Intimidating view for a departure

Fearless Tower

Fearless Tower

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RWY 25 at EGE....what was that calculated climb performance????
EGE25.jpg



Got to watch an AA 757 depart a few minutes before me. Made the SNA noise abatement departure look like a cruise climb!
 
I've seen runways like that. Just remember to turn prior to hitting the mountain. ;)
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I've seen runways like that. Just remember to turn prior to hitting the mountain. ;)
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Likewise. A couple in the Phoenix area come to mind. And then there was the old Tappahannock, VA airport with the buildings and water tower close-in.
 
wsuffa said:
Likewise. A couple in the Phoenix area come to mind. And then there was the old Tappahannock, VA airport with the buildings and water tower close-in.
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True....the thing about Eagle is that the elevation is 6548' MSL. Add the summer temps and it gets really interesting!
 
That rock is a bazillion miles away, what's so intimidating about it? If you can't outclimb it, turn sometime before reaching 3/4 of a tank of fuel.

This is my view on takeoff on Runway 9 from KWAY:
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That's about what I saw every time I flew at the family farm runway. You either turn right after liftoff and I mean about the time you get to Vx at the top of ground effect or you crash and there are no other options.
 
fgcason said:
That rock is a bazillion miles away, what's so intimidating about it? If you can't outclimb it, turn sometime before reaching 3/4 of a tank of fuel.
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It is plenty far enough away, but let's just say that I wouldn't want to be trying that in the Duchess at gross on a summer afternoon.

When you watch the big jets do it, you understand why the Part 121 guys have to meet special currency requirements to fly in there.
 
True....the thing about Eagle is that the elevation is 6548' MSL. Add the summer temps and it gets really interesting!
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....and people wonder why I want a turboprop engine for my design? I don't think I'd be trying to climb out of there in July in a regular piston aircraft.

That rock is a bazillion miles away, what's so intimidating about it? If you can't outclimb it, turn sometime before reaching 3/4 of a tank of fuel.
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Yeah....pretty much. It's only "close" if you're hauling butt.

That's about what I saw every time I flew at the family farm runway. You either turn right after liftoff and I mean about the time you get to Vx at the top of ground effect or you crash and there are no other options.
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This is where that old sage advice about "Just because you can, does not mean you should and it certainly does not mean you have a divine mandate" comes into play with takeoff performance. I'll happily limit myself to runways (in settings with obstructions or terrain) that give me the minimum distance + 50% to avoid such a dichotomous choice.
 
SteveinIndy said:
....and people wonder why I want a turboprop engine for my design? I don't think I'd be trying to climb out of there in July in a regular piston aircraft.
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I don't think you want to be doing that departure procedure in a piston aircraft in July but you can make a VFR departure. There's room to circle off to the southwest of the airport to gain altitude. That mountain is about 4 miles away and there's no way you are going to outclimb it going straight out in a piston airplane unless it's some highly powered aerobatic aircraft or something.

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I don't think you want to be doing that departure procedure in a piston aircraft in July but you can make a VFR departure. There's room to circle off to the southwest of the airport to gain altitude. That mountain is about 4 miles away and there's no way you are going to outclimb it going straight out in a piston airplane unless it's some highly powered aerobatic aircraft or something.
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I know. I'd just rather have the power to minimize DA issues.
 
That barn is great.

KEGE is a piece of cake. It's KASE or KGWS that leave few options if you screw those up. Never seen a jet crazy enough to try KGWS though.

Supposedly the old Vail STOLPort was a piece of work too, but it's long closed. Custom built for the capabilities of the DHC-7.
 
denverpilot said:
That barn is great.

KEGE is a piece of cake. It's KASE or KGWS that leave few options if you screw those up. Never seen a jet crazy enough to try KGWS though.

Supposedly the old Vail STOLPort was a piece of work too, but it's long closed. Custom built for the capabilities of the DHC-7.
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Like Steamboat, 4452 @6882'. Even built a commercial terminal and (I think) never used it. Now everything goes to Hayden.

