Flying with Volcanoes!

Gnomad

Gnomad

Filing Flight Plan
Joined
Sep 25, 2012
Messages
29
Location
Charlotte, NC
Display Name
Display name:
eparker99
I grew up out West, but currently live in NC (where I learned to fly). Having spent most my time flying around the SouthEast, I was lucky enough to recently complete a 9 day, 6145nm flight out West in my Diamond DA42. Visited old friends and family while on the trip, but one of the highlights had to be this leg through central Oregon and Northern California seeing, in complete awe, the volcanoes! :D


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCcCNMPsd_Q
 
Man, I thought we talking about flying with yet another medical condition. Sounds painful!:D
 
Amazing aren't they? I vacationed on the shores of Lake Attitlan in Guatemala a few years back. It is literally ringed with volcanoes. There is one that is so steep and forested the Conquistadors were never able to subdue the people on it. The Guatemalan army didn't do much better either, during the war the revolutionaries were based there and there wasn't much the army could do about it.
 
Until 18 May 1980 this one was 1,300 feet higher ...

P1010695.JPG


IMG_1005.JPG
 
Missed the eruption by one week. Was driving my Chevy Blazer by Mt St Helens on 5/11/80 taking it to SeaTac to have it shipped to Alaska. A week later my friend pounds on my door and said you got to hear this. He was a Ham Radio operator and was listening to all the chatter about the eruption.

Funny the things that stick out in our memories.
 
Shasta, eh?

Nice place.

It makes a helluva visual checkpoint, too. You can almost see it from Sacramento on a really nice day.
 
tmyers said:
Missed the eruption by one week. Was driving my Chevy Blazer by Mt St Helens on 5/11/80 taking it to SeaTac to have it shipped to Alaska. A week later my friend pounds on my door and said you got to hear this. He was a Ham Radio operator and was listening to all the chatter about the eruption.
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Wow. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time... ALMOST.

Harry Truman was not so lucky... then again he lived there, and refused to leave when the evacuation orders came.
 
azure said:
Of course, the most awesome volcano on the continent is not even a mountain. We should pray it will not have a full scale eruption during the Holocene.

http://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=325010
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I overflew Yellowstone a day earlier, with a landing at Jackson Hole. Old Faithful erupted on my second 360, one of the coolest moments of the entire trip! Still working on that video. :)
 
Henning said:
I assume that refers to Yellowstone, yeah, if that goes off, it'll be really bad.
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ALMOST as bad as having to sit through "2012" a few years ago...

Also, Gnomad, that sounds amazing. I've been lucky enough to see Old Faithful a few different times in the summer and winter. But from the sky? That's going on my "to-do" list.
 
Henning said:
Yeah, but Taal is more likely to hit first.
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Taal is certainly dangerous, but to my knowledge has never produced a VEI 8 or even VEI 7 eruption.

Closer to home, I'd actually worry more about Rainier than Yellowstone (also not expected to produce anything close to VEI 7 - St. Helens was a 5, iirc).

But Yellowstone HAS had a VEI 8 eruption during the last million years, and at least 2 others further back but still during the Pleistocene. Depending on how much material gets into the stratosphere, an eruption of that magnitude COULD cool the climate enough to cause crops to fail for a decade or longer. And for sure, a VEI 8 Yellowstone eruption would render a large fraction of the US uninhabitable for a long time.

There is speculation that the Lake Toba eruption 70,000 BP (VEI 8) could have nearly wiped out the human race.

Very unlikely to happen during our lifetimes, but the consequences would be devastating.
 
DocDerz said:
Also, Gnomad, that sounds amazing. I've been lucky enough to see Old Faithful a few different times in the summer and winter. But from the sky? That's going on my "to-do" list.
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Still working on the Yellowstone video, but here's a screen grab. Initially, my plan was to land at West Yellowstone, spend the night, check out 'Old Faithful' etc...but after seeing it erupt from the air, and with the amazing Grand Tetons calling to me on the horizon, I flew over to Jackson Hole instead. :D

Za1Ika.jpg
 
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Gnomad said:
Initially, my plan was to land at West Yellowstone, spend the night, check out 'Old Faithful' etc...but after seeing it erupt from the air, and with the amazing Grand Tetons calling to me on the horizon, I flew over to Jackson Hole instead. :D[/IMG]
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Well, of all the people involved with that screengrab, you definitely had the best view. Can't wait for the video.
 
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