Dave Bigelow

I found out this evening that our friend and flying companion, Dave Bigelow died in the crash of his DG-400 on Friday. He had set out from Waimea (Mauna Kea Soaring Club) to attempt to break his own altitude record (Hawaii State). He failed to return and a search spotted the remains of his glider on Mauna Loa but they were unable to get to the site until this afternoon. A resident near the crash site reported a large foam and fiberglass chunk of something had landed in his yard about the time of Dave's disappearance.

Here's a picture of Sherman on the left, John Mitchell in the center, and Dave flying RC gliders at Dave's place on Waikii Ranch.



And this is Dave, in the glider, being congratulated by Woody Woods, after Dave's record setting flight of 33,531 feet in April 2008.




There's some cool in cockpit footage of that flight here: