I called Joe and Mark, two trike pilots in El Paso to let them know we were coming. They arranged hanger space for us at Cielo Dorado Airport.

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1 Friday August 27, th Cobra flight, 338th PIC, 3 landings Rio Salado Box, VLA, Monticello Canyon, TorC, Elephant Butte, Caballo, Hatch Valley Cielo Dorado Lonny Coots is having a fly-in at his farm outside of Roswell this weekend. His last was in 2006, and I am looking forward to this one. When he announced it, I saw the chance to do a multi-day triangular loop to Santa Teresa, then past the Guadalupe Mountains to Carlsbad and Roswell, then back home. We are doing the hard part of the trip first, so we can relax at Lonny s party before the final leg home. Belen Takeoff: 6:50am TorC Landing 9:53am TorC Takeoff: 10:33am Cielo Dorado: 12:46pm Trip Airtime 5.3hrs Total PIC Time: Total Logged Time: I called Joe and Mark, two trike pilots in El Paso to let them know we were coming. They arranged hanger space for us at Cielo Dorado Airport. Rick took off before dawn from Double Eagle and headed south. Paul and I were warming up our engines when he arrived. Rick topped off his gas tank and the three of us headed out for Ladron Peak. The winds were out of the south so we headed to the south side to stay on the windward side of the mountain. We crossed the Rio Salado and followed it upstream (left).

2 By the time we got to the Salado, the wind died off altogether. I have flow over this canyon a few times before, but never in dead calm winds. The Salado is sandy and wide, providing a continuous series of bailout spots along the length. I dropped down low and followed the first few bends of the canyon, then got behind Paul so I could capture his trike snaking up the canyon on my Aiptek video. After turning on the camera, I just concentrated on flying. All the Salado images are from my video.

3 We flew past the dirt strip at Magdalena, which looked pretty rough, and entered the plains of San Agustin, home of the VLA. Upper Left: The green grasslands stretched as far as you could see. Note the VLA antennas faintly visible on the horizon. We flew towards the center of the array, took a spin around the antennas.

4 We turned south towards Monticello Canyon. A faster more direct route would have been to follow the Rio Grande along the Jordana del Muerto, but this way took us to a wilder, less visited part of New Mexico. Monticello Canyon eventually empties into Elephant Butte Lake, just north of the TorC Airport, out next destination. Out here I noticed my CHT s were getting high. I had covered part of my radiator a few weeks ago to raise my CHT s a little, above 100F. Maybe I had overdone it. I could have landed on the dirt road to check it out, but such a landing is not without risk. I decided to play it safe and continue on to TorC.

5 I gained some altitude near the head of Monticello Canyon. There was a 4 mile stretch of hostile terrain until the first of a series of farms in the canyon. Left: Looking back upstream to the head of Monticello Canyon.

6 The most remote farm, near the head of Monticello Canyon.

7 Left: Following Paul down Monticello Canyon. Right: Hay harvest in Monticello Canyon.

8 We followed Monticello Canyon down to Elephant Butte Lake and followed the shoreline for a few miles. We left the lake for TorC Airport to meet Rick s wife Denise and refuel on the ethanol free mogas they have there. The TorC Airport has many runways, although all but one is dirt.

9 I removed all the velcro straps that covered my radiator, hoping that would drop my temperatures. Initially they seemed better, but still were high. Eventually they crept up to where they were before. Upper Right: We flew along the shoreline again down to Elephant Butte Dam and the island of Elephant Butte. Left: A few miles south of Elephant Butte is another lake on the Rio Grande, Caballo Lake.

10 South of Caballo, we entered the Hatch Valley. It was green chile harvesting time. I waved at the chile pickers and they all enthusiastically waved back. Upper right: An old bridge across the Rio Grande. Lower right: The Rincon Valley north of Las Cruces.

11 Upper left: Fort Seldon ruins on the Rio Grande. Upper right: We entered the Mesilla Valley, covered with pecan trees. Lower right: Those pecans paid for this house.

12 Upper left: Gadsen High has a nice football stadium. Upper right: On final at Cielo Dorado. It was a little thermally when we landed. I pulled off a nice landing and proudly took the first taxiway. I radioed, N17JX, clear of 22, Oh oh. A plane was coming up the taxiway. I was so pleased with my landing, I didn t notice him a the far end of the taxiway. I pulled into a driveway, made a 180 and got out of his way. That put me in position to record Rick s landing (lower left). I back taxied after Rick to the hangar we were staying it. It was HUGE.

13 I had ed Joe and Mark the link to my Spot tracker page so they could monitor our progress this morning. They were there waiting for us, and so was Denise. Joe and Mark own a Cobra, the same type of trike I have. Last year I had answered some questions about it over the internet and that is how I knew them. When I started planning this trip, I called them up to see if they could help us find a hangar. The hangar turned out to belong to a guy I went to high school with, although I didn t remember him. We unpacked our trikes and headed out to lunch at my favorite Mexican restaurant with Joe and Mark. Then we went over to Mark s house where we would spend the night. His yard was beautiful, complete with koi ponds and a putting green. He had a very nice dogs an Australian Sheppard, and two Bulldogs. Mark and Joe really rolled out the red carpet for us. We had a nice dinner at Mark s home and talked about flying forever. I hope they can fly up to Albuquerque so we can show them some of northern New Mexico. I was already sleep deprived, having arisen at 4:45 am that morning. We would do it again, getting up at 5am so that we could be in the air around 6:30 the next morning for the flight along the NM/Texas state line to Carlsbad and Roswell.

14 Here is my GPS track of leg one of our three day circuit around southern New Mexico. Cielo Dorado Rincon Valley Elephant Butte Lake Ri o and Gr ice nt Mo Belen llo de Rio Gran Ca on ny ala os Ri Rio nde a r G do Belen Ladron Peak VLA e