When the Terrain climbs faster than the plane

[flyingcheesehead]

Someone asked if they survived it. The ground team folks I've talked to said no, back then. Airplane crumpled into a very small physical space. The quintessential "straight in between the trees" that barely breaks a tree branch or two on the way down, was how the crash site was described to me, many years ago.

Looked to me like one wing probably got torn off before the other, once they get down into the trees and you start hearing strikes, they quickly roll inverted to the left.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

The folks in McCall aren't known for flying in conditions where winds are high into those canyons. They're pretty well regarded instructors, and likely teach folks not to go when conditions are like that.

When we landed at Johnson Creek, the CFI told me "If we feel so much as a breath of wind, we're outta here." That was at about noon. They definitely don't mess around with the bad late-afternoon air.

The biggest skill I hear you need to have nailed before attempting some of those strips, is landing exactly on your target at your desired airspeed. They work with students on that. Knowing the exact power settings for the aircraft, and consistently hitting the spot on-speed, at airports where it's not as critical, working the way toward the more difficult backcountry strips.

Yup. We actually started with airwork, going up to about 8,000 feet and doing stalls in different configurations, finding power settings that would result in the desired "canyon airspeed," and worked our way up from relatively easy strips to more and more difficult strips and terrain.