So you claim any norwegian PPL would easily land at somewhere like Courchevel, Alpe d’Huez, or somewhere like this, without any further training?
Would a Swiss pilot be able to do this? (a genuine Q because I am still looking for why their PPL costs 2x more).
spending a long time at 45,000 feet (IIRC):
You would be dead in a few minutes max. No question.
Peter wrote:
You would be dead in a few minutes max. No question.
Yeah, probably. Too late to edit (to 33k), though!
(She did remain apparently 30-40 min there though, which would defy all survival odds I think, but agree pressure exponential so 1.5x higher would bring that “allowed” time down by a much bigger factor)
Noe wrote:
So you claim any norwegian PPL would easily land at somewhere like Courchevel, Alpe d’Huez, or somewhere like this, without any further training?
No, but any microlight pilot would. In a Cub, no problem, but the average PPL are used to nice, long and hard surfaces flying C-172. What kills in the mountain is rapidly changing weather (suddenly low visibility), low visibility, white out, getting lost (in low visibility). I Can’t think of a single fatal accident that was not related to visibility in some way.
LeSving wrote:
I Can’t think of a single fatal accident that was not related to visibility in some way.
Steve fosset?
On July 9, 2009, the NTSB declared the probable cause of the crash as "the pilot’s inadvertent encounter with downdrafts that exceeded the climb capability of the airplane. Contributing to the accident were the downdrafts, high density altitude, and mountainous terrain
LeSving wrote:
No, but any microlight pilot would. In a Cub, no problem
Are you serious? We are talking about one-way runways where no go-around is possible and with an upslope of, what, 20% ?
On the subject of mountain flying, shameless plug for the AFPM gathering at LFKK Montmeilleur on 24 Sept.
And in case LFKK looks a bit tame, Notre Dame de la Salette isn’t far away (should there be a prize for the worst soundtrack on YT?)
Great stuff !!!
Yes, I think Le Sving is right, in principle. All of the French altiports are pretty easy for a competent Cub or microlight driver. The technique for sloping runways is well documented and the absence of a go-around is a psychological irrelevance for such (relatively) long runways.
Of course, once in a while someone cocks it up and runs into the rocks/bank/trees, but the same can be said of CAT on Prestwick’s 3 km of Tarmac.
Not saying it’s a brilliant idea to teach oneself any piloting technique, but that’s what Geiger did…
Jacko wrote:
All of the French altiports are pretty easy for a competent Cub
I’ve only done Alpe D’huez LFHU, which I think is not one of the worst ones. I have a couple of hours of supercub but the technique taught there was very different. One did not actually correct for the illusion, but did a much flatter approach (If I recall correctly, circuit height 300ft above threshold). As I was taught, precision flying is much more important, (having exactly the right speed / rate of descent / position). At those altitudes, your climb rate is pretty miserable too. No much more than 200 ft per minute, so power is not readily available.
When getting close to the runway, you have a much higher risk of stalling because you’ll have to pitch up a lot more if you don’t want to “crash” into the runway.
I understand the slower the aircraft, the easiest it will be to land, but without a little training (that might be standard on the Norwegian PPL), I don’t think even a regular Cub pilot with only “flat surface” experience should try it.
LFHU could be described as a “small Courchevel”, but still 30 m wide and more than 500 m long.
The documented technique is to configure the airplane in level flight and use the coresponding attitude (eyeball and cowling or windscreen) to intercept an appropriate glideslope to an aiming point an appropriate distance short of the touchdown point. Then fly the glide slope like an ILS with power and enough energy to flare, maintaining power as appropriate at and after touchdown. It also works for flat runways if there are no obstacles at the threshold.
It’s not rocket science but most of us do need a bit of help and practice to judge what is “appropriate”.
