A week of turbulence

ScottM

ScottM

Taxi to Parking
Joined
Jul 19, 2005
Messages
42,529
Location
Variable, but somewhere on earth
Display Name
Display name:
iBazinga!
Just needed to vent. Went to KSMD today to pick my niece. All week the WX has been nice CAVU but really bumpy. Even up high. Just getting tired of it and would like some smooth air.
 
Scott,

Go at night. :yes: I had a beautiful, smooth flight back from AMW after dark.
 
I had to pick up PAX in Fort Wayne today so no choice in the time. And I did fly at night on Monday. WOW was that rough. I wasn't sure I was going to get the plane down.
 
This can go on for weeks here at the base of the Rockies [downwind side]. It gets very, very old. During the decade or so I was instructing full time, there are several months I logged less than 10 hr. in flight, one memorable month it was exactly 5.1 hr.

Eventually, I decide to try a flight. Takes about the time I turn crosswind to wish I hadn't and when I land I am cured for a while. Talking mod to severe, strong up and down drafts, etc. Last time this happened, last winter, I took off in an A36 for a "pleasure flight," couldn't get above about 400 AGL as I fought my way around the pattern to land, Citation and couple of Cessna singles came into the pattern wanting to get on the ground NOW and didn't, had to leave. I landed ok, though my thighs were literally shaking after I taxied off the runway and I had to ask tower to let me sit there a few minutes so I could settle down. Tower said, sure, no one else is gonna land, the field is yours. Oh, well.
 
Baron 55 said:
This can go on for weeks here at the base of the Rockies [downwind side]. It gets very, very old. During the decade or so I was instructing full time, there are several months I logged less than 10 hr. in flight, one memorable month it was exactly 5.1 hr.

Eventually, I decide to try a flight. Takes about the time I turn crosswind to wish I hadn't and when I land I am cured for a while. Talking mod to severe, strong up and down drafts, etc. Last time this happened, last winter, I took off in an A36 for a "pleasure flight," couldn't get above about 400 AGL as I fought my way around the pattern to land, Citation and couple of Cessna singles came into the pattern wanting to get on the ground NOW and didn't, had to leave. I landed ok, though my thighs were literally shaking after I taxied off the runway and I had to ask tower to let me sit there a few minutes so I could settle down. Tower said, sure, no one else is gonna land, the field is yours. Oh, well.
Click to expand...

BTDT, same location as your experience. I can't believe some of the rotors that come off those mountains. Now I just avoid that crap.
 
Yep, BJC. I learned to fly there and have been there since. BJC, geographically, is on a bit of a ridge in the land [as seen on a topo map...sits up in the downslope winds]. We get winds for weeks, high winds. You do learn to fly in windy conditions, but the rotors mean that, often, it isn't the wind speed that is a problem, it is the turbulence. I've landed Skyhawks there in 40+ kts, no big deal. I've taken off in 5 kts. and been only barely able to control a Baron. You learn to read the clouds, but there are not always clouds to read. Makes good teaching opportunities: sometimes, you can take a pilot out onto the ramp, show them, simultaneously, rotors, cap clouds, lenticulars [stacked a half dozen high], roll clouds, etc. Beats a photo in a text book. A chief pilot at my school once told us in a CFI meeting, when we were joking about not flying for a couple weeks [turbulence], that, back in the 60s, when the airport was being planned, someone put a recording anemometer, etc., out in a field to check on winds and so forth. Later, retrieving the instrument, it was found to have been kicked over and ruined when a cow stepped on it [it was a pasture]; decision was, build the airport without the info'. Don't know whether that is a true story, but it is the windiest airfield in the state.

Guy called me last night, wanting some inst. currency practice in a 182. We canceled this a.m. before dawn. Pireps of mod/occl severe climbing west out of DIA...right over BJC.
 
Baron 55 said:
Yep, BJC. I learned to fly there and have been there since. BJC, geographically, is on a bit of a ridge in the land [as seen on a topo map...sits up in the downslope winds].
Click to expand...

Yeah, if it is windy any where BJC will get it. Golden Gate canyon points straight at it. I'm just north at FNL. We'll have 15 while BJC has 35+.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top