Turns at High Altitudes
When making turns at altitudes close to the service ceiling, you must be careful to keep your banks shallow. Otherwise, you stand a probability of getting behind the 'banked excess power curve'. This is a condition where on making the turn you begin descending and in trying to prevent the descent you pull back on the yoke instead of leveling the wings. Without the wings level the resulting loss of altitude will be far more than you have ever before experienced.

Performance
1. Use maximum performance techniques for takeoff.
2. No flaps until reaching 50 knots, then 10 degrees
3. Pre-plan an abort speed and point. Use it.
4. Adjust mixture for every 2000' of climb or descent.
5. Fly at 90% of gross weight to improve performance-you will need it.
6. Keep the aircraft as light as you can. Minimum fuel plus reserve.
Item
You can always find the density altitude by seeing how the airplane performs.

Location
--Keep your checkpoints close(er) together.
--Select easy-to recognize checkpoints, fly to them and identify.
--Unexpected weather may make reliance on your pilotage skills essential. In mountains you won't know what the weather is ....until you get there.
--Mark your chart with pattern altitudes of airports along the way, Put in runway numbers, pattern direction and CTAF ....frequencies.

Radios
--Set up your communications options. This should include 'what if'' both at your departure point, your destination, an alternate, a filed and opened flight plan and ATC coverage. Get advice from locals. On your chart mark the points where you plan to make position reports. Put them on your flight plan, too.

--Monitor flight watch, EFAWS, on 122.0. Give reports to help other pilots.

--Use VORs or NDBs for cross-checking checkpoints if available but don't base your flight on either availability or usability.

--AWOS (Automated Weather Observing Systems) exist at an ever increasing number of mountain airports. They have both radio and telephone capability. Use the latest A/FD or call an FSS to get the latest information. ASOS gives precipitation information.

--Be sure to write down the ARTCC frequencies for your flight. You may be too low to communicate but you will be able to listen in on other pilots. If you should ever go down, knowing the frequency will give you a direct line to invaluable assistance. Your cellular phone may not have a cell you can reach.

Mountain Decisions
You cannot learn mountain flying by reading about it. Flying in density altitude is different than reading about it. You must get training and instruction. Several times!! Personally, I did not cross the Sierras as PIC until I had three hundred hours. Prior to that I made four or five trips with instructors or more experienced pilots. Mountain flying is different because mountains limit your flight options. The effects of route, wind, weather, density altitude, emergency preparation, and aircraft performance are different and require a different pilot perspective. A pilot who views mountain flying as a routine flight is heading for a trap. There is always an alternative to making a dangerous flight, no matter how inconvenient. Have an alternate plan; be flexible. The ultimate alternate plan is cancellation.

Pilots control their judgment and decision making. The dangerous transition from VFR to MVFR to IMC requires decisions that allow little room for error. Entering a situation where conditions are controlled by the weather means that the VFR pilot is beyond his ability, skill and knowledge level.

The Solution:
--Exercise cautious judgment.
--Upgrade your capability.
--Improve your preparation.
--Adjust your attitude.

An instrument rating and an aircraft with altitude performance do not make all mountain flying either safe or practical. 300-fpm climb capability is a minimum of required performance after reaching cruise altitude. Mountain flying becomes relatively safer and more practical when preparation determines that a flight can be made. Weather is the primary deterrent. Every pilot should have personal weather and wind conditions under which a flight will or will not be made. Allow the real possibility of rapidly changing or unstable weather. A C-172 is not a mountain aircraft. I have had pilots return and thank me for not checking them out in a C-172 for a family trip over the Sierras.

If your aircraft lacks the performance to out climb a downdraft at Vy, don't hesitate to increase your airspeed. The stronger the downdraft greater the airspeed needed to reduce the angle of descent. Va is the recommended speed to use for downdraft penetration in turbulence. This is counter-intuitive but must be done. Again, if the aircraft is being flown at Vy and is sinking faster than it should be climbing, accelerate to maximum-cruise airspeed. Do not attempt to out-climb a downdraft. but speed up in a downdraft. Flying at cruise speed through a downdraft will give a lower net loss of altitude over distance than will any attempt to climb. Downdrafts can extend from 1 to 12 miles to the lee side of mountains. Under such conditions you could lose 65% more altitude per nautical mile at Vy than at cruise speed.

