Rob's Mountain Flying Training Experience

Prework
Date: November 9th, 2009
Hours: NA
Total Hours To Date: 0
Summary: Ongoing prework

Next week my CFII and I are going to Sky Machines (http://www.skymachines.com) at Santa Fe, NM for an intensive 3-day Mountain Flying Course. We'll leave Sunday for Santa Fe and fly 4-8 hours each day Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday plus groundwork. We'll end up in various places overnight and will definitely hit New Mexico and Colorado, but also maybe Wyoming. Beyond mountain flying basics there will also be focus on IFR, oxygen use, and night flying. Goal also to hit the AOPA 5 Toughest Mountain Airports (Telluride, Aspen, Leadville, Glenwood Springs, and Angel Fire). I of course want to do a heavy focus on Angel Fire as that's where I'll fly the most this winter.

I've done all the prework and will continue to review...

Videos:

FAA Mountain Flying
Jeppesen Mountain Flying
Richard Collins on Mountain Flying
Mountain Flying with Dick Williams

Online Course:

AOPA Mountain Flying Course (http://flash.aopa.org/asf/mountainFlying/)

Books and Other Literature:

AOPA Mountain Flying Brochure
Mountain Flying Bible by Sparky Imeson
Advanced Mountain Flying Techniques by David Hoerner
Flying The Mountains by Fletcher Anderson

I have ordered the 3 books, but haven't read them yet, these weren't required for the prework, but I still want to read them. I also need to review all the approach plates and DP's for airports we'll be going.

The most basic points so far covered in all the material are...

• Density Altitude - Bottom line high density altitude means degraded aircraft performance.
• Obstacle Clearance - Function of both vertical speed and groundspeed.
• Weight & Balance - Severely impacts performance, often best to operate below max gross weight.
• Sloped Runways - Varies per airport, usually best to takeoff downhill for speed & dropping terrain, land uphill.
• Mixture - Adjust mixture slightly rich of full power.
• Weather - Know conditions expecting where turbulence, downdrafts, and updrafts can be found.
• Valley - Often best to fly on updraft side.
• Mountain Peak - At least 1000', best 2000' if 20 kt. winds, and 3000' if 30 kt. winds.
• Approaching Mountain - 45 degree so less of turn back.
• Departing Mountain - 90 degrees to get away ASAP.
• Canyon Flying - True speed increase with altitude and so does turn radius. In pinch turn after slowing, even flaps and landing gear to decrease speed.

There is much more to mountain flying than above, but that is a start. Looking forward to next week.

 

Arriving in Santa Fe
Date: November 15th, 2009
Hours: 4.1
Total Hours To Date: 4.1
Summary: IMC, Headwinds, Snow, and Rime Ice oh my!

So the summary sounds worse than it actually was. Yes we had a good amount of time IMC, yes we had headwinds ranging 10-35 kts, yes we went through snow, and yes my first experience with rime ice no matter how light.

We left Northwest Regional about 12:45 which was a good time not only for the departing conditions, but also for New Mexico weather. Santa Fe actually received a little blizzard this morning that cut visibility down to nothing, there was still some light snow on the ground even at 6,000' in Santa Fe. Our clearance had us zig zagging VOR's, but luckily almost right away they gave us direct to Santa Fe. We stayed as low as we could to avoid the head winds, which was 6,000' until almost the New Mexico border. This gave us 10-25 kt. headwinds, but they were 30 kts. by 9,000', 40 kts. by 12,000', and 50+ kts. above there. Just light turbulence and a little cloud busting. Towards New Mexico it worked out as temp was right at freezing, so we first went to 8,000' which gave us a safer temp of -6 C. We eventually went to 10,000' where it was the predicted -8 C. Most the IMC here put us through snow which is a first for me. Too cold to stick to plane, but it definitely makes louder noise than the rain I'm use to. You can tell on our flight track a few places we avoided precip on the radar. Closer to Santa Fe we went through some light clouds and another first for me some light rime ice formed on the leading edges. We had pitot and prop heat on. Almost hard to see, but just the very leading edge you could see the rough white ice, one of the pictures below shows the light rime ice. It wasn't very much, but when taxiing it did seem like more with all the water dripping off the wing. We shot the GPS 28 approach circle to land 22, it was VFR, but good practice approach anyway.

