Worth getting instruction for alpine flying?

Dan wrote:

Training for Alps flying in Norway? Sweden? The UK? Sure, go for it, but don’t assume you’ll be ready for fighting severe downdrafts and turbulence at 12’000ft in a hostile environment.

Well… I have a different opinion on that. Let me explain why.

First, I would agree with you regarding Sweden (I’m not familiar with mountains in UK), but Norway certainly has significant differences in height as well, including mountain peaks, passes and fjords. I will not forget my landing and take-off at Voss-Bømoen (ENBM) this year with heavy winds and serve turbulence (both down and updrafts). Really, a bit of alpine Föhn is a joke compared to what I experienced at Voss.

Sure, engines perform a lot better in Norwegian Fjords, because the ‘peaks’ are not so high (6.000 – 9.000 ft) and valleys almost at 0, compared to 10.000 – 14.000 ft in the Swiss Alps. But that doesn’t mean you won’t experience any heavy downdrafts or can’t train properly for hostile environments. I would say, all you need is a more powerful engine when flying in the (Swiss) Alps (and maybe some oxygen when flying high), due the higher altitude, but that’s almost all I have to say about it. In fact, on the contrary, Norway has a lot more wild landscapes with hostile environments than the civilized Alps. Get an engine failure above the Alps, glide into a (wide) valley and perform an emergency landing on some nice farmers’ grass. Get an engine failure above the Norwegian Hangarvidda and you’re screwed with no place to go for a decent emergency landing.

Of course, I wouldn’t say an “engine out” above the Alps is “no big deal”. I’m very aware of the fact that there are many hazards and risks, especially if a pilot needs to perform in an emergency situation. Nonetheless, I would say the chances in the Alps are “higher” to get your airplane safely down, compared with the Norwegian wilderness. In the end, the Alps and Norway have both their challenges. If one can fly safely in Norway, I’m sure that this pilot is also able to fly safely in the Alps (and in reverse).

After a tragic crash in Colorado, the Air Safety Institute made yet another terrific video which is perfect fir this thread. It’s called into thin air. Well worth a watch.

@dan

I like your panel here

https://www.euroga.org/forums/flying/13423-worth-getting-instruction-for-alpine-flying/post/303453#303453

What plane is it? What are the two round dials on the left? Looks great!

Alpine aviation meteorological consulting Austria / Austro Control: 0043 900 97 9701 (Euro 1,81/min)

Alpine aviation meteorological consulting Switzerland / Meteo Swiss: 0041 900 162 737 (CHF 2.90/min)

@Snoopy
Thanks, it’s my RV-6(.9)
Upper left is the multifunction Uavionix AV-20, Muti-Function Display as they call it. I quite like it since it contains yet another ADI, AOA, plus other functions… See AV-20
The lower left is just the ATD-57 display of the AT-1 Powerflarm, though it could be brought to compatible EFIS or even SkyDemon via WLAN, but I prefer a separate display which is piggyback to the unit itself. Since I also have ADSB in/out on the GNX375, on top of spending a good amount of time looking outside, will hopefully avoid any close encounter of the real kind see Air-Avionics

Thanks! That panel looks beautifully dond!

to keep the whole Flarm talk Mountain Flying related, I feel that Flarm might have saved me a couple of times. One rarely expect opposite traffic at FL120 in the form of an almost invisible glider pointing at one’s nose…

Nice also to see that more and more hang gliders are Flarm equipped. They can hundreds of them hunting thermals on any given nice summer day, Flarm gives me some piece of mind…

UdoR wrote:

I know that in that very picture the grooves and ridges are not so impressive, but I think it’s good enough to get the point.

Air does NOT flow vertically into the ground, period. What it does however is to change vertical velocity into horizontal velocity. You are throttling along. Then you hit a downdraft. Instead of going with the flow and maintaining airspeed, you pull the stick to maintain alt. This reduces speed, and in a moderate to strong downdraft, a typical GA aircraft will not be able to maintain alt. You are at the stall limit, losing alt. Then when getting closer to the ground, the downdraft will eventually turn horizontal. If you are unlucky, this horizontal component will smack you in the tail. Let’s say 20 knots. If you are already at the stall limit, let’s say 50 knots, then suddenly losing 20 knots will make you fall to the ground like a leaf.

Downdraft will never smack you to the ground. What will smack you to the ground is if you don’t maintain airspeed. The sudden horizontal wind shear component close to the ground will make the airplane stall. There is only one way to cope with this situation, and this is to maintain airspeed, which cannot be done by pulling the stick trying to maintain alt. You can also fly higher of course, which is always better.

You’ve written that a lot clearer than my Alpenmanual did!

The windshear case/ downdraft is the only case where airliners have to pull until stick shaker. Of course if you hit a tailwind after downdraft, you will loose again altitude to regain airspeed, but in this case you need to maxperform the airplane in a spatial manner in any case because anyway it will push you down one way or another.
Here is a nice video about that, not completely unrelated with mountain flying, with a microburst crash study at the end.

This video is really great, so much to learn.