The Micro-Castle at Moriarty

I’m writing this from the Micro-Castle at Moriarty. I’m here for the popular Region 9 contest, and it is my first time in New Mexico.  I got here Thursday evening after the 2-day 1500 mile trip, and was met by local pilot and partner-in-crime Mark Hawkins (of Hawke Tracking fame).  He had arranged for me to park my camper next to a friend’s hangar and use their electrical hookup and water.  I almost told him not to bother, as I was planning to go home again the next day, because my last 200 driving miles coming in from the east had been through tall sagebrush and small scrub trees as far as the eye could see (and that’s a long ways out here).  You could land a sailplane in that stuff, but you wouldn’t be flying the next day, or the next month, or…  Mark got a laugh out of this, and told me that it’s not ALL that bad (he’s right, but…).

I have been wanting to fly Moriarty for several years now, but probably would never have come except for Mark’s urging.  The schedule of east coast contests is such that I haven’t been able to fit it in, and so I finally had to just say ‘screw it’ and come anyway (the 15 meter nationals is being held at Hobbs this year, so that helped win me over).  However, in order to do it I had to bypass Cordele and Ionia, and this trip will also involve a round-trip commercial air flight back to Caeasar Creek to CD the Region 6 contest.

Moriarty is located on a big, sprawling regional airport near the small town of the same name out in the middle of nowhere, about 30-40 miles east of Albuquerque.  The city is pretty small, but does have decent accommodations, some great authentic Mexican restaurants, and a friendly populace.

The next day (Friday) was my first flying day ever here, and it was interesting to say the least.  Things are completely different here.  The main trailer area is at least a mile from the normal grid area, and most local pilots have their gliders in hangars, or in other trailer scattered around the airport.  There is NO grass anywhere (or at least nothing that an easterner would call grass), so all assembly/disassembly is done on ramps and/or taxiways.  My trailer was right next to my camper, so I was able to assemble and water up on a taxiway, and then tow out to the grid area.  Thank goodness Mark was around to act as a native guide, or I would have been hopelessly lost, and would probably have wound up towing my glider on I-40 somewhere!   Arriving at the grid area, Mark pointed out that all the gliders there were tied down to several long tiedown cables, because if they aren’t, they have a tendency to blow away (and we’re talking about a fully ballasted 1100 – 1300 lb glider here now).  By now the wind was blowing about 20kt gusting to well north of 30kt by now, so I started to understand why the tiedowns were necessary.  Out here the wind blows all the time, so 20-30kt isn’t all that abnormal – as long as the wind direction is reasonably well aligned with the main east-west runway, the locals don’t worry about it too much.  The field elevation is 6201′ msl, so just walking around out here is enough to tire you out – pushing a fully ballasted glider around gets old REAL quick!  Fortunately, you don’t have to push it very far (not like Parowan where we had to push our gliders for miles).  By now it’s gusting into the high 30’s, and the only guys in the takeoff are area the pilots who don’t know any better – the locals have mostly decided to pass.  ‘Rocket Man’ Ken Sorenson (KM) is first off, and he connects and is soon climbing away.  Next is ‘Son of Rocket Man’ Danny Sorenson (KMI), and he doesn’t connect, and it soon back on the ground after dumping all his water ballast.  I wind up in the back of the line of about 10 gliders, and so I’m at least an hour behind Ken getting off the ground (only one towplane operating, and with a density altitude of over 9000′ msl, the tows take a while).  Once off, I’m treated to a real rock-and-roll tow and a couple of times I get to watch the tow rope curve back under my wing while I’m busy trying to keep my glider upright (or at least upright relative to the towplane, which is also having its problems).  Off (thank you Lord!) at 8200′ msl in a 3-4kt thermal (that’s 10kt up on one side and 7kt down on the other, for an average of about 3kt up).  With that low climb rate and that high winds, the downwind drift is pretty spectacular.  I had asked the tow pilot to go straight upwind, and I’m real glad I did, as I watch myself drift back over the airport while climbing through 10,000.  After about 4 years I managed to top out at around 12,000 (remember this is only about 6,000 agl!) and pushed upwind toward Albuquerque and the Sandia mountains.  More downs and ups, but nothing much to turn in, and very few clouds to target.  Even at about 6,000 agl, which is way higher than I normally get at my home club in Ohio, I was NOT comfortable.  At the risk of being PNG’d from yet another soaring club, the Moriarty soaring area is definitely an airport-to-airport proposition (there are some crop areas, and it’s not quite as uninhabited looking as the western part of the Logan area, but you get the idea). Also, the winds coming over Manzano and Sandia ranges to the west of Moriarty were breaking up the lift pretty badly, so finding good climbs was problematic, at least for me.  I worked my way toward the Monzano mountains toward some good looking clouds, staying within easy glide range of Moriarty the whole time, and finally, after several retreats and climbs, connected with a very good thermal under the clouds.  I got up to cloudbase around 16,000 and then pushed out upwind to be rewarded with the glassy smooth lift of wave.  This was only the second time I have ever flown in recognizable wave, the first time being about 10 years ago at my home club in Ohio.  There was absolutely no doubt this time, as I went from rough-as-a-cob to glassy smooth and quiet, with the vario indicating about 3-4kt up.  I rode the wave up to 17,500 while going south along the Manzanos, and then back north again up toward Sandia East.  At one point going north, I had to open my spoilers to avoid busting the 18,000′ ceiling; I was already going 120kt (VNE at 17,000 is about 130kt for my glider), so spoilers was all I had left.  After another hour or so I had just about exhausted my brain and my O2 tank, so I headed back to Moriarty. By this time the winds had dropped down to a zephyr-like 17-gusting-to-31kt, at about 30 degrees to the east-west runway.  I entered downwind at about 2000 agl, turned base right over the numbers, and used very little runway.  Mark was there to help me get the glider off the runway, and get it back to the hangar space he had arranged for me (having a hangar space for my glider is a new experience too!).

All in all, an extremely interesting and exciting flight.  I got some area familiarization done, got my second-ever wave flight complete with some hair-on-fire, spoilers-out-at-VNE moments, and a new appreciation for western soaring conditions.  After soaring, Mark and his wife Colleen took me to a local hole-in-the-wall Mexican cafe called Nachos where we had some superb authentic Mexican fare, including some salsa that started a fire on my tongue (the locals use sour cream as a fire extinguisher).  When I got back to the Micro-Castle well after dark, I was treated to an awesome night sky – stars everywhere.

I’m writing this the next morning, looking forward to another great day.  The local forecast is for Sunny with a high of 82, south winds around 5mph (yeah, right!) with some possibility of smoke coverage from a big fire to our north (don’t know how that can happen with a south wind, but what do I know). XCSkies is calling for blue conditions with strong lift, but only to about 10-12,000′; The locals will probably turn up their noses at such weak conditions, but we’ll see ;-).

Frank (TA)