suffered a small disaster in October when taxiing out on a flight to Texas, he hit a low level trailer on the runway and destroyed his propeller and some fiberglass on his plane.
Due to FAA regulations, he had to ship his engine to Canada to be checked.
He worked ?feverishly? through Christmas on the repairs and monitored the weather through January. He decided Jan. 29 that he would leave Jan. 30 at dawn, in the daytime instead of night to have the warm sun.
Around this time of year is a good time to try for the record as there is a jet stream that occurs once a year, he said. In that tiny window, Jackson could take advantage of the jet stream to Jacksonville and fly low to the ground on the way back as he fought against the jetstream. Lower altitudes also mean warmer temperatures.
?You had to wait for the perfect day,? Jackson said. ?And I had the perfect day.?
Jackson took off with his daily lunch and breakfast of cereal, bagel, banana and orange packed by his wife, dressed in two sets of sweats, fleece pants, a fleece jacket, wool cap underneath his ball cap, wool socks and ?high tech? gloves and mittens.
He took with him a device to help go to the bathroom and his wife, Nina, sewed handy zippers into his clothes to make it easier to use.
?Last year I was really nervous and upset,? said Nina. ?But this time he was so well prepared, I was totally comfortable. I was able to sleep.?
Plus, she received updates of his whereabouts via satellite every hour and he was always right on track.
Jackson stopped mid-day in Abilene to refuel and headed through cloudy skies to Florida. He was a little nervous about a broken instrument that he would need for a cloudy landing, but as he descended into Jacksonville he broke out of the clouds and the instrument fixed itself.
Friend Andy Keech drove down from Washington DC to meet Jackson when he landed, waving a flashlight on the runway to direct him to a waiting meal of burger and fries. Full of adrenaline and encouragement from Keech, he took off again at 8 p.m. Flying low as planned, he said the flight was very turbulent at 4,000 feet so he climbed to 6,000 feet.
Jackson had planned to take an hour nap at 2 a.m. in Texas, but the weather was at freezing level. If the airplane took on frost it would crash, so Jackson had no choice but to leave without a nap, only staying on the ground long enough to get a big mug of coffee.
He arrived into San Diego early, at around 6:20 a.m., where his wife and friends were waiting with champagne.
?I was so happy and so relieved,? Jackson said. ?I had a big grin on my face.?
During the flight, there was bound to be long periods of boredom, but Jackson didn?t want to take anything along to distract him.
?You don?t want to be flippant to nature,? Jackson said.
In his research, Jackson found Lindbergh had the same dilemma with boredom on his 36- hour flight and he picked up a trick the pilot had used? to fill in an hourly log, monitoring location, speed, fuel burned, fuel left and conditions observed.
?It gave me something to do and something to look forward to, as well as keep me alert and safe,? Jackson said.
Jackson also took pictures and soaked in the sights of the country. He saw the sunrise over Yuma, skydivers launching below him over Eloy, Arizona, extremely tall windmills near Abilene, Texas, and a huge tethered balloon 15,000 feet above El Paso. He found out it was a balloon authorities used to spot drug smugglers from Mexico.
From Texas on east he was socked in by storm clouds and couldn?t see a thing, but as he approached Florida he saw an ?incredible orange ball on the horizon.?
?It was the moon,? he said. ?It gave me a psychological boost and told me the night was clear and I didn?t have to worry about ice. It almost didn?t look like the moon.?
Jackson has high praise for the FAA, the air traffic controllers he called his ?guardian angels.? At times he was the only plane in the sky and even at 4 a.m. they were helpful, sometimes even humorous and cracking jokes.
?The FAA is superb,? Jackson said. ?They kept me safe and kept me out of trouble.?
For now, Jackson said he is content to stay on the ground. He has no desire for anymore long-distance flying, but he is considering writing a book about his cross-country aviation adventure.
?It has satisfied me for awhile,? Jackson said, a big smile on his face. ?It was a lot of fun.?
Karen Billing writes for Carmel Valley News where this story originally appeared.
Tags: Jerry Jackson, National Aernautuics Association, pilot, SDNN, Washington D.C. Montgomery Field
This entry was posted on Saturday, February 13th, 2010 at 10:26 am and is filed under Local News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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