Mountain flying

[flyingcheesehead]

Good article and video on AOPA online:

http://www.aopa.org/members/files/pilot/2009/april/backcountry0904.html

Some of the most beautiful flying I've ever done was the mountain flying I did last summer. I can't wait to do it again. It does give me pause that one of the experts seems to have had so much trouble, though.

I would strongly encourage anyone to go take a backcountry course, and I'll strongly recommend that you do so in McCall, ID. http://www.mountaincanyonflying.com/

 

[Bob Bement]

That can happen to the best of pilots. Airplanes and airplane engines are a couple thousand parts flying in close formation. Things happen, and in the mountains you can add another dimention, to the art of keeping your butt safe. Flying up canyons, when the winds are too strong, with low clouds and succor holes, anyone of these should be shouting to you. I am not vain enough to think it couldn't happen to me too. I have been lucky so far but I will never say it won't happen to me. Bob

 

[gprellwitz]

Good article. They quoted both the late Sparky Imeson and the very much on time Dr. Bruce Chien!

The approach at Aspen is challenging when flying visually, and has challenging instrument approaches as well with steep climb requirements, says aviation columnist Bruce Chien of Peoria, Illinois.

 

[Everskyward]

They quoted both the late Sparky Imeson and the very much on time Dr. Bruce Chien!

They also quoted another POAer, Midlifeflyer, a number of times :smile:.

Lake County Airport is North America’s highest elevation public-use airport. “It’s not the approach itself—it’s in a wide valley—but it’s the sheer altitude of 9,927 feet msl that requires a modified technique,” warns Denver-area flight instructor Mark Kolber of Midlife Flight. The traffic pattern altitude is 10,700 feet msl, and the runway is 6,400 feet long.

 

[gprellwitz]

They also quoted another POAer, Midlifeflyer, a number of times :smile:.

Dang, I missed that! They quoted Gig Giacona, too!

“I was going to take a mountain flying class there last summer and because of a heat wave [creating high density altitudes], I couldn’t fly,” recalls W.R. “Gig” Giacona of El Dorado, Arkansas. One of the topics that class covers is, “What we can do when performance charts do not include our operating altitudes.”

 

[tonycondon]

Wayne Bower and Jim Wolper were quoted in there too...