Albuquerque

AdamZ

AdamZ

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 24, 2005
Messages
14,866
Location
Montgomery County PA
Display Name
Display name:
Adam Zucker
I'll be in Albuquerque in two weeks for the Air Care Alliance Conference and have sometime to kill on Sunday before my flight home. Anything I should see and any recommendations for a CFI and rental plane if I decide I want to add a New Mexico airport to my log book?

Any Albuquerqueians here on POA?
 
AdamZ said:
I'll be in Albuquerque in two weeks for the Air Care Alliance Conference and have sometime to kill on Sunday before my flight home. Anything I should see and any recommendations for a CFI and rental plane if I decide I want to add a New Mexico airport to my log book?

Any Albuquerqueians here on POA?
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If you don't get an opportunity to fly, I suggest you ride the tram to the top of Sandia Peak. There (at least when I was last there) a very good restaurant at the top. The view is outstanding as well.
 
AdamZ said:
I'll be in Albuquerque in two weeks for the Air Care Alliance Conference and have sometime to kill on Sunday before my flight home. Anything I should see and any recommendations for a CFI and rental plane if I decide I want to add a New Mexico airport to my log book?

Any Albuquerqueians here on POA?
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Only one worth spending any time at all at in town - Del Sol Aviation, based at the Sunport.

As for places/things to do? You could fly up to Santa Fe for lunch at the restaurant (its in the airline terminal), or you could fly through the Tijeras Pass and see the easiest mountain flying available in the United States.

You could spend an hour and grab KABQ, KAEG, E98 and E80 in the same flight.

Beware of the Southwest planes in the Class C. Last time I was in Albuquerque, the controllers seemed to be very keen on turning GA in front of them or putting you too close to them.

Also - you could do what I did one night and get night current without flying a single pattern on the 13,000ft runway 8/26.
 
Oh, and you could do a two-fer - rent from Del Sol, fly to 0E0, then get a glider flight from Sundance Aviation, then fly back to ABQ.
 
SkyHog said:
Beware of the Southwest planes in the Class C. Last time I was in Albuquerque, the controllers seemed to be very keen on turning GA in front of them or putting you too close to them.
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It's nothing these days. Traffic is way down at Sunport. Last time I received a request to maintain maximum forward speed was 2 years ago IIRC. Also, military avoid flying on Sunday. My last flight was on Sunday afternoon a week ago and the airport was almost deserted. On the way back ABQ Approach told me "own navigation to runway 30" before I cleared the rocks. On a weekday it could be a vector 10 miles to the south "for spacing". Taxied on tower frequency, too.
 
zaitcev said:
It's nothing these days. Traffic is way down at Sunport. Last time I received a request to maintain maximum forward speed was 2 years ago IIRC. Also, military avoid flying on Sunday. My last flight was on Sunday afternoon a week ago and the airport was almost deserted. On the way back ABQ Approach told me "own navigation to runway 30" before I cleared the rocks. On a weekday it could be a vector 10 miles to the south "for spacing". Taxied on tower frequency, too.
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Wow!! Things have changed a lot in the last few years. Not that Albuquerque was every crazy busy, but that's still a major difference.
 
I was out there just last weekend. There was a ton of military activity in the air on Friday and Saturday. I finally got to see an Osprey in flight. The nuclear museum was cool too.
 
It's not like it used to be, IMHO. I remember how military was so crowded that they kept spilling into our ramp, so every day there was a T-6, F-18, or whatever. Or how a CH-47 almost flipped me over with rotor wash on Foxtrot. That was pretty fun. But last Summer tower actually asked us to make patterns at home field without going to Double Eagle because their staff levels were cut and they need operation count to maintain funding.

This article says the decline was about 20%, but actually it's worse, because F-16s are gone now too:
http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquer.../03/sunport-traffic-continues-to-decline.html
 
Thanks guys I'll look in to a lot of those suggestions. I'm going on behalf of Angel Flight East and speaking at the conference and I'm not sure what scheduling and time obligations are with that but I suspect I'll have some free time on Saturday and my flight out on Sunday is not until after 3:30 so hopefully I can squeeze some of that in.
 
ScottM said:
GREEN CHILI STEW!

And other Mexican food that is not anything like the Tex-Mex crap you get nationally.
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At Double Eagle II, the restaurant on the field.

And a visit into Old Town is worth the trip.
 
tinerj said:
At Double Eagle II, the restaurant on the field.

And a visit into Old Town is worth the trip.
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Bode owns that restaurant now. Skip it.

If you want the BEST New Mexican food, go to Los Cuates. Anything with green chile. You'll never eat that vomit that is Tex Mex again.
 
tinerj said:
At Double Eagle II, the restaurant on the field.
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I'm not militant about Bode, but Bombing Range Cafe is just a regular burger-and-eggs eatery, no different from any other. I commend their management for re-opening it in 2011, but landing at KAEG just for it makes absolutely no sense.

BTW, the thing about Bode is that they aren't "really" bad, like the place that locks a pilot in a room until he pays some bogus fee. Nothinkg like that is going to happen at Bode. In fact if you're a transient pilot, they're going to take a good care of you. The field has a self-service fuel (although every other local airport does too, even Sandia and Mid-Valley). The issue Nick is dancing around is that they are habitually unpleasant to renters and were losing that business steadily to Del Sol, based at the Sunport. I suspect part of the reason is that Del Sol is only a rental base and a school, so that's what they do. Bode, however, is a full-service FBO with mechanics, fuel sales, hangars, even restaurant. Perhaps taking good care of renters is not a priority for them. I dealt with Kevin Fredekind and he is a decent fellow.
 
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