Featured

Taking flight: WHEELS Museum receives a donated glider

20241212-news-wheelsplane-001
Bodhi Battaglia, 2, with his grandmother Jill Petraglia, looks up at the 981 Burkhat Grob Flugzeugbau G103 Twin Astir that was donated to the WHEELS Museum, on Wednesday.
20241212-news-wheelsplane-002
The donated glider has a 57-foot wingspan and had to be hung diagonally in order to fit inside the WHEELS Museum.
20241212-news-wheelsplane-003
The 1981 Burkhart Grob Flugzeugbau G103 Twin Astir donated to the Wheels Museum from a glider club based in Moriarty is now suspended in the museum.
Gino Gutierrez
Gino Gutierrez Podcast Editor
Published Modified

If you’re looking for the new glider at the WHEELS Museum, all you need to do is tilt your head toward the ceiling.

Suspended overhead, the 1981 Burkhart Grob Flugzeugbau G103 Twin Astir was donated last week to the museum by a glider club based in Moriarty. The museum’s staff pieced the aircraft together and built supportive beams and wiring to hoist it up.

The glider’s wingspan measures 57 feet — nine feet longer than the width of the room in which it has been suspended. Therefore, the staff had to hang it diagonally.

Despite the tight fit, WHEELS Museum President Leba Freed hopes the display will attract more guests to the museum nestled in the Albuquerque Rail Yards at 1100 Second SW.

“I hope children who visit the museum look up at that glider and think, ‘I can build or fly that,’” she said. “I want them to be inspired.”

WHEELS in the museum’s name is an acronym for We Have Everything Everyone Loves Spinning.

wheels museum plane museum good_news glider donated albuquerque planes wheels railroad rail yards
Powered by Labrador CMS