Mountain Flying
You are probably mountain flying when some of these things (not an exhaustive list) become significant enough for you to start feeling a bit unsettled if you haven't done it before (or even if you have):
You're moving a lot faster over the ground for a given airspeed than usual (IAS vs. TAS, can catch you out during approaches and turning around in valleys particularly).
The horizon is hidden behind the big hills, so all your usual attitude cues aren't there any more.
You might be flying along beside a ridge and suddenly find you need a heap more power to avoid the ground than normal because you're caught in descending air.
A big invisible hand might reach out, grab the helicopter and shake it around like a toy, then go away (perhaps!).
Your engine acts like it won't pull the skin off a rice pudding.
You're a bit lost, poking around in a valley, fly round a corner and find it's full of cloud. Then you haven't got room to turn around, and you also find that you've been creeping up in altitude and can't hover OGE any more - and the valley floor is covered in trees. Uh oh!
You think 'I'll just duck over that lower part of the ridge line there', fly at it, and find your airspeed is bleeding off because it's a 12000 ft pass, and you've got about 10 degrees nose up to make the picture look right.
You're in a pad with 5 ft on the radalt and 10000 on the pressure altimeter, and little blokes with bows and arrows come out from behind the bushes!
Well enough rambling for the moment...
You're moving a lot faster over the ground for a given airspeed than usual (IAS vs. TAS, can catch you out during approaches and turning around in valleys particularly).
The horizon is hidden behind the big hills, so all your usual attitude cues aren't there any more.
You might be flying along beside a ridge and suddenly find you need a heap more power to avoid the ground than normal because you're caught in descending air.
A big invisible hand might reach out, grab the helicopter and shake it around like a toy, then go away (perhaps!).
Your engine acts like it won't pull the skin off a rice pudding.
You're a bit lost, poking around in a valley, fly round a corner and find it's full of cloud. Then you haven't got room to turn around, and you also find that you've been creeping up in altitude and can't hover OGE any more - and the valley floor is covered in trees. Uh oh!
You think 'I'll just duck over that lower part of the ridge line there', fly at it, and find your airspeed is bleeding off because it's a 12000 ft pass, and you've got about 10 degrees nose up to make the picture look right.
You're in a pad with 5 ft on the radalt and 10000 on the pressure altimeter, and little blokes with bows and arrows come out from behind the bushes!
Well enough rambling for the moment...
Join Date: Nov 2001
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I am sure it is written in American...surely it isn't in English....for there aren't any mountains in Britain! Foothills maybe...knolls...knobs....yea even a bluff...but mountains.....nah! So why would the article be slanted towards the English...afterall it is in fact an American magazine....Rotor and Wing. We on the far side of the pond try to make things meet the reality test when dealing with aviation and not see how complex and esoteric we can make it. Ever done a plotting exam for a CAA ATPL? Apply that to your everyday tasking as a pilot. 
HELI ICE: use the search facility on this forum, there is a mountain of information available under "mountain flying" 
Geronimo: I've done both, Trained in the Rockies and work in the lumps and bumps of the UK. It's the same as far as 'local weather' is concerned, you can't experience the whole mountain range at one go.
The principles are the same with both techniques and weather phenomena. Big isn't always better
Both can bite.
[I'm assuming aircraft performance isn't an issue. ]
Geronimo: I've done both, Trained in the Rockies and work in the lumps and bumps of the UK. It's the same as far as 'local weather' is concerned, you can't experience the whole mountain range at one go.
The principles are the same with both techniques and weather phenomena. Big isn't always better
Both can bite.[I'm assuming aircraft performance isn't an issue. ]
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Hahahaha.... Yeah those blokes with the bow and arrows, good thing we don't have them here on the Ice.
I think maybe that we are lucky here on the Ice because the highest mountain here is around 7000´ high. Despite that fact one has to take into account the power available to you when working in and around those mountains. The weather here can get a bit hostile and conditions can change at the blink of an eye.
Geronimo 33:
Yes I've done the Icelandic CAA ATPL plotting Exam, I don't know if its any different from the one you are talking about.
We use that plotting practice when going IFR, for VFR we use the chart and the string with the small helicopter at the end of it. Iceland is such a small island and we have a very relaxed flying environment. Not so many navigation facilities for lower airspace flying.
Most of the helicopter flying here is done under VMC as in many other countries.
What kind of operation are you involved in Geronimo33?
The reason for this posting is that I have never flown anywhere else than in Iceland and I wanted to get some information from as many of you on this forum.
