Hey, Alamogordo's Space Museum! Look out for the Tornado coming your way
ALAMOGORDO – It’s no easy task to tow a Tornado jet fighter that’s 20-feet tall, weighing 12,000 pounds with a 46-foot wingspan and a nose to tail length of over 56 feet, but Otero County, Alamogordo, Holloman and state personnel are moving it from Holloman Air Force Base to Alamogordo Saturday, Jan. 12.
Everyone involved with moving the aircraft is asking the public and motorists to be patient due to the rolling road blocks on La Luz Gate Road and U.S. Highway 54/70 between 10 a.m. and about 2 p.m.
“It’s going to be quite the ordeal here,” Otero County Sheriff David Black said. “We’re going to do a rolling road block. They’re (Holloman and German air force) going to hand it over to us around 10 a.m. at the Holloman La Luz Gate. It’s probably going to take us until about 2 p.m. to get it to the Fairgrounds.”
First the Tornado moving entourage will have to navigate the La Luz Gate Road and Highway 54/70 turn onto the highway.
Black said they will make the turn from La Luz Gate onto Highway 54/70’s northbound lanes to travel south then at some point move it over to the highway’s southbound lanes as soon as possible.
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“It’s going to be a time-consuming deal,” he said. “On La Luz Gate we’re going to stay as far to one side as possible and make the vehicles pull off on the side of the road as we go by then let them back on the road.”
Black said La Luz Gate Road is not going to be an issue for traffic volume.
“Once we hit 54/70 then we’re going to have a lot of issues because we’re going to have a lot of traffic,” he said. “Instead of turning south into the southbound lanes, we’ve got to go between the lights for the intersection.”
As the aircraft is moving south in the northbound lanes traffic stopped, they’ll let all the southbound motorists travel down the highway, Black said.
“When we pull into the southbound lanes, it’s (traffic) going to kind of stack up until we get to the next intersection,” he said. “It’s going to be as we go, we’re going to turn them (motorists) loose when we can. We’re going to have to navigate the 82/54/70 junction then Scenic Drive intersection and Glacier. We’ll have to go into the opposing lanes then back over again.”
When they get to Glacier Drive, they will travel south in the northbound lanes to the Fairgrounds, Black said.
“We’ll have to stop all that traffic,” he said. “Either we’ll divert them up Fairgrounds Road to go around us or they can sit, wait and see the plane.”
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Black said OCSO, Alamogordo Police, Holloman Air Force Base, PNM, the Highway Department and Otero County Emergencies Services are going to be in the tow crew for the Tornado’s journey.
“This going to be about 4 hours to get it to the Fairgrounds,” he said. “It’s not going to be long. We’re going to get them through (motorists) as quick as we possibly can. We’ve got lots of people involved with it to make it as quick as possible and a safe move. There’s no way to put it on a trailer.”
The jet will be on display for the public at the Otero County Fairgrounds Sunday between noon and 5 p.m. then it will be moved to its home at the New Mexico Museum of Space History Tuesday.
NMMSH is hosting an exchange ceremony at 1 p.m. Sunday with a host of activities that include air rockets for children, trash can launches, demonstrations and photo ops with the Tornado. Food vendors will also be available.