The school solution engine climb to 2,000' above the peaks bracketing the saddle providing a pass through a mountain range, while safe for all, puts an unreasonable time/fuel burden on small aircraft in the mountains. Vy is very slow and total energy inefficient. By saving kinetic energy (zoom reserve) in cruise, we can fly farther in stable air and use the reserve to climb at very good rate in updrafts either orographic or thermal. Also, climbing up early lures pilots into the very energy inefficient attempt to maintain that higher altitude by flying slow (pitching up) in downdrafts. Small, tired engines tend to overheat in prolonged climbs.

As Sparky Imeson points out in "Mountain Flying," pilots who try to maintain altitude against a strong downdraft are managing wind energy poorly and compromising safety. When we try to maintain altitude in a strong updraft, we don't compromise safety but we are also managing wind energy poorly.

Maintaining a stabilized Vy climb from a valley airport to a distant mountain, in an attempt to gain pass altitude, in a small aircraft in hot windy conditions is extremely total energy inefficient. The engine is just not the larger energy source available. Either on course thermalling or ridge lift will provide more energy than the engine. Using ridge lift, orographic lift, requires training and practice. On course thermalling does not. It is just common sense. It simply makes little sense to pitch up in downdrafts and pitch down in updrafts.

The VSI can be helpful in learning to recognize the difference between an updraft and a downdraft. At cruise, simply watch for the indication of either up or down and follow with pitch. Maintain pitch up in up air until the needle wiggles rapidly and then level the nose. Maintain pitch down in downdrafts until the needle wiggles rapidly and then level the nose.

Because most VSI indications lag, we should learn to get a jump on the change in air direction by immediately pitching when we feel the bump. Until we acquire the feel for updrafts and downdrafts, we can make an educated guess and modify as needed. An updraft will generally follow a downdraft and a downdraft will generally follow an updraft.

Both terrain navigation and wind management are interesting, cost and time effective, and safe. Sparky Imeson also pointed out that we should always maneuver the aircraft so as to always be able to fly or glide to lower terrain. If we simply do that and allow the nose to go down in turns (don't pull back on the stick) using orographic lift is not dangerous.

If you can't find someone who flies in the mountains using all energy available, give me a month and I'll schedule a cheap airline flight out. It sounds like Felix and motosix could help. Learning to use wind energy is helpful to any pilot in any aircraft. For the less than a couple hundred horse crowd, it can be critical.

Finding the place where heat and wind move from enemies to friends works both ways. Cold and calm help up to near ceiling engine performance. From there, heat and wind help up to the point of turbulence control problems. We limit ourselves greatly just looking at one side of heat and wind.

I own and fly an O-200 powered 120 in the Southern Sierra Nevada. In fact, have probably close 1000 hours of flying one low'n slow, and hot and high. As Contact, Hammer, and others have said it is the best education you can get. And heck it's darn cheap. $15-17k will get you a decent bird that can be a ton of fun and is incredibly cheap to operate. I have been more places than most people I know with a 180, Cub, Pacer, or anything else have been in our area. Been to Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona with it and landed (and taken off) out of a lot of short, hot, and high stuff. Just takes practice and respect for the limits.

I do agree that not skipping ahead to a higher performing plane really puts you at an advantage later (as I am finding now with airplane number two...Stearman...long story). There have been many people I've me who were able to jump strait to the 180 or the like that then never really get the performance and capability, let alone the comfort, of operating such a great machine in a challenging environment such as the mountains. And why? Because everyone defaults to horsepower, instead of strategy, being the solution to hot, high (and often windy) days.

Here's a video I did keeping up with (well actually leading) some friend in their Sport Cubs (same engine as my plane...100 HP O-200) across the Sierras north of Kern Valley. Crossing 9000'+ ridges, high altitude/high DA strips. It's all about reading the wind and the wing. Hunting lift from every ridge, and planning and keeping an out every step of the way. A ton of fun, a good adrenalin rush, and good fundamentals for later flying.



And another video showing some of the lift techniques (borrowed from the soaring world) to take me, a friend, nearly full tanks, and my usual assortment of junk in the plane up to 14,000 feet on a summer's day.



So my advice, do it. Buy a nice little 120/140 with a stroker C-85 or an O-200, or with a Lycoming. Or even a light one with a healthy stock C-85. I hear there was one for sale in Durango recently...you can guess that one is probably already set up for mountain flying! Look for one like that. Light weight (mine is 950# empty). And fly the living dog doo out of the thing. Be smart, read what the guys here have to say. Read Sparky's book. Take some sailplane lessons in the mountains. And fly, fly, fly. You'll never again get as cheap as the 5-6 gph that a 120/140 is.

