Mark Mocho

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Mark Mocho in his Centrair Pegase 101A in front of his hangar, Moriarty Airportx

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Mark Mocho is a main character at Moriarty Airport. You can find him there almost every day of the week. He owns two hangars, one sailplane and a small business at the airport. He is known for his generosity and quick humor. Most of the pilots out there know that if something is broken, Mark can probably fix it. x

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Mark manufactures custom glider trailers. The precision of his designs and final products shows that he takes pride in his work. x

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When Mark is not busy designing something or helping someone make a repair, he can be found flying his sailplane. He is a member of the Albuquerque Soaring Club and races in the Online Contest (OLC) which is a world wide, all year soaring contest. Members are judged by both distance and average speed.

How did you get interested in aviation?

My father had a Beechcraft Bonanza, so I was introduced to looking at the world from the air at a young age. I loved going flying- anytime, anywhere. Dad used to wake me up early in the morning and we’d have breakfast together and then head for the airport. We would take an early flight and then he would drop me off at school. This was a great way to start the day, and I was definitely hooked. I built a ton of model airplanes while growing up. Flying lessons were not really an option because of my age and the fact that I wasn’t tall enough to multi-task- I could either reach the rudder pedals or see over the instrument panel, but not both. I didn’t start growing until after I graduated from high school, and then I didn’t have money for lessons.

What did you fly first, hang gliders or sailplanes?

Hang gliders came first for me, in the early days of the sport (1973). It was pretty dangerous because of the terribly unsafe equipment back then and the lack of experienced instructors. You basically learned from the guy who learned last week. It was a lot of fun, but looking back, I am kind of surprised that I survived those first few years. As the years passed, the equipment improved exponentially and I got more experienced without killing myself or having any serious injuries. That came later. I damaged knee ligaments and had to have surgery a couple of times, but I kept flying. After 28 years and over 2,500 hours in the air (mostly over the Sandia Mountains), I finally had to quit because my knees were giving me trouble. I still miss it, but I really like sailplanes now. I started with Rick at Sundance in 1999, got my license in 2000 and bought my first sailplane in August, 2000. Now, in November, 2007, I have about 1,100 hours.

What are the main differences between the two sports?

Performance is way better in sailplanes as far as speed and glide ratio (lift over drag), but a hang glider can often outclimb a sailplane in a thermal because of the much smaller circling radius- you can stay in the strongest part of the thermal. Sailplanes make very wide circles by comparison, so you don’t spend as much time in the core of the lift. But once you get to the top of the lift and head out on a glide, a sailplane just runs away at two or three times the speed and glide ratio. Another big difference is the cost. When I quit, top of the line hang gliding gear could total well over $15,000. At the same period, top quality sailplanes could reach over $100,000. They do hold their value better than hang gliders, though. A two or three year old hang glider is probably only worth half the original price.

What kind of adjustments did you need to apply to thermalling in a sailplane compared to a hang glider?

The biggest difference is learning what to do with your feet. Hang gliders are controlled by shifting your weight, and therefore the center of gravity of the glider, by using your arms and shoulder muscles- it is pretty physically demanding. Your feet don’t do anything except on takeoff or landing. In a sailplane, learning to coordinate the stick (pitch and roll) with the rudder pedals (yaw) takes some doing. It can be like learning to ride a bicycle, and you don’t want to know how long it took me to learn that! Other than the control input, the principles are just about the same.

What kind of advice can you give new pilots about thermalling?

The best advice for developing thermalling skill or any other necessary flying skill comes from flying a lot. Nobody can really teach you how to thermal just by talking about it or drawing diagrams- you have to go out and DO it. Thermals are pretty much all different from the “classic” toroid/vortex ring shown in drawings. You know- the “doughnut” shape in all the books. If you want a graphic example, just watch cigarette smoke in calm air. It looks just like the example- until you wave your hand at it. The disturbance caused by wind just trashes the nice regular curling upward flow and makes it look like a mess. This is assuming you can find cigarette smoke anywhere indoors these days. I like to say that if we could see what the air is really doing, we would probably be too scared to fly in it.

Have you ever flown power planes?

Like I said before, I flew with my dad, and ever since, I have rarely passed up a chance to climb into someone’s airplane for a ride. I don’t have a power license, and to tell the truth, I don’t have much desire to get one. It is still expensive, and I would rather throw the money up in the air and chase it around with my sailplane.

Does anyone else in your family fly?

No. I have three brothers and two sisters, and none of them has any inclination towards flight. My older brother and I split the cost of my first hang glider ($450), but he gave it up after maybe two weeks. Head bonking was pretty common back then, and maybe he had some sense knocked into him. I, on the other hand, have been able to avoid that.

What is your most memorable flight in a sailplane?

I think it was one of my first 500 km flights, in September of 2004. Several of us took off from Moriarty and flew up to Colorado and back. I turned at Culebra Peak, just over the border in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, over 250 km from the airport, and just about flew straight back without turning hardly at all. I think I made my last thermal turn north of Taos and had a 100 mile straight glide home. It took two and a half hours to get to Culebra and only an hour and a half to get back. That was great! Five hundred kilometers in four hours! It was a LOT faster and farther than I had ever gone before, but the best part was getting to do the flight in the company of several of my buddies from Moriarty. We didn’t see each other very much during the flight, but we were having a great time talking on the radio, giving condition and position reports. There was also some good-natured joking going on, which really made the experience enjoyable.

What kind of glider do you own? Why did you purchase that specific type of glider?

I have a Centrair Pegase 101A. It is actually my second one. I bought the first from a local pilot who gave me a great deal, primarily because the condition of the gel-coat surface wasn’t the best. However, I also suspect he fire-saled it to me because his brand new glider was about to be delivered and he subconsciously wanted to avoid wifely comments about having two sailplanes at one time. I bought the second one because it is in better condition and has better equipment, such as the flight computer, tinted canopy and a nicer trailer. I also like it because it has fairly good performance, it is really easy to fly and I think it is a very pretty glider.

You own a business at the airport, what kind of business is it and what exactly do you make?

My business, MM Fabrication LLC, started out when George Applebay asked me to build a custom aluminum sailplane trailer. The design is a pretty common one, but it takes some thought and decent fabricating skills to come out right. George liked it, and contracted for two more. He also sent me some other customers and it just sort of took off from there. I’ve built about 35 or so over the last seven years. I also branched out into things like glider tow bars, wing wheels and one-person assembly aids. I am also a dealer for Mountain High oxygen systems. Right now, though, a new opportunity has arisen through one of my flying buddies. I hope to be producing a tactically deployable multi-screen computer display. We think it will work well coupled with several Ground Control Systems in use by the military for operating UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). I personally think this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as marketing, though. There are many other uses for an easily transportable multi-screen display, such as trade shows and even the video gaming market.

For more information on the products that Mark manufactures contact MM Fabrication at : http://www.mmfabrication.com/