I think maybe that we are lucky here on the Ice because the highest mountain here is around 7000´ high. Despite that fact one has to take into account the power available to you when working in and around those mountains. The weather here can get a bit hostile and conditions can change at the blink of an eye.
Geronimo 33:
Yes I've done the Icelandic CAA ATPL plotting Exam, I don't know if its any different from the one you are talking about.
We use that plotting practice when going IFR, for VFR we use the chart and the string with the small helicopter at the end of it. Iceland is such a small island and we have a very relaxed flying environment. Not so many navigation facilities for lower airspace flying.
Most of the helicopter flying here is done under VMC as in many other countries.
What kind of operation are you involved in Geronimo33?
The reason for this posting is that I have never flown anywhere else than in Iceland and I wanted to get some information from as many of you on this forum.
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I've flown around a few mountains, some of the tropical kind, and some of the Colorado kind. I think the biggest problem with mountains is that they are high and they are hard.
The height robs power and sticks up into clouds, making cumulous granite clouds the second most dangerous cloud formation (cumulous electric takes my first place).
Mountains are hard, at least as compared to cloudy or dark air, so the helicopter comes to a very rapid stop when flying along and suddenly encountering a mountain-filled cloud.
Mountains are beautiful, with the spectacular ability to cause that gut-wrenching thrill when you fly past a peak and the world falls away at super-sonic speed. When I first soloed, I flew off a cliff face near Breckenridge, Texas at least 30 times just to get that cheap thrill.
Near Leadville Colorado, the peaks are beautiful, and the valleys are filled with yellow-leaved Aspens that look like 10 mile long flower shops. The air is thin, and so is the power margin on most helos, so you rapidly gain respect for airspeed and escape options.
In the Arabian countries, the mountains are red, and the sunsets can bring tears of beauty to your eyes. The valley near the Rum, Jordan's highest mountain, is like Monument Valley in the western flicks, with towering rock pillars jutting 1000 meters above the sandy valley floor where Lawrence lead his troops against the Ottomans. Shut down on the top of the Rum, watch the sun set in measured pace, watch the stars slowly unveil themselves, and you could decide that little else is needed to fill your life, unless you think about battery failure, and how the hell you can get help a mile up a sheer rock-faced cliff.
I think mountains are the place to feel the real thrill of flying. Flatlands are safer, more predictable, and more boring. Gain 1000 feet, and all that flatland stuff looks painted on the canvas. Mountains add punctuation to our flying, I think.
The height robs power and sticks up into clouds, making cumulous granite clouds the second most dangerous cloud formation (cumulous electric takes my first place).
Mountains are hard, at least as compared to cloudy or dark air, so the helicopter comes to a very rapid stop when flying along and suddenly encountering a mountain-filled cloud.
Mountains are beautiful, with the spectacular ability to cause that gut-wrenching thrill when you fly past a peak and the world falls away at super-sonic speed. When I first soloed, I flew off a cliff face near Breckenridge, Texas at least 30 times just to get that cheap thrill.
Near Leadville Colorado, the peaks are beautiful, and the valleys are filled with yellow-leaved Aspens that look like 10 mile long flower shops. The air is thin, and so is the power margin on most helos, so you rapidly gain respect for airspeed and escape options.
In the Arabian countries, the mountains are red, and the sunsets can bring tears of beauty to your eyes. The valley near the Rum, Jordan's highest mountain, is like Monument Valley in the western flicks, with towering rock pillars jutting 1000 meters above the sandy valley floor where Lawrence lead his troops against the Ottomans. Shut down on the top of the Rum, watch the sun set in measured pace, watch the stars slowly unveil themselves, and you could decide that little else is needed to fill your life, unless you think about battery failure, and how the hell you can get help a mile up a sheer rock-faced cliff.
I think mountains are the place to feel the real thrill of flying. Flatlands are safer, more predictable, and more boring. Gain 1000 feet, and all that flatland stuff looks painted on the canvas. Mountains add punctuation to our flying, I think.
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Nick,
You ever have to navigate by the bottoms of the mountains while the tops were obscured by cloud...say ceiling about 2-300 feet...but gin clear underneath? Did that one time flying from a field site 200 miles east of Bandar Abbas on the way to a drill rig in the middle of the desert inland from Lavan Island in Iran. What a novel trip...on Christmas Day as well! The terrain relief was very stark due to the rocky barren ground....made it easy to see the shapes of the peaks....the trick was to ignore the upper contours on the map and look at the lowest contour lines.