Good luck and happy adventures!

Some good posts on here!

My grandfather flew airmail between Utah and Montana, 365 days a year, in an open cockpit aircraft with half the performance of a C120. Every mail route he flew exceeded the TBO of his engine by about 20%. He learned how to baby an engine while flying the mountains, and I guarantee he NEVER hung on the prop. He also had no radio, no meteorological information, crude charts, and his only navigational instrument was a wet compass. He was both good and lucky, but he wasn’t the only one.

A C120/140 isn’t the ideal mountain aircraft, but anyone who thinks that said aircraft is the limiting factor in where they can go simply doesn’t know how to fly. I’m not saying that I do...just that almost all aircraft are more capable than their pilots. With a few notable exceptions; the more capable the machine, the less skillful the operator.

Singlespeed is most likely correct in his assessment, but if someone wanted to use a low powered airplane for his commute, they certainly can. The limiting factor won’t be the machine.

This has to be the best comment on this thread... So freaking true.

hotrod180 wrote:Kinda like the rich guy talking about when he was poor--
those "good old days" weren't really all that good, at the time.

I see this debate often in the motorcycle world... "I want to buy a motorcycle, but I have one friend who insists I should buy a 500CC bike and learn to ride, and then another who feels that I will outgrow the trainer bike so fast that I should just buy the 1200."

I must be in the minority here because after reading the majority of opinions, I guess Im different.

For me, wee planes are fun, but there is no substitute for power. Learning to fly the capability of a machine is the same whether its a C120 or a C185. They both have limitations... If what one "wants" is a 185, diverting time and money away from that end is just plane foolish. Life is short, and in the famous words of Joseph Campbell, "follow your bliss."

Of course a good stick can get a J3 in a LOT of fun places, but comparing a good stick in a trainer against a bad stick in a higher HP bird is just merely interesting. The thing to keep in mind is that same good stick could get the big motor bird in a lot MORE fun places.

All these taildraggers have a place and are fun in their own right. If what you lust after is a T-crate or C120, then by all means buy it! If that is all you can afford, than jump! There is no shame. You will have a blast... But if what you really want is a high HP experimental PA18, than dont let anyone convince you that you have to "pay dues" first on something else. If you have the cash, buy what you want, get the proper training, and then live life! You will be much better served spending a week with Don Lee learning to fly his stock pacer and then buying your Carbon Cub, than spending five years picking and choosing when and where you can fly in your C120.

As someone who bought a C170 first, then a 180, I sure wish I had just started with the 180. There is not one day that I have wished I was flying the 170 over the 180. It's simply just a more fun, and more capable airplane.

Another facet of this multi-sided issue of what airplane to get is that not every pilot needs a tail dragger to be happy. My P172D gets me everywhere I've wanted to be, with only 180hp, tricycle gear, and even with the wheel pants installed! I have no issue with landing on dirt or gravel or grass and enjoy doing so, but it doesn't take a Jeep to drive on back country roads.

Fact: not everyone wants (or needs) to land on river bars or on slightly plowed fields or on the green pastures by still waters. Not knocking wannabe or experienced tail dragger pilots who do that sort of thing, just stating my opinion. Regardless of which end the smaller wheel is placed, just being able to fly where you want to go, to enjoy the art of aviating--that's the precious thing about what we do.

And if we can combine our love for the air with actually making it useful, that's the best of all worlds.

Cary

Cary wrote:Fact: not everyone wants (or needs) to land on river bars or on slightly plowed fields or on the green pastures by still waters.

You may be confusing this site with http://www.$100hamburger.org

LOL

Cary wrote:... to land on river bars or on slightly plowed fields or on the green pastures by still waters.

I do!

This statement cracks me up. It's like saying "not everyone wants the embrace of an attractive mate, or an open-face grilled italian sandwich, or a perfect cup of coffee." Who are these people that don't want that? I'm suspicious of you.

I’m in the “start with a small plane” camp, but maybe for different reasons than those above. I think it all depends on what you want to do with your pilots license. I wanted to be a crop duster, so I bought a Cub and flew it for 500 hrs learning how to fly the wing and energy management. That experience was invaluable when I started working, I owe my life to it once already.

