On Dec 7 2009, 3:48*pm, Mike the Strike wrote:
Several of our members have recently been surveying possible landing
strips for our contest database and Steve Koerner came across an old
crashed glider in the Arizona desert.....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/3676667...7622824263137/

Registration was N71JR.

Suggestions and speculation welcome!

I was contacted by a pilot who has flow at Estrella for many years.
He told me he knew about this glider and I asked him to write up what
he knew. His wife sent the following in an email.

"back in 1986? 1987? joe was looking for a new trailer for his 1-35
that he had bought in moriarity, new mexico. the glider came with a
closed in trailer but it was big enough to make a mobile home out of
it!!! joe thinks he saw the ad for a trailer in the ssa magazine and
called a tel. # down in tucson. it was the wife of jordan reid who
was already deceased (from cancer we think) and she was just trying to
get rid of it. she told joe her husband had been an aeronautical
engineer at the university down there and that the trailer had a
glider in it that he had built, but after 5 or 6 test flights, the
wings were fluttering really bad. in the meantime he got ill and
could never fix the problem. she told joe she would sell him the
trailer with the glider in it and warned him it was not flyable. some
friend of their family actually delivered the trailer and sailplane to
estrella sailport for joe. the trailer was 1" square steel tubing
with no skin on it and very well built. joe and i covered it and
still have the 1-35 in that trailer!!!...................now for the
glider.......there was a logbook with the 5 or 6 entries in it showing
the plane was dangerous to fly. joe said the glider was in very good
condition and primed but not painted. he took out all the
instruments, push rods, moving parts, etc. and hauled the rest of the
glider to the stanfield dump!!!!! not too long later (maybe a year
later?) joe and i were out exploring the desert near estrella looking
at land. he slammed on the brakes and was freaking out because he
realized it was the glider he had taken to the dump!! it was up along
a fence on someone's property that obviously had a runway on it. we
met the people who owned the property (we have no idea now what their
names were) and they were very friendly and only stayed on the
property sometimes (they had another home in the phoenix area). they
told us they went to the stanfield dump 1 day to throw out their
trash, saw the sailplane, and decided it would make a wonderful
decoration for their property!! joe unfortunately threw away the log
book when he took the sailplane to the dump which he obviously deeply
regrets. he wants everyone to know that mr. jordan reid had put a
huge amount of effort in that glider and the trailer also. everything
was very well built and it is so sad he couldn't really enjoy it."

So it appears that the builder abandoned the project due to failing
health and it was not ever flown by anyone else.

Andy