Of the paved public airports in Colorado, I think Glenwood is the toughest. Everyone talks about Leadville and Telluride but 3300' sitting in the bottom of a small valley makes me really think about t/o performance.
 
ejensen said:
Like Steamboat, 4452 @6882'. Even built a commercial terminal and (I think) never used it. Now everything goes to Hayden.
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SBS is interesting indeed. I landed there on Thursday afternoon in the duchess. Mountains make for an interesting pattern. Direct x-wind 12 kts gusting to 24 when I landed....let's just say it was not my prettiest landing.....but then a King Air came in shortly after me and made mine look good!
 
denverpilot said:
KEGE is a piece of cake. It's KASE or KGWS that leave few options if you screw those up. Never seen a jet crazy enough to try KGWS though.
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What about those L-39 drivers? :-)

Honestly flying out of FTG bothers me more than the terrain (at most places). At least I can see the terrain.
 
Yeah KGWS is the one that makes me feel slightly claustrophobic for a lack of a better word. Base to final out of sight of the runway with opposite-direction takeoffs usually sneaking out in front of you on a busy day, turn final and it's realively short and narrow stuck right up against said mountain with that ever-present sinker right over the river and trees at the approach end. It's "short" 'cause your groundspeed is higher up there. A "challenge". ;-)

The STOLport at Steamboat was used for commercial service. Rocky flew in there and had some rather interesting stuff. They did curved path MLS approaches at wicked steep arrival angles. I believe I recall one being allowed up to a 4.5 degree glideslope? Maybe more? Crazy. Slam dunk after Rabbit Ears Pass.

The MLS was closed when developers put high-rise apartment-style housing in the approach/departure path, AFAIK. Now everything commercial goes into KHDN.

Wild West Air Fest was at KSBS this weekend I believe. I wanted to go up there, but been sick all weekend. Sigh.

The coolest part about Rocky back then was with no TSA hassles, you could buy a pack of tickets ten at a time at local grocery stores, walk up to the fence at Stapleton, skis in hand, and be dropped off at basically the base of Steamboat mountain or at Avon or Aspen in roughly 30 minutes. We'll never see that ever again.

Avon's STOLPort is a Walmart now: http://www.airfields-freeman.com/CO/Airfields_CO_NW.htm

That website is cool and sad at the same time. Aurora Airpark (where I soloed in 1992):
http://www.airfields-freeman.com/CO/Airfields_CO_Denver_SE.html

Here's a fun one. Disney EPCOT has a closed STOLPort:
http://www.hiddenmickeys.org/PictFrame.php?Images/WDW/STOL.jpg

Scroll down to number 13:
http://www.hiddenmickeys.org/WDW/Property/Secrets/Secrets.html

Never knew that. Came up while I was hunting STOL stuff one night online... They stage busses on it now, apparently.
 
I took from Bryce Canyon this weekend with a DA of 9,700 in a Diamond DA40 normally aspirated single 180hp plane with all four seats filled. The thing about density altitude that does not get taught enough in my opinion isn't take off performance. We should all know how to figure out how much runway we will need and add the appropriate cushion.

What doesn't get taught is what happens once you leave the runway. On hot days it is very likely there will be heat-related updrafts and downdrafts and so while you may think you can climb at 500 feet a minute, that is really just an average and you might have to put that 500 feet against a 1,000 fpm downdraft for a bit before finding some wind going the other way.

The key to takeoff performance in mountain flying therefore isn't the takeoff. It is how you have pre-planned the next five minutes to ensure you have room to climb before hitting anything. At many airports I fly out of, this means going in the opposite direction of my destination due to down sloping terrain until I'm above a certain altitude before turning on course or just climbing in the pattern. It's also making sure when you do get to that big hill, you have enough altitude to clear it even in a downdraft.

I still had a mile left of runway when I lifted off of Bryce but there was only one direction I felt safe going until I was 2,500agl.

Bryce, BTW, is an awesome GA airport. You fly in, a shuttle picks you up and you get the shuttle to the park, which is absolutely spectacular.
 
Yep. You nailed it. The reason some airports are "one-way" is the departure is downhill or you can turn a shorter number of degrees to fly down-valley. Less time in the turn means less time losing lift to make it, of course.

You always need an "out" in the mountains. An "escape route", if you will. The terrain can easily out-climb your aircraft.
 
Here's Steamboat in the rain looking over the nose of the DC-3 on Friday afternoon before the airshow. We ended up circling for 15 minutes or so waiting for the rain/wind to pass before we could get in (ASOS was reporting 35 kts 90 deg to the runway as we were passing rabbit ears):

ColoradoDC-3weekend092.jpg
 
Rabbit Ears is a weathermaker, that's for sure. Nice photo!

Argh!!! This darn cold. As I figured, I'll feel recovered enough to go to work tomorrow.

