New Mexico

A place to stretch the truth a little...
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Greg Kendall
Posts: 68
Joined: Sun Dec 24, 2006 9:42 am

New Mexico

Post by Greg Kendall »

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the Las Cruces area for work. I’ve been driving to get here, so bringing my glider of course. The flying here is great. Local pilot, Robin Hastings is kind of the last of the active pilots in the area. He’s a super nice guy with a wealth of local knowledge and a real 4x4, which is pretty much needed for the launches around here. He’s practically begging for people to come fly with him.

I’ve now flown three times, from two sites, and got over 15K each time. On one flight from Dry Canyon, which overlooks Alamogordo and White Sands, I got 163 miles from launch and realized that my GPS had shut off. I was at 11K, with good lift, good clouds, and a monster tailwind, but I knew that if I didn’t land soon, I would risk losing my whole track log. Also, I had to work the next morning, as did two coworkers in the truck chasing me. Plus, my radio was crap, I had doubts about my T-Mobile working there, the only town I could see was behind me, the chase crew didn’t know where I was, I didn’t know where I was, and after 6 hours in active air, I was a little tired. I decided to land. I pointed into the wind for a vertical descent to a no-flare, no-step landing with both hands on the base tube. My phone worked fine and the truck showed up just as I finished breaking down. Even with just one quick stop for gas, we got back to the hotel at 1 am. My track log got 93% of the flight.

https://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-3.0/p ... =219448264

I’m going to be in the Las Cruces area off and on (mostly on) all summer. Flying might get a little iffier as we get deeper into the monsoon season, but Robin says there will still be good days. The drive time to get here is about the same as for Lakeview Oregon. If you’re thinking about a road trip...
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