El Mirage Dry Lake, California, Jan 2005

[Ray]

[rayjb60]

[rayjb60]

[rayjb60]

El Mirage is still wet......lets try this again in late February.

Personaly, I might not be able to wait that long, maybe the Salton Sea will work out.

I'll look into the Salton Sea as an alternate and report back.

[rcflyer40t]

Hi Ray,

Chris here, I was just at El Mirage This weekend (feb 5 05) and it was wet near the ranch area, where i fly out of. its going to be that way for awhile till we get some serious sun. i would say if you still want to go, then i would suggest that you enter from the detour. you might beable to get on the lake, where the motorcycle guys are going. Because of the road construction on the other end. use the detour and you shouldnt have a problem we should meet there sometime.

Chris

[rayjb60]

[rcflyer40t]

[rayjb60]

Went out to El Mirage "dry" lake this weekend to see what is going on there, and to Meet Chris and see his new Lazair.

Turns out that all that is missing from the "Dry" lake is the millions of Pink flamingos in the 3 mile long shallow lake that is here now.

Could be months before it totally dries up.

The good news is that the "Ranch" where Chris is keeping his Lazair, is actually an airstrip for ultralights, autogyros and almost a dozen Lazairs.....and best of all, its not flooded, although there are power lines across the end of the runway.

Why arent powerlines ever parallel to runways.....its rediculous.

My plan to avoid this problem is to take off in the other direction, in the early morning calm, until I'm confident theres no problem clearing the wires by a large margin.

I will have to meet these Lazair people and start flying from here soon.

BTW: Chris's Lazair looks great, and he should have it in the air in no time at all....looking forward to flying with him.

Chris's dad has one to, but it is still a kit, but maybe he will get motivated to build it when he see's how much fun we are having......or snatch Chris's when his back is turned

The story of Chris's trailer is also amazing, since the U brackets where gone on one side, so only the pin in the spring was holding the axle in place over a good 30 mile trip.....His trailer is so big that it could hold 2 complete lazairs, Snow White and all of the Seven Dwarfs and still have room for the kitchen sink!

Ray

[JPXman]

where is this dry lake? near what city?

i'd love to make a lazair pilgrimage somewhere, was kicking around the idea of the reno air races in northern nevada... be like a western gathering or something.

[rayjb60]

If you look at the first or second thread there is a map, but for the benefit of those that are many miles away, "El Mirage Dry Lake" is in Southern California, in whats called the High Dessert.

About 70 miles East of LA, in the town of El Mirage.

El Mirage Dry Lake Location

I think we could get a pretty good Lazair Air Force going on here......we might even show up on the nearby Edwards AFB radar, causing them to scramble some jets to check us UFO's out.

There are about 8 Lazair trailers plus Chris and Me is 10 and I dont know if there were any in the hangers but I suspect so, so there may be a pretty good concentration of Lazairs here, and Im sure there are one or two guys from Utah that would be interested.....and some from Arizona to.

There is some potential here if we care to make the effort....I suspect we would create considerable interest in the design and probably get people wanting to place orders.

I wonder what it would cost to make Lazair kits these days?

Can you imagine a dozen Lazairs racing around the pylons in Reno!!!!!!!

It would be like a slow motion ballet.

But we would be doing what we do best....low and slow.

I'll bet the Reno event organizers would love it....such a contrast to the high speed demons zooming around.....maybe we could be the half time show

700-800 feet per second VS 70-80 feet per second .....Wow!