Dry Canyon Alamogordo, NM (USA)

[RobinHastings]

May 30, 2018: I had a good flight at Dry Canyon today. Fred Ballard, a Hang 5 from the Sylmar hang gliding club, was in Alamogordo with his wife Nancy. (She has done a whole lot of tandems with Fred, who often does two or three a day at Kagel Mountain in California.) Fred didn't want to fly a strange site on unfamiliar equipment, but he was quite happy to drive for me, so I took my U2-160 to Dry and launched about 11:00 am. It was a beautiful, typical Dry Canyon day, with clear skies, abundant thermals, and not too much wind. I had a very nice 45-minute flight there, getting up to 8000 feet MSL, and had an excellent landing in the Cox Field LZ. Fred, Nancy and I all had lunch at the Empire Buffet in Alamogordo. They're staying with her sister Irma in Gordo, but will catch the Amtrak back to LA in Deming on Thursday (tomorrow). Good folks, and it would sure be fun to fly with Fred when I next get out to Los Angeles. (fredsclassics@hotmail.com)
-Robin

[RobinHastings]

JUNE 8, 2018:
Hi, everybody. I just had a nice talk with Veronica Ortega, with the Alamogordo Community Services Department. Alamogordo is going to fence off the Cox Field LZ that we use, from June 18 until July 16. They want to use the LZ for an Independence Day celebration and also try to keep the ATV's and trucks from doing donuts in the field, I guess long enough for the grass to recover. The fence might even stay there permanently. (With gates, I assume.) If that happens, it would still be our field to use, but we'd have to adjust our landing approaches to account for it - not a big deal, it's still an enormous field. (By the way, she told me that the trenches around the field were put in to counter those very ATV's. The riders keep filling in the trenches with gravel so they can run all over the field. If you see any fill-in, please use a shovel or something to remove it.) (The bridges that Mike put in across the trenches are not a problem.) Veronica's phone number is 575-439-4324, and she's quite a nice lady to speak with. I may ask if they would fill in the ruts around the runway near the shade structure.
-Robin

[RobinHastings]

FRIDAY, AUGUST 3, 2018:
This was a good day for flying, it turns out. Zac Majors with his wife Moja, Kip Stone, Linda Salamone and Patrick-from-Oregon all came to Dry Canyon and flew with me. Both Moja and Linda are pilots, but they chose not to fly. Conditions were typical for summer: Thunderstorms building off to the east and to the north, and kind of hazy, with winds at launch pretty light. Zac was first off, with Kip and then Patrick also launching perfectly, between 3:00 and 4:00 pm. I took off about 4:00. Whereas the other three had superb soaring flights, with Zac heading XC along Hwy 82 (perfect landings at Cox Field for Kip and Patrick) I had a sled ride and plummet, barely making the LZ. I was glad to do even that! The winds were turning from southwest to northwest, which may have had something to do with it. It worked out OK for everyone, at the end of the day. I saw our friend Finis Miller briefly, before I headed home to Las Cruces and the others headed east to Big Spring, Texas, for the towing competition there.
-Robin

[RobinHastings]

Update on the flying of August 3rd: Zac Majors was chased by Moja along Highway 82 east past Cloudcroft and Mayhill, to where Zac finally landed at Elk, New Mexico in the flatter terrain on the way to Artesia. It was a distance of about 50 miles, by my reckoning, and in all my 35 years of flying Dry Canyon, I can't recall anyone taking that route. Zac stayed between 10 and 12 thousand feet MSL on the flight. Following the pickup, he and Moja joined Patrick Kruse, Kip Stone and Linda Salamone at the Big Spring aerotow competition in Texas. Great people, all of them - and the ones who flew were great pilots, too.
-Robin

[RobinHastings]

Sunday, Sept. 30th was a nice way to close the month. Juan Mira, who flew well yesterday at La Luz, also flew very well today, at Dry Canyon. With Bill Cummings driving (and coaching) for us, I was first off at 12:45 pm MDT in my Airwaves Formula. There were thermals to be had, but no vario - that was with Juan. As a result I did a modest job of bird braining the flight, mainly focused on making the landing zone and guiding Juan into it. I had a 10-minute flight and made the LZ, of which I was justly proud, considering it was a high pressure day, yet again. Juan did much better. He launched well at 12:55 in his Vision Mark 4, but sank from there, and yet when he reached the West Face the lift was abundant. He followed the vario and soared for his first time.
Juan came over the LZ at 500 feet AGL - not 20 feet like me. He set up a fine approach and had a perfect landing. (Hey, I did, too - but nobody was watching.) He took me and Bill out for Chinese food at Smiley's, then headed back to school at University of the Southwest. This guy is going to be good, and I surely hope he gets out from Hobbs a lot more often.
-Robin

