VFR in the mountains...Worth what you paid for it
I learned to fly in the late '60s in the Fraser Valley near Vancouver BC. Although there were mountains all around us, most flying was over the flood plain. I never really learned to navigate because I always knew where I was just by looking outside. Although I had intended to go commercial, life got in the way and I went on to do other things...
Fast forward 20 years and my new wife was silly enough to re-kindle my interest in aviation. After a bit of re-training, a typical mission profile involved flying a rental 172 from the interior of British Columbia to the Pacific coast. This involved crossing the Coast Range, with numerous 8,000'+ rocks sticking up. In good weather it was a breeze, 10,500 ft direct, not a problem. As often happens on the west coast, ceilings were often lower, which meant flying the passes.
On a couple of occasions while flying the passes on a windy day, we encountered some pretty good turbulence (enough to tip us up on one wing), and some interesting sink that we managed to fly through before it got dangerous. Hmmm, maybe I need to know more. Who best to learn from??
It just happens that there is a large glider club situated on the West side of the Coast Range at Hope BC. Now those guys deliberately go and play around the big rocks on a windy day, in fact they pray for wind. The light bulb lit up..
Lessons were available so I told them what I was trying to learn and over about 5 lessons learned a lot about lift, sink and turbulence in the mountains. Heck my wife even took a few lessons and enjoyed it immensely. The objective was to learn, not to get a glider licence, although that was tempting.
Just to show that some of the glider tricks might be useful to us power guys, here's a little story of our last glider lesson trip.
We took off early morning from Penticton BC in a C172 with 4 souls on board. Our rate of climb was about 200' / min and it took us roughly 30 miles to get enough altitude to climb out of the valleys. Pretty normal for a 172.
We were lucky enough to arrive in Hope BC with a reasonable wind from the west. Too long ago to remember how much. My glider lesson included S turns in a mountain bowl with climb rates in excess of 1000 fpm.
At the end of the day we all climbed back into the 172 for the trip home. Hmmm, the bowl was empty of gliders. I took the 172 into the bowl, did 3 S turns climbing at 1800 fpm and was headed home...
A few things I learned:
- wind doesn't strictly blow up one side of a mountain and down the other. It forms waves like a rock in a river. If you're in sink, move over a few hundred feet and you'll probably find lift...
- keep a sense of wind direction at mountain top level. You can do this by watching your drift. Stay away from the lee side.
- if the wind at mountain top level is greater than 20 kts, it can be nasty if you're close..
- glaciers create sink downslope
- check out Sparky Imeson's books, though some of them will scare you...
http://www.mountainflying.com/
- take a mountain flying course
- if "mountain wave" is forecast in the big rocks, think seriously before you launch!
- some people prefer to follow roads. In many cases you can cut corners.
Almost everywhere we go is in the mountains. Be careful and have fun learning...
I would not hesitate to take an RV-12, a Piper J3 or anything else into the mountains. Just learn the capabilities of yourself and the airplane and fly within them.
Black Tusk near Whistler BC...