John and Humberto's Excellent Soaring Adventure

Entire armies have been lost in here. There is absolutely no place to land

The soaring business is always varied. Sometimes a little harried, usually very interesting, normally a lot of work, but always varied. Last month I delivered an ASH-25 to a fellow in Mexico. It turned out to be the kind of trip that makes most of us want to be in the aviation business!

The ASH-25 is amazing: 25 meter wingspan, a 57 to 1 glide ratio, retractable motor, two places and cost in excess of $150,000. My customer in Mexico asked me to deliver it personally in order to properly check him out. I suspected that at the least this would be an adventure, and at best a soaring trip I would remember forever. It was the latter.

I was met on the U.S. side of the border by Gonzalo, my customer's man. It turns out it is a real insurance problem to drive in Mexico with U.S. plates so he just met me and took care of all customs and border issues and we were on our way in about an hour.

One of the first things I noticed was the quality of the new interstate highway we were driving to Monterrey on. Gonzalo mentioned that my customer, Humberto, owned it! He designed it, financed it, built it, and will collect tolls for fifteen years then give it to Mexico. I am only beginning to get calibrated to my host.

When we arrive at his home in Monterrey, suffice it to say I completely ran out of superlatives after the courtyard, entryway and living room. Thereafter, I just tried to keep my chin off my chest. The words "gracious living" just do not cover this home!

The next morning we headed straight for the gliderport. Humberto owns it, including the 5,500 foot paved runway. The ASH-25 will feel right at home in his hangar where he keeps his other gliders. (Nimbus 3DM, DG-500M, Ventus-CT, and Twin Grob).

There is a 5,000 foot mountain right off the end of the runway which faces the prevailing winds. They call it El Ascensor, the Elevator. Once off tow on the face of the Elevator, it is remarkable how long it takes to ridge soar to 5,000 feet even though the lift is at five knots. A 5,000 foot mountain is really up there!

Only halfway up the first climb, visual overload starts. This is a geologically beautiful mountain. There are huge detached flakes at least a 1,000 feet high detached from the main face by about 100 yards. Flying up this face is breathtaking.

We finally reach the top of the mountain and I realize it is an old volcano. This means that the steep face we have just spent ten minutes climbing is really the easy side of the mountain. The other side drops 4,000 feet straight down. This was an amazing place to ridge soar. If the glider was 30 feet over the spine the view out each side was completely different!

Next we blew off to the north. The high desert plain immediately turned into a rough mountainous area with the kind of scenery right out of a John Ford western. Mountains, chimney rocks, deep valleys, high plains all together! I then remembered all my western history about all the "bad guys" hiding out in Mexico. This really was the place. Entire armies have been lost in here.

There was absolutely no place to land, so after about an hour we head east to the plains area where the terrain is more hospitable. I remember checking the flight computer about then and notice that we had averaged 89 MPH for the last 140 miles. Not bad for late fall soaring when the lift gets weak.

Our second day's flying was not at all like the first. We flew over downtown Monterrey. This is a city of 3.5 million people. There was no problem over-flying the city. Humberto merely called the airport and told them we were there. They said fine! We spent about three hours ridge flying around the edges of the city and then thermally up over the steel mills or wherever else we wished to go. It is very odd for a glider pilot to fly for that extended period of time over a major downtown. Again, this was visual overload.

The third day was more of the same weather -- 90 degree temperatures, 7,000 feet bases, 4-10 knot lift. We overflew the entire city and ridge soared a really spectacular mountain on the south edge of town. This was another one of those old volcanoes like on the first day, but much greener. Again, visual overload. The view on one side of the ship was of a large city as far as you could see and out the other side is a huge volcanic crater completely overgrown with vegetation, completely lush and completely in contrast to the city. Amazing.

There were a number of vacation cottages perched right on the vertical edge of the cliff such that the deck in back actually hung over a 4,000 foot vertical drop. I hope they don't get to drinking too much when they crank up the barbecue! As a matter of fact, I hope they have somewhere else to go when it storms, as one is very close to the action when the thunderstorms roll by just overhead!

That completed the three days flying around Monterrey. Did I mention that for them the conditions really were not that great? We were never able to push into the "real" mountains to the west. There are evidently a series of three or four successive mountain ranges growing from our "low" height of 5,000 feet to over 12,000 feet. In the summer, this is where most of the flying is done.

I only hope I get another invitation.

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