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United States Pilots Association |
Once again the New Mexico Pilots Association is presenting its weekend mountain flying clinic. This includes a free FAA WINGS safety seminar Friday evening which covers flying safely in the mountains. There will be a half day flying in the mountains with a highly experienced and qualified mountain CFI. Upon completion of the seminar and the flying, each pilot will receive a clinic completion certificate, completion of a phase of the FAA WINGS program, and completion of a Biennial Flight Review (BFR.
This FAA approved course consists of a three hour seminar, free to the public, and three hours flying with mountain flying CFIs. The WINGS safety seminar will be held Friday evening, 26 May, at the Best Western Sally Port Inn starting at 6 pm. It will cover all aspects of flying in and over mountain, as well as landing and taking off from high altitude/high density airports. The mountain flying part will be conducted on Saturday and Sunday, where each pilot will fly with his/her plane in the mountains with a CFI. Depending on the number of pilots in this clinic, each CFI will fly with one pilot in the morning and another in the afternoon on each day. In a weekend we can accommodate up to 20 pilots. The seminar is free, but the cost of the instructor will be $200. The Mountain Flying Clinic is sponsored by the NM Pilots Assoc.
To take this course, each pilot must have a private certificate or higher and a current medical. The airplane must have a current annual and liability and medical insurance. Proof of the above must be brought to the clinic Friday evening. Each plane must also have survival gear on board (food, water, shelter, signaling equipment, and warm clothes) and a current Albuquerque Sectional chart. Bring this chart and your Pilot Operating Handbook (POH) to the class. NMPA will provide airport information charts. The cut-off date for reserving a slot for the flying portion is 12 May. Send your name, address, phone number, email address, certificates and ratings, flight hours and type of experience, and the year, make, and model of plane you will be flying. Send this information and a $200 check (made out to NMPA) to Dick Samuels, PO Box 2328, Alto, NM 88312. For more info contact Dick at dsamuels@valornet.com or 505 336 2194. Pilots who want to take this clinic but don’t have a plane contact Dick to make arrangements for renting a plane.
Please note that not everyone will be able to fly Saturday morning and then leave that afternoon. If many pilots sign up to fly, then some will be flying Saturday afternoon and Sunday, so plan your reservations accordingly. Dick will try to email a schedule to all pilots several days before the flying weekend. Our past experience has shown though, that plane problems, personal problems (and last fall the hurricane which prevented several people from leaving the Houston area), etc, quickly require changes be made.
Hotel: Best Western Sally Port Inn: $70 plus tax per night for up to four people. Cutoff date is 5 May 2006. Free full breakfast. Airport pick-up. Call 800 528-1234 or 505 622-6430 to reserve your room.
FBO: The flying will be out of the Great Southwest Aviation FBO at Roswell, NM, Industrial Air Center (ROW). The field elevation is 3671 feet. Rental cars are available, and there is free tiedown and a fuel discount. The phone is 505 347-2054.
Roswell is a town of over 45,000 on the east side of the 12,000 ft Sierra Blanco in the Sacramento Mts and the Lincoln National Forest. Roswell is best known for the alleged crash of an alien space ship on a ranch outside of town in 1947 and the supposed cover-up by the Air Force. The first venture into space rocketry began in Roswell by Dr Robert Goddard from 1930-1941 as he developed rocket science which led to our travel into space. Visit the International UFO Museum and Research Center, LT GEN Douglas McBride Museum on the campus of the NM Military Institute (high school and two years college), the Roswell Museum and Art Center, or the Spring River Park and Zoo.
Anyone who might have an interest in western history should arrive a day early or stay over, rent a ca,r and travel back in time by visiting the historic town of Lincoln, about 65 miles west of Roswell in the foothills of the Sacramento Mts. Lincoln County is where the bloodiest of western wars took place from the mid 1870s to the early 1880s. Two of the best known participants were Sheriff Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. It all began in Lincoln and ended in Ft Sumner in 1881 with Garrett killing Billy the Kid after he shot two deputies when escaping from the Lincoln Jail. The entire town is mostly just like it was in 1881. Nearby is Ft Stanton, a US Army Post created in 1855 to support the war against the NM Indians named for a CPT Stanton killed near the town of Mayhill. A little further away is the resort town of Ruidoso (elevation of 6720 ft) with the largest purse quarter horse racing anywhere (its free), casinos, the Museum of the Horse, and a town full of shops, art galleries, and restaurants. Just north of Ruidoso is the town of Capitan with its Smokey Bear Museum because that is where Smokey was rescued from a forest fire in the Lincoln National Forest as a small cub in 1950. He was treated for his burns and flown in a GA airplane to Washington, DC, to live until he died in 1976 in the National Zoo. He is buried in a small park at the Museum. South of Ruidoso is the resort town of Cloudcroft (elevation of 8650 ft) with several art galleries, shops, and restaurants and an excellent pioneer museum. It has a very scenic lodge, built in 1899, which has the highest golf course in the US and views stretching a hundred miles away. About 95 miles south of Roswell is the world famous Carlsbad Caverns.
So there are plenty of adventures for the entire family during this Mountain Flying Clinic weekend. For more information about NMPA go to www.nmpilots.org .
Bob Worthington
New Mexico Pilots Association