I wanna go flyin'!!!

Oh well. A few more bucks in the flying account for a longer flying adventure next week, I suppose.
 
Wingsofglass said:
I still had a mile left of runway when I lifted off of Bryce but there was only one direction I felt safe going until I was 2,500agl.
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Heh, last time I was at Bryce I was at max gross with three passengers taking off at night. We did a climbing circle over the airport until we hit the MEA for the area.
 
ejensen said:
Like Steamboat, 4452 @6882'. Even built a commercial terminal and (I think) never used it. Now everything goes to Hayden.

Of the paved public airports in Colorado, I think Glenwood is the toughest. Everyone talks about Leadville and Telluride but 3300' sitting in the bottom of a small valley makes me really think about t/o performance.
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Leadville really isn't hard at all, get airborne, turn south and you can decend all the way to the Gulf of Mexico if you wanted too:D

Should have taken a picture looking east down the runway at Grand Co, that was intimidating
 
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Skylane81E said:
Leadville really isn't hard at all, get airborne, turn south and you can decend all the way to the Gulf of Mexico if you wanted too:D

Should have taken a picture looking east down the runway at Grand Co, that was intimidating
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If you mean Granby (Kremmling is in Grand Co too), yeah, no one in a pistion plane would talk of east unless something very strange was happening with the wind. Land and take off to the west at GNB.
 
I do, parked the 182 there for a week last summer, a east take off would probably be possible if you turned IMMEDIATLY but it would have to be really windy before I'd think about it. I know there was a slight tail wind when I took off for the sightseeing flight we took to avoid staring that mountain in the face, as did a King Air.
 
The altitudes on the right side of this clip from the sectional might make it a little clearer... ;)

4b94241c-bd60-3b35.jpg
 
That video is awful to watch.

You just want to holler "no, it's too late! don't try it!" when he starts the right turn... hesitates... Then tries to force it around with bottom rudder.

"Go up the river, crash into the soft(er) Aspen trees! Don't try that turn, awwww... Damn it!"

It's over that fast, too. Sobering training video, killed himself and his grandson... He hollers at the end to the kid to "hang on".

They could've survived if he could have brought himself to sacrifice the airplane...

Sigh. Don't turn uphill into rising terrain. No no no no no!

If I remember correctly, the aircraft, what was left of the bodies, and the video camera and virtually destroyed videotape were found something like two years after the aircraft went missing.
 
TangoWhiskey said:
Do I have the wrong KGNB? This doesn't look too bad (view is looking East):

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=40.0...d=_7B7c9YUXa8Lz_k7_QLWRw&cbp=12,94.05,,0,-1.9
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Looks a little different when you're on the runway and know that you can only get 21 odd inches outta your engine. I had also come in from the South and saw that the terrain starts rising at the end of the runway and just keeps going to 13,000 or so feet. Besides the town is SW of the airport and if I gotta loose an engine and crash I'd rather in a field near town than in the hills east.

Like I said, it can be done but it doesn't make it wise.
 
What I don't get is the "Straight ahead" mentality -- who said you have to fly right at that rock?

Leaving Windwood last year it was warm and windy. The DA isn't all that much with 180 HP, but it matters to a 65 HP engine.

24 departure is fairly obstacle free. Departure on 6 heads into the trees.

Winds were such that only 6 made sense. So I taxied to the very edge of the usable runway, accelerated in ground effect, and drifted left to stay clear of the trees. Once I had the trees out my right side window, I headed northwest while climbing. I didn't head west until I had at least 500' clearance over the ridges to the west.

Circle to gain altitude, deviate to avoid stuff -- it's the Aviate part of aviate, navigate, communicate.
 
denverpilot said:
That video is awful to watch.

You just want to holler "no, it's too late! don't try it!" when he starts the right turn... hesitates... Then tries to force it around with bottom rudder.

"Go up the river, crash into the soft(er) Aspen trees! Don't try that turn, awwww... Damn it!"

It's over that fast, too. Sobering training video, killed himself and his grandson... He hollers at the end to the kid to "hang on".

They could've survived if he could have brought himself to sacrifice the airplane...

Sigh. Don't turn uphill into rising terrain. No no no no no!

If I remember correctly, the aircraft, what was left of the bodies, and the video camera and virtually destroyed videotape were found something like two years after the aircraft went missing.
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Yeah that one is ugly. Hopefully it has saved lives, I know I will think of that video before every mountain flight
 
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