Turbulence could be fun there too....flying the Alouette III in real turbulence you could have temporary hydraulic failures due to cavitation of the pump while all the fluid hung out at the top of the tank....we are talking about industrial strength ups and downs!
Some of the prettiest photographs I have are of late evening flights in the desert there...with the stark mountains and interesting colors....same as the Cedar City-Bryce Canyon area of Utah....and down through Moab and Cortez area. For a real thrill ....fly off the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in really hazy weather from an altitude of 50-100 feet....really charges the batteries!
You ever have to navigate by the bottoms of the mountains while the tops were obscured by cloud...say ceiling about 2-300 feet...but gin clear underneath? Did that one time flying from a field site 200 miles east of Bandar Abbas on the way to a drill rig in the middle of the desert inland from Lavan Island in Iran. What a novel trip...on Christmas Day as well! The terrain relief was very stark due to the rocky barren ground....made it easy to see the shapes of the peaks....the trick was to ignore the upper contours on the map and look at the lowest contour lines.
Turbulence could be fun there too....flying the Alouette III in real turbulence you could have temporary hydraulic failures due to cavitation of the pump while all the fluid hung out at the top of the tank....we are talking about industrial strength ups and downs!
Some of the prettiest photographs I have are of late evening flights in the desert there...with the stark mountains and interesting colors....same as the Cedar City-Bryce Canyon area of Utah....and down through Moab and Cortez area. For a real thrill ....fly off the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in really hazy weather from an altitude of 50-100 feet....really charges the batteries!
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G33,
That overcast scenario with the ridge tops in cloud is wonderful, I agree. The clouds cut the light to a soft glow, and the shadows disappear so things look almost like a model of the world.
It is cool, unless there is a 50 cal team on the ridges at the military crest, shooting down like we are fish in a barrel (25 miles west of Tra Bong, as I recall). You can pull the seat cushion up into a small dough ball from the adrenelin.
That overcast scenario with the ridge tops in cloud is wonderful, I agree. The clouds cut the light to a soft glow, and the shadows disappear so things look almost like a model of the world.
It is cool, unless there is a 50 cal team on the ridges at the military crest, shooting down like we are fish in a barrel (25 miles west of Tra Bong, as I recall). You can pull the seat cushion up into a small dough ball from the adrenelin.
"Just a pilot"
First, didn't see the articles...
The "mountains" (3-5000 ft) around northern GA, USA., mostly seem to generate clouds. That's why they're called the Smokies. I'm coming to the opinion that relative humidity is my best predictor of success when I'm deciding go/no go. Must be loads of fun in Iceland...
The "mountains" (3-5000 ft) around northern GA, USA., mostly seem to generate clouds. That's why they're called the Smokies. I'm coming to the opinion that relative humidity is my best predictor of success when I'm deciding go/no go. Must be loads of fun in Iceland...
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Yes it can be loads of fun here on the Ice. We do a lot of aerial photography in the mountains also deliver spare parts and other useful stuff to people who constantly feel the insane urge to drive or walk around the glaciers and rugged terain. We also do sigthseeing.
Landing on top of a glacier is great fun but those darn things seem to have their own weather system.
I heard a story from one pilot who was doing aerial photography around the biggest glacier here in what seemed to be a very good weather, only 5-10 kts all around the country but 40-50 kts around the ice cap. A big hand reached out from nowhere and slammed him around. Everything turned out fine with him and he returned to safety but it is a bit scary when you get caught in a situation like that.
Thomas coupling: Thanks for the info.
Landing on top of a glacier is great fun but those darn things seem to have their own weather system.
I heard a story from one pilot who was doing aerial photography around the biggest glacier here in what seemed to be a very good weather, only 5-10 kts all around the country but 40-50 kts around the ice cap. A big hand reached out from nowhere and slammed him around. Everything turned out fine with him and he returned to safety but it is a bit scary when you get caught in a situation like that.
Thomas coupling: Thanks for the info.
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I've spent the last 20+ years in the BC Rockies. What terrifies me is any trips out east onto that godforsaken flat land you guys call "Praries".. Luckily, that happens very rarely.
There have been a lot of good points brought up in this thread, local knowlege of weather patterns help, as does strong knowlege of your aircraft and it's performance charts. Some good training on some proven mountain flight proceedures, some common sense and a bit of luck and you're all set.
I have operated a 206B up to 12,000, with the proper Wx, loads and attitude, it can be done if conditions are correct.
Life is so much easier now since the 407 entered the picture.
Have fun out there on the flatlands and over the oceans boys, it's not for me.
