Looking for pointers/advice/ideas
Looking back over today’s flight and trying to think through what I could have been done better, if anything, and hoping someone with more experience may have some thoughts. The plan was to fly from the farm strip near Dundee on the east coast directly west to Oban on the west coast, both departure and destination are essentially at sea level and were reporting negligible wind, winds aloft at 3000 were forecast for 19MPH directly on the nose. The flight involved leaving the Strathmore valley and climbing over the southerly portion of the Grampian Mountains that top out at about 4000ft.
I set off and decided on an en-route attitude of 5000ft, light winds on takeoff and extremely smooth cruise climb to the beginning of the mountain range, my normal cruise airspeed at 2350rpm is 110MPH, the GPS was showing a ground speed of 75MPH which is more of a headwind than I had anticipated. I started experiencing light turbulence., I should point out I have done several trips over the high deserts and mountains ranges of the western USA and have experienced light + moderate turbulence, although I find it uncomfortable it does not overly concern me. A little further on just west of Aberfeldy over Loch Tay (which is about 100m MSL) in addition to now experiencing moderate turbulence I was getting pushed down at about 600fpm with full power and climb configuration I was finally able to arrest the decent at about 3600ft. I assume it was a “mountain wave” coming over the approximately 3900ft ridge at my 2 o’clock, this mountain was the first of the high ones on my route, I decided to do a 180 and head back to my home field picking up a ground speed of about 150MPH.
Upon landing I thought about my options and what I could have done to handle the situation better and came up with the following:
1. Went for a higher en-route altitude perhaps 7000 to 8000 ft which I assume would have kept me out of the “mountain wave” area on the lee side of the hill, although this may not have allowed me to avoid turbulence.
2. Went with the decent (i.e. not fought the push down) and descended to just above the loch where I assume the air would have been more stable with less or no turbulence and continued on my journey snaking along the lochs and valley floors at low level.
Anyone any thoughts?
(My aircraft is a 180HP Maule)