[Bill Cummings]

Sunday, Sept. 30th was a nice way to close the month. Juan Mira, who flew well yesterday at La Luz, also flew very well today, at Dry Canyon. With Bill Cummings driving (and coaching) for us, I was first off at 12:45 pm MDT in my Airwaves Formula. There were thermals to be had, but no vario - that was with Juan. As a result I did a modest job of bird braining the flight, mainly focused on making the landing zone and guiding Juan into it. I had a 10-minute flight and made the LZ, of which I was justly proud, considering it was a high pressure day, yet again. Juan did much better. He launched well at 12:55 in his Vision Mark 4, but sank from there, and yet when he reached the West Face the lift was abundant. He followed the vario and soared for his first time.
Juan came over the LZ at 500 feet AGL - not 20 feet like me. He set up a fine approach and had a perfect landing. (Hey, I did, too - but nobody was watching.) He took me and Bill out for Chinese food at Smiley's, then headed back to school at University of the Southwest. This guy is going to be good, and I surely hope he gets out from Hobbs a lot more often.
-Robin

https://youtu.be/nStlbvNOz9E

(Posted before it finished uploading so check back later if the video doesn't open.)

[RobinHastings]

Great video, Bill! Juan did very well, especially with his prayers for lift. (He goes to a Christian university, after all.) And, hey, that first pilot off - he should have come in closer to the hill, where the lift is. Must be a rookie...
-Robin

[Bob Kuczewski]

Great video, Bill! Juan did very well, especially with his prayers for lift.

Yes, they were both very uplifting!!

Good job RGSA!! You guys seem to bring more hang glider pilots into the sport each year than the "world famous" Torrey Pines does. Have fun on your Columbus Day Weekend!!

[RobinHastings]

Wednesday, November 21, 2018:
With Finis Miller driving for us, Juan Mira and I launched Dry Canyon today - me at 12:20 pm MST, Juan at 12:25. Conditions were clear, but high pressure, with a lot of haze on the horizon in all directions. Prevailing winds were very light, but we each took off in thermal cycles of 12-15 mph. I immediately went west, heading to the LZ and whatever thermals I could find on the way - a few, small, weak, and not uplifting. Juan found a similar situation, and after watching me was well aware of the sink in between thermals. I had about 15 minutes of airtime; I cleared the fence into Cox Field by 30 or 40 feet, and made a good west approach and landing. Juan came over with plenty of altitude after 20 minutes in the air, dumped altitude (with a last turn pretty low) and had a perfect touchdown as well. Lovely weather in the LZ, calm, clear and 65 degrees F. (I have heard rumors that other parts of the country are not so fortunate in their flying conditions this Thanksgiving weekend...) Juan took me and Finis out to lunch at Smiley's Chinese Buffet, and we made it home to Las Cruces by sunset, with the full moon rising over the Organ Mountains. Once again, it's great to be alive and flying in Southern New Mexico. We will probably be trying to fly Mag Rim tomorrow.
-Robin

[RobinHastings]

Saturday, December 1, 2018:
I came, I saw, I floundered. With Finis Miller driving again, I went up to Dry Canyon launch this day, along with former RGSA pilot Edmund Ward. (Ed was just there to spectate - and, maybe, get inspired. He lives in Missoula.) I took off at 2:45 pm MST in the Formula 144. At first, I did fine, working the lift to several hundred feet over launch height. The winds were southwest, about 15-18 on launch, and the conditions were reasonably clear, with some cumulus clouds, not going up very high. Temperature was about 50 degrees F. I went down the ridge, still doing pretty well. The trouble came when I headed out across the Bowl, hoping to hit the West Face with plenty of altitude to work the lift out front. Wasn't happening! Instead the sink alarm went on, and stayed on, except for sporadic points of intense lift. Maybe I should have worked those, tiny though they were. Instead I quickly realized, as I rounded the corner, that not even the bailout zone by Fairgrounds Drive was going to be reachable. I was plummeting! I went for the bailout LZ in the brush where Scenic Drive and Indian Wells intersect, and wondered if I could even reach that. Well, I did, with one turn, and no slowdown when I tried to flare. I reached the ground in one piece and so was the glider, but that downtube will never be the same again. A nice local guy named Franklin was quickly there to see if I was OK; he was great to visit with as I packed up the glider, and waited for Finis and Edmund to find me. (I was glad to have a cell phone.) All's well that ends well, I guess; I had 15 minutes of airtime, and the three of us dined at Margot's, on First Street. Ed & I reached home in Las Cruces about 7:00 pm that night. Despite the landing, I enjoyed the day - it was nice to be out with some friends!
-Robin