Picking up VFR mountain flying

Noe wrote:

If I recall Correctly, Stick and Rudder has a good explanation of those (and I think that’s how I learned mine!)

No I don’t!!

Reviving this:

I’d be curious to hear experiences from people in the UK (or a couple hours away from the alps) that did their mountain rating. It’s something I always saw as “sort of unattainable” because of travel and weather conditions making up a lot of lost time.

Have you done it? If so, how? Did you book weekends, or rather periods of a week or so?

@Noe: I’ve done the wheels mountain rating in Megève two years ago. It required quite a commitment and time investment, and I spent many weekends there over the course of two years (about 250 landings in total). You typically do two flights a day, each about 1-1.5 hours. During the flight you spend about 30-40 minutes cruising to and from 1-2 altiports / altisurfaces, and the remaining time doing 3-5 landings at each mountain airfield.

It won’t be easy to do from the UK, say during a few holidays, but I reckon it’s possible if you can spend 2-4 weeks overall there (in chunks).

I don’t remember many cancelations due to weather or wind. Oftentimes the weather report on Friday gives a good idea whether anything is possible. If you can’t land somewhere due to wind, you might go somewhere else with more favorable topology or stay in Megève.

All in all, it was a superb experience and much improved my flying, even outside the mountains.

By the way, the French DGAC is now able to issue a letter which should allow you to put the “qualification montagne” on your EASA license as EASA MOU rating.

There is a mountain rating “for wheels” and one “on skis”. The for wheels training is easiest done offseason as most mountain instructors are busy during the winter season. The “on skis” is something you can get, but you will have to have your own aircraft on skis to use it afterwards as there are not many places I know of in the French Alps that will let you use (= rent) their aircraft on skis to fly into the Alps to land on snow, even if you have a valid mountain rating – on skis.

I have good experience with Alex Combes from Aéroclub des 3 Vallees, based at the Albertville airfield. I took lessons for the mountain rating while the family was skiing, but never completely finished it. Alex would suggest coming over for approx. one week period to do the training for the mountain rating on wheels all at once.

I did my MOU training at Megève a few years ago and agree with all that Zorg wrote in post no. 54.

Early in the wheels season (end of June) there is perhaps a chance of a day or two of bad weather, but also a chance of a few glacier landings to break the monotony of circuit-bashing on wheels:

I would add that Megève do rent out ski-planes, but you get an instructor/guide included in the price. It’s not a bad thing…

@Jacko: would they rent out without the “free” added bonus of an instructor or guide? After all, you have the mountain rating, isn’t it?
I have heard good things about Megeve. Problem is to get there unless you are picked up from a nearby airfield by the instructor.

I did the Coruchevel rating with the late Robert Christin on trips to Courchevel en route (by car) to summer holidays in France staying in Moutiers. To keep it you have to do at least one landing and takeoff in six months and it is specific to Courchevel. I did a return flight in one day in my TB20 from Rochester to Courchevel via Annecy just for that purpose.

Eventually I decided to try for a mountain rating as I’d aspired to that for some time. I rented an apartment in Courchevel for just over a fortnight and flew for nine days out of ten days booked with Alex Coombes and another trainee pilot in 2009. It was the end of September start of October and the weather was mostly fantastic. We flew to lots of other altisurfaces, many were grass and some were very small. The scope to fly into a corner from which there would be no escape certainly focused the mind. Sometimes it felt as though we were teasing death and then running away. The other pilot and I took it in turns to be PIC and we could therefore learn from each other as well.

None of the other altiports/altisurfaces were as large as Courchevel and the experience was one I’ll treasure forever. I recall Alex cleaning cow dung from the windscreen after we landed at Isola as the farmer had just moved his cattle from the runway to allow us to land. Another altisurface, Salette was the only altisurface we visited where you take off and land in the same direction. It was a mole hill shaped mountain near the sanctuary of Notre Dame de la Salette where a miracle was seen in 1846 and people visit there to this day. The approach to that altisurface was mind blowing and I commented to Alex how people watching us landing on this mole hill could be forgiven for thinking they’d seen another miracle.

In the third week we flew for a day before my test and then on the exam day we flew to Megeve for me to do the test with one of their examiners as the test has to be done with another examiner not your instructor. That was another magic moment to be told you’ve passed the test. Like @AeroPlus my time with Alex Coombes was brilliant.

I found that the accuracy demanded by the mountain flying improved my general flying. I feel more comfortable flying in the mountains to say Sion, Cannes or Friedrichshafen with the knowledge that I gathered from that course. Although in theory I don’t need to take more training to fly to Courchevel I like to fly with an instructor first if I haven’t been there for a while.

I’ve never done any of this but would I be right in that you need a suitable plane i.e. a taildragger with decent main wheels?

I know one can land a TB20 (and much bigger stuff) at Courchevel

How is the need for a rating determined? For example I don’t see what is difficult about Courchevel; there are lots of other tricky airports which don’t require any kind of rating. There are plenty of farm strips where you can’t do a go-around from the runway because you would hit trees.

Last few times I was there in my own airplane (which, with what would pass for tact in the Île-de-France, they graciously nick-named “la grosse merde”), but I think that the aeroclub policy is still that an IM in the right seat is on the MEL for a Megeve D140 for all but a few very experienced club members.

They had a run of accidents a few years ago which temporarily depleted their fleet of “cagettes a pommes”, so this policy may have been forced upon them by insurers. Fortunately the type seems to carry 3 or 4 persons with ease at any DA up to about 12k.

Of course, there are times when an instructor is powerless to prevent a wee fender-bender:

Peter wrote:

I’ve never done any of this but would I be right in that you need a suitable plane i.e. a taildragger with decent main wheels?

Yes to go most of these sites a tail dragger would be what I’d want. I did mine in a Jodel Mousquetaire which was a very capable machine. I think a TB20 into the surfaced altiports such as Megeve and Alpes d’Huez would be doable but I wouldn’t take mine to say Meribel. There’s a video of two high hours pilots doing a wheels up landing at Megeve in a TB20 that is shown at safety evenings.

Peter wrote:

How is the need for a rating determined? For example I don’t see what is difficult about Courchevel; there are lots of other tricky airports which don’t require any kind of rating. There are plenty of farm strips where you can’t do a go-around from the runway because you would hit trees.

Not sure how the need for a rating is determined by the authorities and places like Courcehvel don’t have restrictions for ultra lights. The issue for places like Courchevel is that there is a 12% slope to start with followed by an 18% slope and no chance of a go around – it has caught out a lot of pilots. Some of our training was to surfaces of 30% or so. As a pilot you obviously see the restrictions in the AIP.