|  | Mountain Flying | Mountain flight training in the heart of the Colorado Rockies. | |
The goal of Mountain CFI is to provide the very best instruction
and information for safe mountain flying. Mountain CFI was created
to provide a source for general educational information, ground instruction
and flight instruction pertaining to all aspects of operating general
aviation aircraft in the mountains.
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| | April 13, 2009 | | Going Missed after you Pass the Missed Approach Point | In the last post I discussed how instrument flight in the mountains introduces scenarios that don't necessarily exist otherwise. Today I wanted to highlight one such that is relatively common with mountain airports yet infrequently discussed.
To understand this scenario you'll need to look at the approach chart ILS-06 for Gunnison Colorado (KGUC). You'll see that the DH is 8590 (minimum) which will be roughly a distance of 2.4 miles from the runway at an altitude of 923 feet. The basis for this potential scenario is based on the fact that alot can happen in 2.4 miles and 923 feet.
Let's imagine you fly this approach and arrive at the DH, you see some portion of the runway environment and continue to descend for landing. Now at 350 feet and 1 mile the wind picks up and you completely loose sight of the runway due to the increased blowing snow. What would you do now? Most pilots would answer that they would go missed. While this is conceptually the right answer (since continuing the descent is no good), the details of how to carry out this missed approach procedure needs to be explored.
See, the missed approach procedure is designed to be flown from the missed approach point or decision height... not before or after. As part of instrument training, we teach our students that if they decide to fly missed before the missed approach point they can begin climbing immediately, but they need to wait to turn until after the missed approach point. Executing the procedure before or after the MAP/DH may place the aircraft in danger, especially in mountainous terrain where the missed lateral track is designed to keep the aircraft clear of specific terrain.
Today, the missed procedure for GUC is climb straight to 10,000 then climbing right turn HDG 180 to 12,000. When this approach was originally first published, the missed procedure was climbing right turn to 12,000. If the pilot attempted to fly the missed past the DH, then there was a good chance they would hit a mountain to the right - this was later revised to include the straight ahead portion to 10,000.
Back to our sceanrio, what does a pilot do if they need to fly missed past the MAP or DH? The first solution is to avoid getting in this situation to begin with. As part of the preflight excercise the pilot should be carefully reading the approaches. If the approach has a DH or MAP that is more than a half mile from the runway then the pilot should consider whether this type of scenario could develop, and what should be done if it does develop.
If the approach DH or MAP is more than a half mile ask yourself if the executing the missed approach after the DH will create any potential hazards. If so, then take a look at the departure procedure for that runway. How does the departure procedure work? You might find that if you fly past the DH or MAP and need to go missed the better procedure to follow may be the departure procedure or SID for that runway.
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| | April 09, 2009 | | Considerations When Planning IFR in the Mountains | I guess maybe my [turbine] aircraft doesn't have the performance to fly IFR out of mountain airports. | – | Name withheld to protect the naive... |
Based on these conversations I tailor the training to suit each pilot. While every pilot will learn the same basics... mountain weather, density altitude, etc, some things will be different for each student. For example a Malibu driver looking to fly to the Rockies mostly in the winter to ski will have a different training experience than a husky pilot looking for unimproved fields in the summer. Along those same lines the experience will differ from a VFR pilot to a pilot planning to fly IFR.
In this case, the pilot I was working with had a very capable (turbine) aircraft. He planned to fly instrument approaches and departures into mountain airports.
During the first day of training I asked the pilot to fly and instrument departure from Meeker airport. This pilot promptly put on his foggles, throttled forward and got in the air. Within about 15 seconds I knew he was not following the DP, and was just flying runway heading....(as he didn't have the chart out). I asked him to continue with his instrument departure but to please take the foggles of so he could see how this departure was playing out.
5 minutes later his comments were that "I guess maybe my aircraft doesn't have the performance to fly IFR out of mountain airports". I politely responded that I didn't think aircraft performance was the issue.
The next few minutes was a chain of leading questions that lead nowhere. As it turns out, this pilot had spent the last 10 years flying from flat land airports in an aircraft with incredible performance. He was completely unaware that textual departure procedures even existed. In fact he had never even noticed or looked at that section of the NOAA chart book. For this pilot, if there was no SID that meant runway heading, contact atc.
For those of you Jepp users that I just lost... NOAA charts have all the DP's in the front of the book - not like Jepp charts that have them with the airport.
While this a somewhat comical situation, there is a moral to the story. All pilots should seek mountain checkout, not just VFR, and not just those with aircraft short on performance. I offer IFR mountain flying instruction as well as VFR mountain flying instruction.
Consider the how these are influenced by mountainous terrain:
- MSA, MRA, MDA
- SID / DP's - Climb Gradient / Density Altitude / Performance
- Approaches - Steep - VDP's (visual descent points are common)
- Missed Apporoaches - What happens if you go past a VDP and need to go missed? (This is sticky - I'll cover in the next post)
- Circiling Approaches
- Off-Angle Approaches (LOC, VOR and LDA)
- Weather
- Airframe Icing
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| | April 08, 2009 | | Telluride, Aspen, Leadville & Glenwood Springs Top The List | I opened my mail box yesterday and much to my delight, the cover story for April 2009 AOPA Pilot is Mountain Flying Adventure - Backcountry Adventure and to Ten most Challenging Airports.
I thought this was a great piece. The second piece was the survey results from asking AOPA members about the most challenging mountain airports. The top four were here in Colorado - Telluride, Aspen, Leadville, and Glenwood Springs.
I thought summary of Telluride, Leadville, and Glenwood Springs was on the money. For Telluride the author didn't mention the extreme runway gradient from end to center.... oh yea, forgot to tell you about that. I think that is one additional factor that makes Telluride as challenging as it is. Telluride runway is being redone, we'll see if the gradient is the same when it's finished.
I think Aspen was made out to be slightly more complicated than it really is. Outbound traffic (especially piston aircraft in the summer) will not be able to stay right until above the inbound traffic due to the high density altitude. As a result you'll normally follow the Roaring Fork river out of the Valley and watch very closely for in bound aircraft as you cross the extended center line.
Throughout the summer I offer instruction for pilots that want to experience mountain flying. I combine several hours of ground instruction with a tour of Colorado's mountain airports and mountain passes. Generally, the tour will visit a variety of airports that each present different challenges. One reason I thought this AOPA article was so neat, is because as part of the training we usually visit each of these four airports.
If you would like to be introduced to mountain flying and visit some of the most challenging airports give us a call.
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