There have been a lot of good points brought up in this thread, local knowlege of weather patterns help, as does strong knowlege of your aircraft and it's performance charts. Some good training on some proven mountain flight proceedures, some common sense and a bit of luck and you're all set.
I have operated a 206B up to 12,000, with the proper Wx, loads and attitude, it can be done if conditions are correct.
Life is so much easier now since the 407 entered the picture.
Have fun out there on the flatlands and over the oceans boys, it's not for me.
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The following website might be of interest. Click Mountain Flying.com
I've yet to do any real mountain flying in helicopters, but a few C172 hours out of Aspen Colorado provided an interesting lesson in greatly reduced performance at high altitude!
I've yet to do any real mountain flying in helicopters, but a few C172 hours out of Aspen Colorado provided an interesting lesson in greatly reduced performance at high altitude!
Lee Turbulence
I am interested in hearing from the guru's on techniques for flying on the lee side of hills/mountains in a stiff wind - i.e. the area of turbulence, standing waves and rotor action. Or perhaps more correctly, avoiding standing waves and rotor action, while flying in the lee of a mountain.
I have read through the mountain flying threads, where there were brief discussions concentrating on lee turbulence, but I would love to hear experiences etc of others in this area. I have done a bit of flying among serious mountains in the tropics, but none in the alpine areas where it can get quite blowy. When in Europe last, I wanted to take a tourist helo ride, but they canned it when the wind got above 30kts (from memory), so I missed out on the experience as a passenger too.
If I have missed such a previous discussion - mea culpa, and could you please point me in that direction?
I have read through the mountain flying threads, where there were brief discussions concentrating on lee turbulence, but I would love to hear experiences etc of others in this area. I have done a bit of flying among serious mountains in the tropics, but none in the alpine areas where it can get quite blowy. When in Europe last, I wanted to take a tourist helo ride, but they canned it when the wind got above 30kts (from memory), so I missed out on the experience as a passenger too.
If I have missed such a previous discussion - mea culpa, and could you please point me in that direction?
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There's not much you can do to avoid them in the lee, but I have found that the smoothest area, if you get stuck (because it's inconvenient to keep changing valley sides sometimes) is to ride the backlash formed by the wind curling back toward the peak after it has gone over the top. However, you need to be *very* close in (like about 6 inches!) and is dangerous for that reason. 25-30 kts is my level for canning trips.
If you can see down the upslope, then you will be above the demarcation line.
Phil
If you can see down the upslope, then you will be above the demarcation line.
Phil
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Yep, what Paco said. I've found that you can get the best results by seeking the "dead air" underneath the swirling cauldron, but it puts you close to the rocks. You have to leave yourself an "out" and be prepared to break down and away from the mountains. Never approach a ridge from 90 degrees, approach from about 45 degrees instead so that your don't have so far to turn to get out of Dodge if you need to.
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Why not try New Zealand as an option as well.Not much further to go than Australia.The current exhange rates makes NZ very attractive.Not only do some of the best pilots in the world come out of NZ but the type of flying as far as mountain training and long line training is second to none.
Look up helipro.co.nz ,quite a big company with a good diverse range of gear.
Good luck where every you choose.
Look up helipro.co.nz ,quite a big company with a good diverse range of gear.
Good luck where every you choose.
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I've been asked to recommend a Mountain Flying course.
My chum lives in the UK, but is prepared to travel for a good course.
Looking at the photographs posted in our Rotorheads Around the World collection, I think I'd be heading off to a school in Canada if I was him.
Any recommendations?
Heliport
My chum lives in the UK, but is prepared to travel for a good course.
Looking at the photographs posted in our Rotorheads Around the World collection, I think I'd be heading off to a school in Canada if I was him.
Any recommendations?
Heliport
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The main high altitude flying course in the U.S. is Guidance Helicopters out of Arizona...
http://www.guidancehelicopters.com/index2.html
They are a Part 141 training center, which many folks feel is better than the standard Part 61 training center. I met the owner and two of their CFI's when I was at the RHC Safety Course, and they seem to be a good lot.
I don't have any specific information about the school; nevertheless, they seem to have an excellent success rate. Also, they are opening up a second location in Montana shortly.
http://www.guidancehelicopters.com/index2.html
They are a Part 141 training center, which many folks feel is better than the standard Part 61 training center. I met the owner and two of their CFI's when I was at the RHC Safety Course, and they seem to be a good lot.
I don't have any specific information about the school; nevertheless, they seem to have an excellent success rate. Also, they are opening up a second location in Montana shortly.