November 6, 2020 - Southwest Soaring Museum, near Albuquerque, New Mexico
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Lynnette and I drove south from Santa Fe to the east side of Albuquerque in Moriarty, New Mexico to visit the Southwest Soaring Museum. Our old Ka-4 Rhonlerche glider now resides here. I have wanted to visit it for years but never had the chance. The museum was closed for to the Chinese Virus but their web page said email them to visit by appointment. So I emailed and sure enough, someone responded and agreed to meet at 1PM.
At 1PM, we met Colleen, who took us in the museum.
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And there it is! I did my glider solo in this ship, as well as my glider checkflight.
Bruce and I bought the K-4 down in Summers, South Carolina in July 1996. We flew the K-4 for a few years then Bruce and I did a full restoration prior to taking it to the International Vintage Sailplane Meet at Elmira, New York in 2000. We sold the K-4 in July 2004.
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Colleen let me sit in the Rhonlerche. That brought back some memories.
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| I had a lot of good flights in this old bird. |
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| The Ka-4 was exactly the same as when we sold her. The guy we sold her to trailered it back to New Mexico. I don't know if he ever flew the K-4, but he did donate it to the museum. |
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| I'm glad to see the Rhonlerche ended up in such a nice place. |
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Some stats.
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| Colleen said the Ka-4 is one of the most popular gliders in the museum. Everyone loves the transluscent wings. Bruce and I intentionally made them transluscent during the restoration since the Rhonlerche isn't a particularly attractive glider, and we wanted to do something to make it interesting and unique. |
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The interior is exactly as when we sold the glider.
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| Flashback!!! Flying the K-4 at New Market, Virginia a few months after we acquired it in 1996. |
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| Greasing it on at New Market. This is where I took glider lessons and soloed. |
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| Restoring the K-4 in the winter of 1999/2000. Here we have ripped all the fabric off the fuselage and wings. Bruce had restored many planes but this was all new to me. |
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| Bruce blasted the fuselage steel tube frame and then epoxy-coated it with bright red. We also replaced the birch plywood on the forward fuselage. |
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| Flying the restored K-4 over Jan Scott's Flying Cow farm. |
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A good look at the transluscent wings and elevator from the ground at Elmira, New York.
I ended up with 56 hours in the Ka-4; which is a lot of time in such a low performance glider (unless you are an instructor). My longest flight ever was 2.1 hours. I told people that if there was great lift, you could climb in the K-4. If there was good lift, you could stay up (hold altitude). If there was no lift you'd be on the ground in 18 minutes. If there was sink, the airfield better be right in front of you! But she was a good ship.
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| Bruce also owned this L-Spatz at one time. |
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| A replica of the Wright 1902 glider in which they learned to fly before moving to the powered stuff. |
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| It was very nice of Colleen to give her time and allow us to tour the museum and see the Ka-4. She is a glider pilot and instructor at the Moriarty Airport and filled me in on the soaring in the area. I'd love to come back and do some world-class soaring here. |
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Leaving the Southwest Soaring Museum, we headed west through Albuqueque to the Petroglyph National Monument on the west side.
There wasn't anything we really wanted to see in Albuquerque although we did give consideration to a Breaking Bad tour! (I think we did drive by the fast food chicken restaurant that was used for Los Pollos Hermanos in the show. You can drive by Walter White's house but apparently a lady now owns it, sits outside, and yells at tourists who drive by!).
There wasn't much to the Petroglyph National Monument which is spread out over multiple sites. We went to one site, hiked up a hill to look at some petroglyphs, got a nice overlook of Albuquerque, and then headed west.
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At the base of a hill in the late afternoon.
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A petroglyph!!!
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| There's more! |
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| Heading up the hill. |
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| Looking southeast at Albuequerque. |
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Looking east at Cibola peak. The Sandia Peak Tramway is rated high on TripAdvisor's Things To Do in Albuquerque but it is an all-day thing and we didn't have the time.
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| Houses are built right up to the National Monument. |
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Looking down at the way we had come.
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| Heading west on Interstate 40. |
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| We spent the night in Gallup, New Mexico at the El Rancho Hotel, which is kind of a neat place. We had stayed there in our June 2011 trip. |
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| Each room is named after a different movie star. As you can see, we stayed in the Lucille Ball room. The rooms are dated and small though compared to a modern motel. Dinner in the restaurant was very good. Plus they have a well-stocked gift shop. I liked the El Rancho. It's a nice change of pace from the standard motel room. |
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