Dan CFI/CFII
I'm a dippidy doer
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2001
- Posts
- 347
This far south I haven't seen a Standing Lenticular for a long time. But last time I was a-climbing in Northern NM, one formed on top of us and got nasty. After we summited and descended, there were Lenticulars along the East side of every mountain to the north....
One more reason to take the southern route!
One other bit of advice I'd give: don't go to the big international airports. What you want is an airport with a healthy contingent of airport bums who have flown the local area quite a while. There's a reason pilots in the mountains can name every pass, river, and mountain in a fifty mile radius--it matters. This doesn't mean you need to shoehorn your airplane into a 2400' strip or anything, just try to avoid anywhere that doesn't seem like a place with coffee in the pot and a bunch of pilots telling lies in the lobby.
Oh yeah, you hear about the good updrafts for gliders? That air has to come down someplace. Half goes up, half goes down. Make sure you don't end up where it goes down, and always give yourself a healthy ability to turn around out of the going down part.
Dan
One more reason to take the southern route!
One other bit of advice I'd give: don't go to the big international airports. What you want is an airport with a healthy contingent of airport bums who have flown the local area quite a while. There's a reason pilots in the mountains can name every pass, river, and mountain in a fifty mile radius--it matters. This doesn't mean you need to shoehorn your airplane into a 2400' strip or anything, just try to avoid anywhere that doesn't seem like a place with coffee in the pot and a bunch of pilots telling lies in the lobby.
Oh yeah, you hear about the good updrafts for gliders? That air has to come down someplace. Half goes up, half goes down. Make sure you don't end up where it goes down, and always give yourself a healthy ability to turn around out of the going down part.
Dan
