The previous AMA national record for HL glider 140 was held by Bill Moody and was set on 10/09/97 with a time of 25.50. It was twelve two-minute maxis plus a one minute and fifty second flight. On October 6th, 2007, Tim Batiuk set a new record at the Livotto contest at Lost Hills, California. This record is not official until approved by AMA. The following is what Tim posted on the SFA forum describing the day with his tiplaunch glider.
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Article by Tim Batiuk, originally posted on the SFA forum.
Well, here is a brief description of the record day at Lost Hills Saturday, 10/6/07.
When I arrived at LH at 8 am Saturday morning it was about 50 degrees with 6-10 mph winds. I was not sure if I had chosen the best day to go for the record but since I had arranged for some helpers to be there I decided to go for it. Speaking of helpers I can not say enough good about my friends Rick Solis, and Eddie and Anthony Minasyan. They are fellow glider flyers from LA area who were absolutely invaluable to me in this effort. I want to thank them so much for helping make this possible.
I started flying it was 8:45 am and it was all the way up to 58 degrees. One amazing thing is that I only took to two warm up flights, one each with the 2 gliders that I planned to use. On the way back from the second warm up I noticed what I thought was good air so I went and got a max in a nice light thermal. From that point it took me 4 more flights to get my first 3 maxes because it was still pretty early and cool. An interesting note is that I flew all of my flights from the same place, which was about 100' down wind from the FAI flight line.
I really didn't have any close calls until I hit the 12 max. After getting to 11 twice this year and missing on the 12th I was convinced that the number 12 was a jinx. On that flight I hit a great thermal and was pretty high when much to my amazement I DTD at 1:42. My heart almost stopped and we all sweated it as my glider came down at 2:06. If that wasn't enough drama, on my 13th attempt I slightly missed on a weak, really narrow thermal. Luckily I nailed the launch and my good old TurnUp caught up to the air and milked it for everything it was worth. I am pretty sure that about 1:30 of that fight was not above 50'.
Once I made the 13th the record was in the bag so I let loose and started throwing higher. At this point it was fun to just go when it looked good and not worry so much about the air. On the 22nd attempt it looked really good but it ended up being too weak and I came in 9 seconds short of the max. By that time I was ready for a rest since I went straight through without a break.
I lost one glider because of a DT failure. I used 3 gliders during the day, getting 14 maxes with my #1. I was very happy that my back up gliders were well trimmed and flew great.
Anyway, it was a glorious day of flying and I can not thank Eddie, his son Anthony and Rick enough. They were very helpful and I will always be grateful to them.
Tim