JasonC wrote:
Arne wrote:I wanted to get just there.
Easy to say while sitting on the ground, but a different story if they had to improvise it in the air. The may have missed the “TA”. I can think it’s easy to miss these 2 letters in the stressful situation of getting stuck in turbulent IMC over terrain.
Not entirely sure what you are getting at. However it was asserted that it looks awfully like a Grid MSA. I don’t think it does. Presumably by your post you disagree.
Of course anything can be misread in flight under stress.
Hence the importance of pre flight planning to avoid having to make a snap decision on the MSA.
Totally agree.
And obviously I had not prepped enough my flight (some places were written down by hand in big, but not that dam), but it was very flat over there.
On the discontinued Jeppesen paper VFR charts the highest spot elevation on the entire chart was written inside a white box.
Anders wrote:
On the discontinued Jeppesen paper VFR charts the highest spot elevation on the entire chart was written inside a white box.
That is a very unorthodox way of doing it. But if he was used to jep charts, then this could explain a lot (if he used that other chart with a similar box with a different meaning)
Peter wrote:
The impact location would then suggest that a right 180 turn was made to turn back.
One of the things my instructor most corrected me when flying in valleys is you should fly close to the terrain on one side (right side ideally*), so you have a large amount of space to turn around in case you get trapped by weather / you run into the end of the valley and you are boxed.
*for traffic avoidance reasons, although there are a couple of valid reasons the left might be better depending on weather / air conditions
Peter wrote:
those who fly around the mountains know what they are doing, and they don’t do it in IMC because they would need an IR and there is very low IR penetration
Not sure if you mean around as in outside but close or around as in “in valleys etc”, but in case it’s the latter on the mountain flying briefing I had, There is about one only thing in bold and in red, which is “NO IMC in mountain, OR YOU’LL GET KILLED”. The instructor really insisted on that (because he knew I had an IR).
what_next wrote:
The Radar Minimum Altitude Chart as well as the sector altitudes for Annecy shows 8400ft in the direction of Albertville. I couldn’t plot the crash site on this chart so I don’t know what the minimum ATC approved altitude at this spot would have been. But certainly more than 6500ft.
I don’t think it’s a question of approved or not. VHF is line of sight so below terrain you won’t get anyone on the other side of the mountain. Except in the immediate vincinity of aerodromes, you only use the moutain frequency which only other pilots use (no controller / info)
Noe wrote:
although there are a couple of valid reasons the left might be better depending on weather / air conditions
Like with a crosswind from the right as you will both avoid downdrafts on the upwind side (possibly even have the advantage of updrafts) and reduce the effective turn radius for a 180° as you would be turning into the wind.
If anything I’d turn into an updraft rather than a downdraft as usually by the point you do an 180 you have little ground clearance left…
I’m not sure what the right answer to these would be (and not sure there would be a ton of crosswind deep in a valley either (assuming flying along the valley). The point is apparently amost 100% of normal pilots fly far away from the terrain and thus give a way a lot of free space they could have to turn around in case something goes wrong (and visibility below in case of engine trouble, as the best places to land are normally in the centre of the valley)
Does anyone have Airnav Pro and could get a screenshot of what the map looks like in this area?