Great FBO picked us up from plane and took us to the very nice terminal. Holiday Inn sent us a courtesy cab. Met Marc, our mountain flying instructor for next three days at Blue Corn Brewery for supper. Only 50 steps from the hotel. By coincidence Marcair instructor Matt and Monarch instructor Hallie are in town and came over too. Group shot L to R: Matt, Marc, Hallie, Eric, and me. Meeting Marc 8:30 AM tomorrow, rough plans are hitting northern New Mexico places like Taos and Angel Fire before heading north hitting airports along the way and spending the night in Eagle, CO.
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Day 1
Date: November 16th, 2009
Hours: 4.9 (Eric 1.8/Rob 3.1)
Total Hours To Date: 7.2
Summary: Eric LAM & SKX/Rob AXX & COS

We met Marc at the Santa Fe Airport restaurant 8:30 AM for breakfast, ground, and flight prep. We didn't get out of the restaurant until 11 AM doing some significant ground. The weather out here is completely clear, light winds, and cold air. Check out the plane on the Santa Fe ramp, we knew about the VIP TFR (Biden) at Albuquerque, not sure why this was here. Eric started today doing the Santa Fe departure.

Video taking off Santa Fe 9.5 Mb: http://www.ferrarichat.com/images/flying/20091115_MountainFlyingCourse/MOV09393.MPG

Then approach into Los Alamos. Los Alamos is a neat little one way airport. Very cool landing on the peninsula.

Video landing Los Alamos 29 Mb: http://www.ferrarichat.com/images/flying/20091115_MountainFlyingCourse/MOV09402.MPG

Eric then did approach into Taos.

Video landing Taos 18 Mb: http://www.ferrarichat.com/images/flying/20091115_MountainFlyingCourse/MOV09422.MPG

We then filled up and planned rest of day with me flying. Original plan was Eagle Colorado, but we wouldn't have arrived before dark after doing all the work I specifically wanted at Angel Fire. I did the Taos departure, Angel Fire approach, Angel Fire departure (well, VFR), and then we got our IFR clearance up to Colorado Springs just at sunset,

Eric took videos of my Angel Fire and Colorado Springs approach and landing, but files are 100+ Mb, so I need to cut down. Marc told me I had everything I needed for the Oxygen setup, but guess we're missing the most important part connecting to the inputs. Today wore us out flying around at 12k and up to 13k for brief periods. We're checking with a local Cessna service center in the morning, but not optimistic we'll get the oxygen working, so we might be limited what we can do.
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Day 2
Date: November 17th, 2009
Hours: 6.2 (Eric 2.9/Rob 3.3)
Total Hours To Date: 10.5
Summary: Rob COS to 20V & ASE to LXV/Eric 20V to EGE to ASE & LXV to SAF

Left the hotel 8am heading to the FBO Cutter at Colorado Springs. We spent a good amount of time calling everywhere and talking to A&P's and various on site to get the connector we needed for oxygen. We never got what we wanted, but learned a bunch, even the exact part number and only the original manufacturer of the oxygen system sells the part. Meant that we would be VFR for the day, which is not easy in the Rockies, but did give us some hard core mountain experience.

I started the day off departing Colorado Springs flying around the Air Force Academy west weaving through some passes and having to hit just under 14,000 for a little. The Oxymeter is a must have for flying up high, even in the flat lands above 8k. You can learn so much about how little altitude changes effect you personally. My base reading on the ground in DFW is 97-98%. The rough guide is best to keep within 5% and don't ever let get over 10%. At 8k I read 96%, 10k 94%, and 12k around 92-93% which is about at the 5% drop limit. Well, when we had to get close to 14k for a short time both the mountain instructor and I were reading 84%. Amazing how just a few thousand feet higher we started getting in dangerous oxygen levels. We can cruise at 10-12k for hours, but just 20 minutes at close to 14k our oxymeter was reading a 13% drop and to be honest none of us were able to talk perfect and you had to concentrate more. Lesson learned!

We flew over some great scenery and then we did two practice approaches into Kremmling. We were then headed to Eagle and pulling up the AWOS, guess what, runway closed to clear a plane from runway! We had no idea what happened, but immediately turned around and decided to have lunch at Kremmling. Great little airport with unlocked airport car to drive us into town for lunch.

Eric took over after lunch doing the Kremmling DP and then headed us to Eagle. Runway still closed for the Coast Guard Hawker that collapsed its nose gear, but they still let Eric do the approach to missed. You can see the Hawker at end of Eagle runway.

