Density Altitude

[Bultaco Jim]

Since you two tied the "C" word to bad experiences, Hillbilly will probably let you off the hook.

[Hillbilly]

Bushangel, I think it must be a Cessna thing. I remember flying a C-172, 145hp off a grass field at sea level on a warm day with three people and going between the trees at the end of the runway. Also, a lesson I learned years ago.
I've never had that problem in my Pacer.

Since you two tied the "C" word to bad experiences, Hillbilly will probably let you off the hook.

Don't think I wasn't paying attention Jim, but notice what he said (in bold) ....Thats what cars(must) do. If you tied the C word to a good experience its probably on a banner behind a shortwing.

I'm pretty sure it was a pilot thing. Airplanes cause a lot fewer accidents than pilots. Homer is right on - know the operating limitations of the aircraft and do the math. I also read another post that talked about "milking altitude" by climbing and leveling, climbing and leveling, which I was too inexperienced to know at the time.

One other trick an old pilot friend shared with me about hot short field takeoffs to clear the highway traffic at the end of our 1200' gravel runway in the summer. He uses 1050' and builds as much speed as he can, then pops full flaps which gives an instant 100' like an elevator ride. Still scares the hell out of the truckers on the highway since the road is about 250' from the threshold.

[Homer Landreth]

Wow! Homer, "no rules of thumb"?

Homer, you must have some usefull tips from you experience in the mountains of No. Cal.

There are a lot of experiences that lead to tips, and if you want to call them a "Rule of Thumb", that is OK too, the terminology is nothing to fall on your sword over. Something I always made sure that students understood was that in a flat land in proximity to mountains environment that your plane that was suitable for takeoff in the flat country may take you, via a very short flight, into an airport in the mountains part that you can't get out of. As example I would take a student on a departure from Sacramento and we would go to Blue Canyon. Blue Canyon is 5200 feet and some change, and maybe a 30 minute flight or so from Sacramento. Then we would sit at the end of the runway and discuss the flight a bit and then I would say OK, "lets go", every new mountain flying student I did this with would immediately go to the throttle and commence takeoff. WRONG! At that point we would stop and talk a bit where I would point out to him that his first takeoff was from an over 5000 foot in length runway at 20 feet MSL elevation and he is now at an airport where the runway is half that length, and the altitude is 5200 MSL, and the temperature is wiithin a couple degrees or so of the temperature in which he took off, and his airplane weight is at most only 50 pounds lighter. If that didn't get him religion, I would also point out this little moniker in the airport data "20 ft. tree, 750 ft. from runway, 110 ft. left of centerline, 27:1 slope to clear". Then I would ask him what his departure slope was, to which few even knew how to compute it. (What is more important, where you are going to get off the ground at or what can your plane do after you get it off the ground? The answer changes sometimes.) That naturally led to a discussion of some of the mountain flying differences such as taking off toward the downsloping terrain (even if it meant having a tail wind) and then discussing a couple of other deviations to the things that you were always told to "never do". I did this little exercise because of the number of times I had former students, sometimes years later, that tell me they always remember the day that we sat at a short, high altitude runway, in a loaded C-172, looking down the runway at a tree, and they didn't have a clue whether they could even get off the ground let alone clear the tree. That is where my fetish belief of always "running the numbers" :!: comes from.

[Stephen]

Great lesson Homer! Thanks. I wish I'd had one like that early on in my flying.

[Hillbilly]

Heh!, Homers got a fetish...

[Bultaco Jim]

Maybe we should call this thread ...." DENSE 'ty Attitude"

[Homer Landreth]

Maybe we should call this thread ...." DENSE 'ty Attitude"

? ? :?: I don't get it ? ?

?

[Bultaco Jim]

I was attempting to call Hillbilly "Dense". ....(Pot calling kettle black!)

[Hillbilly]

I was attempting to call Hillbilly "Dense". ....(Pot calling kettle black!)

You might be a redneck if; no one understands your jokes but other rednecks...
Come on down south Jim, I'll teach you'uns how to say densti awltitude.