Mountain Flying

[spitfire1940]

mountains

I flew a Super Cub from Maryland to Montanna last summer. Watched Sparky Imeson's video before leaving and took a lesson with a very good instructor in Kalispell.

I recommend that you take a few lessons with a very good instructor before you teach your class. As said above, there is a LOT to mountain flying. I just scratched the suface, and played it real safe with weather while Iwas out there.

You should definitely know the box-canyon 180-degree turn. It's probably impressive in any light plane, but I could pivot the Super Cub into a 180 in less than two wingspans.

It's a critical manuever if you fly into a box canyon (especially if you're flying up the middle of it .... dumb, dumb, dumb) and can't outclimb the wall ....

Slow down to landing speed speed, full flaps, then jam in full power while you do a full aileron and rudder deflection in the desired direction while pulling the stick into your stomach. We did this several times for practice--it's cool.

Couple weeks before I got to Montanna, some dudes from California flew a Bonanza into a mountainside cuz they didn't know that maneuver (or didn't see the wall).

Good luck.

 

[RockyMnt1]

Box Canyons

There are actually 3 variations of course reversals (or box canyon technique) that I teach depending on how drastic the situation is.

1) From cruise speed drop flaps 1 notch and do a Chandelle. Produces a medium turn raduis.

2) From Cruise speed trade airspeed for altitude. This is a modified wing over. You are close to a stall at the top and doing a turn (your airspeed is slow and the bank angle is large, so watch yourself). Practice this with a competent instructor first!!!This maneuver can produce a very tight turn radius.

3) Regular chandelle. The largest turn raduis of the three.

 

[TurboS7]

I would disagree with the technique. That will not work if you are down to a few hundred feet AGL with a cloud ceiling just above. If you made a turn into a box canyon it was not due to stupidity but usually low weather. 20 degree flaps,enter at 80kts, max power, 60 degree bank and roll it around with no increase or decrease in altitude.

 

[RockyMnt1]

Again, everything is a balance. Where did the ceiling constraint come from?? I am not going to address every conceivable possibility.

With a narrow canyon, your technique may not be possible due to the turn radius and it really doesn't matter your height above the ground when these techniques are commenced if they are done correctly.

I also disagree about the wx vs. stupidity comparison. The 14 pieces of aircraft aluminum in the canyon just south of the independence pass canyon were most likely loss of situation awareness not wx.

I guess then that we'll agree to disagree.

 

[TurboS7]

Also you ALWAYS want to be in a position that you can see the terrain in front of you at all times. If you have to chandelle then you have let things go way too far.

 

[A Squared]

Agree with Turbo s-7 about course reversals.

The aerobatic heroics *sound* good, and they're fun to practice, but that's about it. The people I know who actually make their living flying in mountainous terrain just laugh.

Like Turbo said, you're usually limited by a low ceiling, or you are where I fly. (turbo's flown here too) If you really do have clear skies above you, what are you doing down low?

The other thing is, regardless of whether you are restricted above, all the Wingover/chandelle/ immelmann turn heroics depend on having a bunch of airspeed for the maunuever.

Here's the reality, Joe future statistic isn't going to be tooling along at cruise speed when he realizes that he's not going to outclimb the terrain. That realization is going to come when he's at about 7 knots below Vx, already at full power and only 50 feet above the rapidly rising slope. Yanking back and banking hard is only going to make the impact happen a little sooner.

If you've actually flown a heavily loaded airplane in confined areas, (and I've done it a fair amount) you'll know that aerobatics are just a silly fantasy. It's far better to practice minimum airspeed, minimum radius turns with zero altitude loss or gain. A small but inportant modification to that is that if you have altitude to lose, you can tighten a turn radius by letting your airplane descend, yet another reason to keep a pad of altitude below you.

regards

 

[TurboS7]

Thanks- A-Sguared nice to hear a second from someone that I know has flown a DC-6 through Lake Clark Pass at 1500 feet.

 

[TurboS7]

My wife just read this thread and reminded me of a day a long time ago in 1982. We were flying our PA-31-350 from ANC to KTN to SEA to BIL to DPA in Chicago. The plan was to do it in one day to save hotel cost. We departed VFR out of ANC early in the morning and started around the bend to go through Portage Pass. Just as we rounded the bend going up Turnagain Arm passing Girdwood we hit severe turbulence. Anything not tied down hit the ceiling, this was powerful turbulence and you could feel the power of it through the controls. We did a 180 degree turn and skirted the Chugach mountains and we up through Chickaloon Pass and proceeded onto KTN. Just to show you how some trips are, we blew a tire when we landed at KTN. We had to jack the airplane up with a forklift and change the tire on the runway. We refueled the airplane and wound up spending the night in Seattle. My oldest daughter was 3 at the time, when she saw the lights of Seattle she said with eyes big, "the lights WOW". She now lives in the boones in Africa 20 years later.

 

[dayshift]

Check out www.moutainflying.com, might be some useful info you could use.

 

[dayshift]

opps, www.mountainflying.com.