Eric then did the VOR or DME Charlie approach into Aspen which is CRAZY!!! You go over a high pass (not down the valley like the other approaches) and even in the slow Skylane it takes a 1800 FPM drop to make the runway. At 20 degrees and not going over 100 kts while also keeping enough power in not to shock cool the turbos we could only manage a 1400 FPM drop which required Eric to do S turns down. He nailed it!!! Unbelievable approach and landed it softly right on the numbers. Of course for some reason my camera was acting up after Eagle and I didn't get video of it.

Eric really wanted to do Aspen and I really wanted to do Leadville, so we switched. Oh my gosh, Aspen is an experience within itself between all the private jets and fancy pants people in the terminal. With all the cool stuff, probably the coolest was a RARE Starship! I thought they were all destroyed, but Marc told us there were about 6 the owners refused to give back and destroy. I guess this is one of them, what a beautiful plane.

After paying the $13 landing fee (only one of trip), but well worth it then I took over. We took off out of Aspen and followed the valley out and then I-70 back East and then South straight to Leadville. Very low stress easy route to take instead of dealing with the high mountain passes between Aspen and Leadville. Being my last landing of the training it ended on a good note nailing it short field style. We gassed up and got our certificates.

Eric took over to get us home from Leadville to Santa Fe. It was dusk already, so flight was at night and I was more than happy to be in the back seat. Only 1:36 Leadville to Santa Fe.

With the great weather we got everything done in 2 days, so Eric and I will come home today. The beers at Blue Corn Brewery were very nice. I will post more details about lessons learned and the overall experience tomorrow with some rest.
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Back Home
Date: November 18th, 2009
Hours: 3.3
Total Hours To Date: 13.8
Summary: Back home with high ground speeds and lessons learned.

Eric and I slept in today with Marc picking us up from hotel at 10am. We talked a little about the flight, paid up, and then we planned our trip home. We were off the ground by 11:55 AM Mountain Time doing the DP climbing up to 11,000 for cruise home. After fighting the headwind Sunday it was nice to have the westerly winds in our favor today as ground speeds ranged 160-170 kts. Taking 4 hours to get there it took a little less than 3 hours coming back!

So now for the important lessons learned and it isn’t what I would have guessed. I would have guessed mountain flying was about how to fly in the currents and some non-standard stick skills. Actually, I now know that 90% of safe mountain flying happens before you even take off. Analyze all you can from every angle, don’t just get the ATIS, weather brief, and pull up a site or two. Get the ATIS/AWOS everywhere along your route, still get the weather brief/PIREPS, and also look at all the data from several sites. For a flatlander especially it probably isn’t wise to fly in the mountains if winds above 20 kts., IMC, potential icing, night, high density altitudes, non-turbo, no oxygen, tired, stars not aligned, or black cat crossed the road. Kidding a little, but point is Mountain Flying is very serious business and more things can go wrong and quicker than we are use to in the flatlands. Flying in the mountains takes the upmost respect, but if everything in order it can be some of the most enjoyable and fun flying.

For some more personal lessons learned I see the importance of a turbo and oxygen. Even flying around at 10-12k your brain needs to be as sharp as it can be. I wonder how many bad decisions and accidents in the mountains are simply because of getting a little dumber in the thin air. Ability to climb and at a high rate is so important for safety margins, I’m sold on the turbo for up there.

I recommend Marc Coan of SkyMachines http://www.skymachines.com/. His rate is $500 a day for 10+ hours. He only charged us $400 for Monday because we only did 8 hours. So $900 plus expenses is a great deal for two full days of mountain instruction I believe. Marc can tailor to your needs of VFR vs. IFR or certain airports, he also specializes in intense short programs for completing an Instrument. I wouldn’t say we completely hit it off, but Marc is completely qualified and it will be an educational experience for anyone. The majority of any problems I had were lack of flying the T182T and doing approaches in it lately. I hadn’t flown it in over 2 months and haven’t done IFR in it for 4 months. It has been down for maintenance, but there was plenty of time last week and I tried to get it for 1-2 hours to sharpen the skills. For some reason Marcair was totally against it flying last week because it only had 33 until its 100 hours. At most I knew we would only use 25 hours, so I saw no risk with a 1-2 hour flight last week. They didn’t see it that way and not only did Marcair loose a little business, but it negatively impacted my mountain flying experience because some time had to be spent sharpening my instrument skills in the T182T as we went. Everything all worked out in the long run and I don’t think there was much more to get out of the course, maybe just a little less frustration. High altitude and skipping lunch makes one a little more grouchy too.

Please PM or email if you have any specific questions.
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LOL, you forget this is a public forum and not us hanging at the bar.