Departure full tail wind until the turn point, at 300 km/h ground speed, 8 min for 41 km, at 150 km/h IAS, giving a L/D of 135. The flight average speed is around 110 km/h, we are not on time for the speed record, but the distance record can still be tried. In any case, given the circumstances that provoked this attempt, the word “renouncement” will never cross our mind. My heart missed a beat when throwing a last glance to the blue line materializing the Atlantic ocean at Trelew’s bay. This is the city where the conclusive tragedy of “Vol de Nuit [Night flight]“, by Saint-Exupéry, took place. Fortunately, the conditions are distinctly better than those of the book, the bars of Sc merged together with the lenticulars, generating kinds of mushrooms having their bases toward 3.000m and their summits between 6.000 and 7.000m (Photo 19). But a glance to the compass makes me understand that it won’t be for us, they are situated very south of our route and it is necessary for us to reroute to the west to come back on track and, as for the first branch, to reserve us a possibility of escaping eastward with tail wind in case of difficulty. The west is indeed very closed, we see only solid white clouds below us.