If someone’s wanting a career flying in the mountains or Alaska, I’d strongly encourage the same type of training in a low powered plane. Because at some point, you’re gonna find yourself at the edge of the envelope for the plane, and only skill will get you out of the situation.

Sometimes we need more than just what the engine provides.

Bigrenna wrote:This has to be the best comment on this thread... So freaking true.

hotrod180 wrote:Kinda like the rich guy talking about when he was poor--
those "good old days" weren't really all that good, at the time.

I see this debate often in the motorcycle world... "I want to buy a motorcycle, but I have one friend who insists I should buy a 500CC bike and learn to ride, and then another who feels that I will outgrow the trainer bike so fast that I should just buy the 1200."

I must be in the minority here because after reading the majority of opinions, I guess Im different.

For me, wee planes are fun, but there is no substitute for power. Learning to fly the capability of a machine is the same whether its a C120 or a C185. They both have limitations... If what one "wants" is a 185, diverting time and money away from that end is just plane foolish. Life is short, and in the famous words of Joseph Campbell, "follow your bliss."

Of course a good stick can get a J3 in a LOT of fun places, but comparing a good stick in a trainer against a bad stick in a higher HP bird is just merely interesting. The thing to keep in mind is that same good stick could get the big motor bird in a lot MORE fun places.

All these taildraggers have a place and are fun in their own right. If what you lust after is a T-crate or C120, then by all means buy it! If that is all you can afford, than jump! There is no shame. You will have a blast... But if what you really want is a high HP experimental PA18, than dont let anyone convince you that you have to "pay dues" first on something else. If you have the cash, buy what you want, get the proper training, and then live life! You will be much better served spending a week with Don Lee learning to fly his stock pacer and then buying your Carbon Cub, than spending five years picking and choosing when and where you can fly in your C120.

As someone who bought a C170 first, then a 180, I sure wish I had just started with the 180. There is not one day that I have wished I was flying the 170 over the 180. It's simply just a more fun, and more capable airplane.

We all have different opinions about airplanes, and they’re all equally valid. But the immense fun I had flying a 140 isn’t nostalgia... I had a freaking blast in that airplane. I truly enjoyed the added challenge and difficulty that flying it provided. Flying a 180 from California to Colorado is not much of an event. In good weather you can basically plan it while flying it. In a 140, it’s a whole different story...it’s an honest-to-god adventure! At the end of the day you’ve done something, and you know that it isn’t the card in your wallet that makes you a pilot.

Numerous times I’d pull up behind someone in a high performance single or a light twin at the gas pump and they’d ask where I came from and where I was going. When I told them they’d laugh, shake their head, then drag the gas hose over and fill my tanks for free. I never got the sense it was pitty...I think they were honestly envious of the adventure I was having that they weren’t. Also, it was so little gas that it didn’t matter to them...most of them would burn more gas climbing to cruise than I’d burn in the next two hours.

And there is simply no way I’d have learned what I learned about air movement from flying a 180 those years, regardless of how much instruction I bought. No matter how good, there isn’t an instructor on earth that could have given me the depth of understanding that years of flying an anemic airplane over high, hot terrain gave me. I guarantee I’m a vastly better pilot than I would be if I started out in a powerful aircraft. Doesn’t mean that’s true for everyone, but it sure is for me.

I like our 170 because it allows us to carry more and get into tighter strips, but I don’t enjoy flying it any more than the 140. Sometimes I don’t enjoy it as much. My wife sure doesn’t enjoy flying it compared to the 140. Maybe it’s because she learned in the 140, but when we traded up to the 170 she lost a lot of her interest in flying. It just wasn’t as much fun to her.

I really liked my 180, and I'm going to like my 206. But man I enjoy getting up in a 140 or 150. Just flying the wing, cheap fuel burn, nice and light on the controls. I really look forward to getting up in them.
I flew a 150 up the Fraser and then across the rocks into GP. Fairly easy flight and it was cool that day. Enjoyable, but not something I'd like to do on a hot day.

I'm not a liberal, but I enjoyed "Johnathin Livingston Seagull" right up to the end. To me, perfect flight will never be "being there." How high, how fast, endurance, how big: these things we can read about. Being there defines them.

Like Hammer, I want "going" to be a bit more of an experience. In 1969, just after finishing college and my CPL, American sent me a letter offering their school. I didn't take it because I knew I wouldn't like it; and I was going to win the war and become a General. I didn't win the war and I gave up Captain bars to become a Warrant, but I made the right for decision with American.