As a mountain pilot you must continuously position your aircraft to give the best selection of options available. If the wind is within 30 degrees of perpendicular at more than 15 knots increasing with altitude with a stable air mass or inversion below 15,000 you can expect a mountain wave to exist. Orthographic lifting forces air up the windward side and will form a mountain cap if instability exists the rise continues to form cumulus and no mountain wave. Altocumulus, rotor clouds or standing lenticular (ACSL) clouds are indicative of a mountain wave but if moisture is not present the turbulence may be there without the visible warning. Winds aloft weather information doesn't always apply to mountains. In mountains fly whatever wind correction needed to maintain course.

Density altitude is pressure altitude corrected for non-standard temperature and humidity. The most serious negative effects on aircraft performance occur when landing and takeoff occurs in conjunction with a high-density altitude. Higher altitude, hot air, and humidity reduce power, thrust, and lift. There is a 3-factor times 3-factor reduction in the ability of the aircraft to perform.

Due to these factors I have taken up to thirty minutes with two people in a four passenger aircraft to climb to a safe crossing altitude of local terrain. I have chosen to take the time to climb when the preceding aircraft has requested a straight out departure. The next day I get to read about the other aircraft in the newspaper. It seems that high density can affect brain operations as well as aircraft operation.

Once you opt to climb for altitude before crossing, you should put into practice any glider experience you may (read 'should') have acquired. If you note any wind prior to takeoff you can use that knowledge to locate a local mountain that may offer ridge lift. A brief conversation with a local pilot may be helpful. The best rate of climb speed decreases with density altitude.

Even after a successful takeoff the three factors times three factors work (3 to the third power = 27) against the airplane's ability to gain altitude. Use the POH to figure the new-plane performance figures. Figure in a 1-% safety factor every year of your aircraft's age. Average age of U. S. aircraft is 28 years. POH figures on rate of climb are figured as feet per minute. In the mountains you are moving further per minutes than you would at sea level because the ground speed is necessarily faster to acquire the needed lift. Early morning or late afternoon takeoffs is one way around much of the problem.

The pilot who has developed a sense of when the aircraft is prepared to takeoff at sea level is in for a surprise when this 'sense' fails him at a mountain airport. Speed over the ground at sea level in no wind conditions usually agrees with indicated airspeed. At high altitudes the ground speed will be considerably greater before the indicated airspeed required to takeoff is reached. The illusion is likely to cause the inexperienced pilot to rotate too soon and too much. Once out of ground effect the aircraft, behind the power curve, will either stall or fly into the ground in a nose high attitude. How many times have you head of an aircraft crashing at Lake Tahoe two or three miles from the runway during takeoff. It happens nearly every summer on the first really warm weekend.

For much the same reason, the winter landing techniques that made for near perfect landings will result in 'carrier-like' controlled crashes. The cold dense air, even in the mountains, deceives the pilot into believing that the same density exists in the warmer air of spring. It doesn't. The high flare in winter conditions will not be cushioned by the warmer air of spring and the aircraft will fall right through any existing ground effect. Watch the big twins fall at CCR on the first really hot day to see what I mean. It happens to the best of us.

Gross weight performance from the POH is less than indicated at high-density altitudes. A 20% reduction in weight will at best result in only a 10% improvement in performance. It is usually easier to leave luggage and fuel behind than passengers. An intermediate fuel stop is never a waste of time.

Do your own preflight
--Personal restrictions should be related to your fatigue factor, weather limitations, eating requirements, and kidney limits.
--Takeoff restrictions should be related to the length of the runway, density altitude, aircraft capability, visibility, and enroute ceilings.
-- T-storm avoidance must be guaranteed. Icing avoidance must be guaranteed, destination weather must be above personal minimums with a nearby VFR alternate.
-- No night circling approaches, no contact approaches at unfamiliar airports, stabilized within 500' AGL or call go-around to missed.
--60' minimum runway width and runway figures 50% over POH figures.
--Vectors through a localizer are likely to be disorienting as is a tight close in vector. Advise ATC that you would prefer another option.
--A crew-member will always observe fueling. Discrepancies to be recorded.
--The more professional you are the more closely you will adhere to your personal limits.

Wind
Headwinds, tailwinds, heading corrections, runway selection, pattern adjustments, weather-vaning, light, variable, strong, light, swirling, turbulence, gusts, wake, relative, calm, variable all of these exert a powerful and fundamental influence on our flying.

--Learn to read the winds and their signs of high velocity. Lenticular, rotor, and cap clouds advise against flying.
-- Headwinds can greatly alter "no wind" figures from the POH.
--Consider it a "rule" that you will always be flying into headwinds.
--Keep wings level and ride the altitude wave at Va speed to avoid bending the airplane. Avoid turns in turbulence.
--Plan to land more often for fuel. Keep a two hour reserve so you can get back when you can't go on. In the mountains you will have head winds no matter which way you fly. Be conservative.

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