Flight Training - March 2012 - 26

thoughts involve mountains. If you have the right kind of airplane, the mountains are easy. Just go up and over. But most of us have a pretty tall problem. Even on a standard day, the service ceiling of our beloved airplane is lower than the tops of the hills. We can’t go up and over. We have to go around—or through. Mike Paulson, manager of the flight school at the Fargo Jet Center in Fargo, North Dakota, knows what it’s like to be a flatland pilot heading for the mountains. There is a whole world of issues around mountain flying we just don’t see on the prairie. “If you have a little Cessna 140 or 152 up near its service ceiling,” he says, “you’re flying at a slower indicated airspeed because of its performance. If you’re flying very slow in that thin air, you’re flying with a high angle of attack. You get much better performance at lower altitudes.” But that doesn’t mean the low flyers can’t dance across the Rockies. It just takes a bit of planning.

“If you’ve never done it,” Paulson says, “then daytime only. Around here, a day with 25-knot winds is just another day on the prairie. But we don’t have mountains. We don’t have that kind of turbulence. And while we don’t worry about flying in the dark, an inexperienced pilot flying mountains VFR after dark is a bad idea. Even IFR with a single engine is an issue. If something goes wrong, you can’t see where you’re going to go.” Easy enough, I thought. But I kept staring at the sectionals and those numbers that show the minimum altitude to clear cliff faces, tamarack trees, and radio towers. Where seemed as large a question as how. Look at the World Aeronautical Charts, I was told. Take a few steps back. Just look at the colors, where they change because of elevation. That’s how you find your way across. I wanted to find three routes— north, south, and middle—and I smiled at the idea of art leading navigation.

THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE—BILLINGS TO MISSOULA TO COEUR D’ALENE TO SPOKANE

According to Jim Pierce, owner and president of Red Eagle Aviation in Kalispell, Montana, most pilots on the northern route follow I-90 or cross at MacDonald Pass near Helena. Following Highway 2, the “High Line,” across the top of Montana is another popular route. “In a lot of places,” he says, “you can cross at 6,000 feet. Eight thousand feet is easy. A lot of pilots like to run the backcountry on their route,” he says. “If they are comfortable, they stop in at Schafer Meadows or Spotted Bear. This is some of the most beautiful flying in the country.” However, the trip is not without its challenges. “What catches most pilots crossing for the first time,” he says, “is how strong the winds can be on the east side of the mountains. In the mountains there are canyon effects. Winds can get funneled into higher speeds and then erupt upwards. And there are updrafts and downdrafts on the mountain faces. People read about those things, and even if they’ve never experienced them, they sort of expect them. But there is also a surprise. The winds on the east side can be pretty turbulent. The west wind comes over the mountains and there is a downdraft as the mountains change to flatland. But that downdraft bounces. About 20 miles out from the foot of the mountains, there’s a pretty big roller.”

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Flight Training - March 2012

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