Well, gosh, its been awhile since I have posted anything...sorry about that. It certainly hasn't been for a lack of activity of my part. Been busy as heck...flying...a social calendar heating up with the weather...sister's graduation and visiting the folks in WA...installing a fence in my backyard, attending the Colorado Pilots Association Mountain Flying course, and when time permits, squeezing in some build time when I can.
So, with all that being said, I am behind on my posts so I will try to keep these short to get caught up on whats been going on in Ron's world.
Congrats to my little sister, Denise, who is now an RN...the second one in the family. Very proud of her accomplishment, way to go sis!
I installed a vinyl fence in my backyard...I've been putting this off for several summers and finally said, I gotta knock this out. It went pretty quick...but sitting at a desk all day, I forgot what manual labor is like...kicked my butt a little bit. :) Let me tell you, this type of fencing isn't cheap...and I couldn't help but keep thinking that I would rather have spent that money on airplane goodies. Oh well, it can't all be about the airplane, there is a life outside of that...I know, it sucks.
My next flight with Lyn to continue my mountain flying indoctrination was up to the famous airport at Leadville, CO or Lake County Airport. It sits, as I mentioned before at an elevation of 9927 ft MSL. It is the highest elevation general aviation airport in North America. Pretty cool that its right here in my home state.
Lyn had me flight plan this so that we crossed four different passes during the flight. Kenosha, Weston, Fremont and finally Loveland pass. It was a gorgeous flight, the scenery was breathtaking. Winds aloft were relatively light and turbulence was minimal, 15kts at 12,000 feet from the West. It was a good day to fly the mountains.
Let me say, I flew exactly like the mountain 'greenhorn' that I was...it was a comedy of errors on my part. But they were errors that were very helpful to make, they were errors I learned from in a safe environment. I was navigating solely by dead reckoning and pilotage...and soon learned that I had grown awfully lazy using moving map GPS's in the flatlands the last couple years--it quickly became evident that my skills were quite rusty. And of course, it doesn't help that all of these mountain passes look alike. Don't fly up the wrong one or it might bite you! Situational awareness (SA) in the mountains is crucial to staying safe.
The first three passes were pretty straightforward with some moderate turbulence as we crossed the ridge. The last one, Loveland pass was the highest of the four. The terrain is at about 12,000' and its rather narrow. As we were climbing up towards it, I was having a hard time coaxing the airplane up to 13,000' for our 1,000' clearance. I had to circle climb (more like an oval) and make another run at it. The altimeter was agonizingly slowly clicking toward 13,000' as we approached....I wasn't sure if I was going to get there as the pass was getting closer and closer.
But, as all good mountain pilots do...always have an 'out'. I stayed near the high ridge and maintained a position so that I could turn toward lowering terrain if I didn't achieve my altitude goal in time. Sparky's absolute rules of thumb from his book are...1. Never fly past the 'point of no return' when flying toward rising terrain, and 2. Always be able to turn toward lowering terrain. They are inter-related and simple but they are something you should always have in the back of your mind when flying the mountains.
It was a strange summer morning...we had an 1800' overcast layer hanging over the city at 7am, but satellite images showed it was clear to the West and at our destination. We departed about an hour late as we waited for this cloud layer to slide to the East so we could get out. As we climbed out over Boulder just on the edge of the cloud layer, it was a magnificent view looking to the East over the clouds. The picture doesn't do it justice...one of the many cool things about being a pilot are views like this.
Note to self...clean windshield before departing if you plan to take pictures! :) Plenty of bugs in the view...
Fueling up in Leadville, the fuel is much cheaper up there than at Boulder...$4.40/gal. We decided to take advantage of it by topping off the tanks. As you can see, the scenery was great and the lineboy was very friendly and attentive.
Lyn snapped this obligatory shot of me with the Leadville sign...although, as you can see, he cut off the "Lead..." Oh well, he got me in the shot so all was not lost. I wasn't cheesy enough to stick my head in the hole. ;)
This is Evergreen parkway snaking its way into Evergreen...we flew down I-70 on our return. Very green from all the rain we got last month.
This is pretty cool, the first time a pilot lands here they print you out a nice little certificate to commemorate the event.
In summary, all in all, it was a great learning experience. Much more than I can put in this blog post. After the flight, Lyn signed me off in my logbook saying I was now ready for solo mountain flight. I probably know enough to stay safe but I plan to take him on another flight just for some extra instruction. I don't know how many times during this flight I thought I knew where I was going only to have Lyn say, "the pass is over there."
I will tell you, the pilots that tackle this without any instruction have much bigger balls (or ovaries as Danica Patrick would say) than I! I personally wouldn't do this type of flying without some instruction beforehand. If you do...make sure you do your homework, get a good book and do some reading at the very least...fly safe my friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment