When I was young I went gliding in the Vinon area. Flew once during mistral with wave conditions over the Luberon in Janus C . The ride behind a Moran towing aircraft was quite wild….Can not imagine flying a Cessna even more north in the GAP area under such conditions…A while ago there was fohn effect with stron winds in Danube area around Linz when I came back from Hungary. The bonanza IAS dropped below 100Kts to maintain altitude, 5 minutes later I was at idle not to overspeed…that was at FL090 cant imagine this happening in Cessna down low…..
Yes it’s easier said but as far as flying “inside the box” is concerned if one maintains airspeed, preferably with good ground clearance they will do just fine (if they don’t believe this before going into the box, it’s a bad start)
Ibra wrote:
If experienced pilots are pitching for anything other than a precise speed value during high performance climb they need to go and review how they conduct their VFR flying or IFR flying
Well, in principle, yes. But the panorama, the horizon, and the impressions in mountaineous areas may just be overwhelming. So it’s easy to say stuff like that from “outside the box”, but when you’re there, things may be different and it’s very easy to get distracted.
If experienced pilots are pitching for anything other than a precise speed value during high performance climb they need to go and review how they conduct their VFR flying or IFR flying, as start they could be on “mag L only” or “deployed flaps” or “no engine” where using external or artificiel horizon to pitch up may not result in good outcomes…
Another factor in hilly terain which may be lost on lowlanders are false horizons – when you’re below the tops of the surrounding hills, it’s very easy to try to climb at too steep an angle and therefore lose a lot of climb performance (especially if you’re dividing your attention) — or even stall.
I have no news, I think the DGAC opened a case and sent investigators, but they won’t release anything before a year.
I agree about the case of the sr20, that went wide of the pass route, close to the crest may be because they were following a lighter aircraft and couldn’t climb. They possibly went to a point where they loose sight with the pass and would start struggling with down draft. Where they crashed especially, you completely loose awareness of the horizon and have to concentrate on your 150 fpm climb in the turbulences… I would not go there in a sr20 a windy day without a lot of feet under the hood.
The case of the 172 is another story. They probably went a bit unprepared there in order to look for their friends, and could have lost sight of either the road to follow or the pass to aim. We can’t also exclude a mechanical failure,
172driver wrote:
See something, circle and forget to fly the airplane.
I guess so, but this is a 172 after all, so not so easy to lose control of?
Ibra wrote:
but you still go for the wrong stick input when caught by surprise in 50ms before you revert to the correct one !
I guess that goes away with training…and a lot of mental exercise on the ground prior to flying: do not fight a downdraft by pulling up unless you have an F-16!
I can think of a possible scenario here:
SR20: low-land pilots who once again totally underestimate the effects of DA and mountain wave (if there was one). This seems to be a recurring theme through every summer in mountainous terrain, anywhere in the world but perhaps a bit more pronounced in Europe as the Alps are so close to the lowlands. Also, an SR20 is effectively a relatively underpowered two-seater, depending on the weights of the two occupants (and possible bags), they may well have been at or close to MTOW.
C172: rubbernecking and LOC. Put yourself into the position of the pilot. One of his buddies has disappeared, feared crashed, they go to check. Prob90 making blind radio calls and having their eyes out on the ground all the time. See something, circle and forget to fly the airplane. Wouldn’t have been the first time.
The good thing about this dual crash is that they all walked (or at least got carried) out alive.
Antonio wrote:
Could it be that non-mountain experienced pilots fixate too much on getting the most climb out of their aircraft in a performance-limited situation (downdraft or miscalculation or whatever) and forget that the main out in such situations is the proverbial one-eighty?
One thing that kicked when doing mountain gliding was that you don’t need power to get out of -3kfpm sink? or avoid stall in +2kfpm thermal? but you still go for the wrong stick input when caught by surprise in 50ms before you revert to the correct one !
