Tonight, Charlie and I resumed our "River Run" of the Rio Grande, from Alamosa (KALS) to Los Alamos (KLAM) in the A2A Simulations Comanche! Weather along the route was favorable, except that the wind promised to give us a challenge during our trip this evening. So we loaded into the plane to see whether we'd rise to it!
Our first leg took us about 40 miles downriver to Questa (N24), a 6,800-foot paved municipal airport just south and east of Ute Peak. We took off from Alamosa and successfully joined the river southbound, although in this area it's a small enough squiggle that we felt the need to verify our position via VOR before we felt certain we knew where we were. After passing Ute Peak, however, it took us some time to spot our destination. Once we found it from our position on a high left downwind, we hustled ourselves into position to make a successful arrival. It didn't work out too badly except for the eighteen-knot crosswind straight off of the left wing! We kept it on the pavement, mostly, and felt lucky to have done so.
Trip two took us past a private strip, Grant Besley (NM03) -- which hadn't been on the map when I sketched out the itinerary a couple months ago, and we concluded it therefore probably wasn't in the sim scenery either. So the destination on the second leg was Taos (KSKX) (which we kept mis-reading as "Tacos," much to the delight of two taco-themed users in the chat). We cut awkwardly across the departure path and descended into the left downwind (an agreed sim pilot sin) -- and the resulting landing floated quite a bit long and bounced once as well even though we couldn't really blame the wind this time. But the 8,600-foot paved strip afforded us plenty of room for error.
Our third leg's port of call was Ohkay Owingeh (E14), a 5,000-foot paved runway which we easily found downriver past an unmistakably large radio tower. Once again descending into the downwind, and once again carrying too much speed on final, we didn't bounce this one but we were definitely still lifting the nose well after the mains touched. Pitch control simply continued to elude us in this aircraft.
Finally we headed to Los Alamos (KLAM), site of the primary facility involved in the creation of the atomic bomb, and nestled immediately up against a chunk of restricted airspace therefore. Our friend Goodfixins pointed out that the airport calls for a westbound landing and eastbound takeoff only -- which worked out, because the wind seemed to be favoring an arrival on Runway 27 anyway. We tried to ride the ridge to the north and west to get set up on a 45-to-right-downwind, which didn't work out very well and left us quite high -- but once again we were able to get the altitude and speed under control. And this time we put all distractions out of our mind, focused on a stable approach followed by a smooth reduction in power and a gentle flare, and kissed the pavement ever-so-gently to close the night on a happy note. Now if we could only replicate that going forward, we'd be glowing! -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/slantalphaadventures