I have been a pilot for quite some time and have flown a variety of aircraft in a variety of situations. One area where I don't get a lot of practice (OK none in Florida) is flying in and around mountains. I lived in South Carolina by the blue Ridge Mountains but they are much smaller than the Rockies. The Blue Ridge highest peak is 6684 feet.
The Rockies have lots of 14,000+ foot peaks. Our airplane is equipped with a 300 HP engine an upgrade from the stock 285. Engines run on air and fuel and while we still have all the fuel, as you climb higher you have lower pressure and less air density. This means less available power. At 10,000 you have about 65%, at 14,000 a bit over 50%.
In the mountains your plane is under powered. The mountains also create additional challenges, the first is that there are often poor emergency landing sites. In Kansas you can land about anywhere as the place is the definition of flat. The mountains are not flat, have lots of trees and huge boulders littered about.
To further add to the fun, the mountains create their own weather patterns. This can be good when it is keeping the weather nice but really bad when the clouds roll in, you have extreme winds or extreme turbulence.
I spent 8 hours Saturday studying these topics. We learned that mountain flying adds risk but you can fly safely in the mountains by picking your route with caution, carefully studying the weather, not flying if it is beyond your capabilities, limiting your weight to gain back performance and flying very precisely. In most situations we have very large margins of safety. Landing in Kansas I only needed 10% of the available runway a 10x safety factor, in the high mountains we flew down to a calculated safety factor of 2x.
Class was taught by the Colorado Pilots Association. It was first taught in 1985 and has been evolving and improving since. It had been modernized. The first version used transparencies, then 35mm slides and now it is a fully interactive multimedia display with videos, slides and animations. While I was doing all this learning, CC was out and about with her friend.
Class was 8 hours of stuffing our brains with knowledge but mountain flying like many other things can be discussed, but you have to do it to really get it. After class I stopped by the plane and prepped it for the flight the next day. I was a bit concerned as Saturday like Friday had the mountains obscured by clouds and was not suitable for training. I called my assigned instructor and he instructed me to be at the plane ready to go at 6 AM. This was a bit of a shock (I had to Google 6AM as it was an unfamiliar concept) but this was the best forecast weather and I was still on Eastern time. The things I do to expand my knowledge.
The Rockies have lots of 14,000+ foot peaks. Our airplane is equipped with a 300 HP engine an upgrade from the stock 285. Engines run on air and fuel and while we still have all the fuel, as you climb higher you have lower pressure and less air density. This means less available power. At 10,000 you have about 65%, at 14,000 a bit over 50%.
In the mountains your plane is under powered. The mountains also create additional challenges, the first is that there are often poor emergency landing sites. In Kansas you can land about anywhere as the place is the definition of flat. The mountains are not flat, have lots of trees and huge boulders littered about.
To further add to the fun, the mountains create their own weather patterns. This can be good when it is keeping the weather nice but really bad when the clouds roll in, you have extreme winds or extreme turbulence.
I spent 8 hours Saturday studying these topics. We learned that mountain flying adds risk but you can fly safely in the mountains by picking your route with caution, carefully studying the weather, not flying if it is beyond your capabilities, limiting your weight to gain back performance and flying very precisely. In most situations we have very large margins of safety. Landing in Kansas I only needed 10% of the available runway a 10x safety factor, in the high mountains we flew down to a calculated safety factor of 2x.
Class was taught by the Colorado Pilots Association. It was first taught in 1985 and has been evolving and improving since. It had been modernized. The first version used transparencies, then 35mm slides and now it is a fully interactive multimedia display with videos, slides and animations. While I was doing all this learning, CC was out and about with her friend.
Class was 8 hours of stuffing our brains with knowledge but mountain flying like many other things can be discussed, but you have to do it to really get it. After class I stopped by the plane and prepped it for the flight the next day. I was a bit concerned as Saturday like Friday had the mountains obscured by clouds and was not suitable for training. I called my assigned instructor and he instructed me to be at the plane ready to go at 6 AM. This was a bit of a shock (I had to Google 6AM as it was an unfamiliar concept) but this was the best forecast weather and I was still on Eastern time. The things I do to expand my knowledge.
No comments:
Post a Comment