29singlespeed wrote:Anyone have experience flying 120 or 140 in mtns? I am looking at inexpensive commuter options for between gunnison 7250’ and Moab.
Been also looking at 150’s but want to build tailwheel time

Rans s-7 is ideal but can’t swing the $$

Anyone have anything they want to sell?

Pacer an option also

I got my PPL in GJ in 1989. Grew up in Delta, my dad had airplanes all the time I was a kid. I know that county. Used to go to the radio shop in Gunnison, our Comanche seemed to live there for the first year. Seems like he moved to Alamosa?

I think either would work OK for that commute. No big vertical elevation changes. No really ugly crossings. The Plateau can get pretty rough in the afternoon, so go early in the morning over the top, if it gets later go around and follow the highway. Stay out of those damned canyons unless you really know them. Way too many wires in that county.

I will say though that I was never so glad to graduate from the C150 and move to the “big” Piper Warrior flying out of hot GJ in the summertime. I’m back in a low powered machine now, at sea level though. It still sucks if you want my opinion. There’s no substitute for horsepower. Y’all can “fly the wing” all you want. Give me one of those little hair dryer looking thingies, or better yet an afterburner. [emoji1]

I don't so much see it as a "doing your time/paying your dues" but as a means to an end. If you spend one year saving to buy a 120/140/Tcart, and then spend 5 years flying the heck out of it, you will be a better pilot than if you spent those 6 years saving up for the 180 and not doing much of the flying you want to do. And then you have the power but not the experience. Now some people can make the leap to the 180/Super Cub/Carbon Cub and if they can, do it! Get some good training and maybe you'll even learn to fly it good. But I see way too many people get it in their head that the only answer to their flying quest is a machine that's financially out of reach, and thus instead of buying something less capable and flying, they'll hold off until they can buy the dream bird...only to arrive at the dream without the know how to use it well.

I also agree with Hammer, it's one heck of an adventure taking one of these planes somewhere...you don't get bored with it; you can't because you'll probably die if you do. 400 hours last year and I never did (get bored or die that is)...I just ran out of gas money. But I also like soaring...so strategy based flying is something I enjoy. YMMV.

I stirred up some good comments here. I used to own a 1959 182B' , I have supercub and pacer time. If a C120 or 140 with a 140hp engine stc came up, I would look at it. Yes, there is value to learning ridge flying / etc in the underpowered but there is a mission to complete here.. I work in Moab flying C207's - so want to get back and forth not hunt/seek lift. The plateau in between here and there is the challenge. I could take the long way around flying valleys - but defeats my purpose of reducing the commute. Why a TW is because I would love more TW time, helps the insurance cause and also build the experience to apply my CFI to TW instruction. Open's up opportunities in the commercial flying world. Right now I am just going to hold off and enjoy the drive. RANS S7, 20 or the new 21 really appeals to me.

29singlespeed wrote:I stirred up some good comments here. I used to own a 1959 182B' , I have supercub and pacer time. If a C120 or 140 with a 140hp engine stc came up, I would look at it. Yes, there is value to learning ridge flying / etc in the underpowered but there is a mission to complete here.. I work in Moab flying C207's - so want to get back and forth not hunt/seek lift. The plateau in between here and there is the challenge. I could take the long way around flying valleys - but defeats my purpose of reducing the commute. Why a TW is because I would love more TW time, helps the insurance cause and also build the experience to apply my CFI to TW instruction. Open's up opportunities in the commercial flying world.

LOL. Everyone assumed you were a noob.

29singlespeed wrote: Right now I am just going to hold off and enjoy the drive. RANS S7, 20 or the new 21 really appeals to me.

Good call. The Rans birds are great. I fly a S7 regularly and really enjoy it.

This has been a good thread. Interesting all the philosophies on buying and learning.

29singlespeed wrote:I work in Moab flying C207's - so want to get back and forth not hunt/seek lift.

Well that changes everything

I’d be awfully tempted to look at some sort of RV if commuting is the goal, good speed and fun to fly. RV-3’s and 4’s are usually for sale at a reasonable price, and you can’t throw a rock at an airport without hitting someone that knows them well.

CenterHillAg wrote:

29singlespeed wrote:I work in Moab flying C207's - so want to get back and forth not hunt/seek lift.

Well that changes everything

Haha! Yeah he could have saved everyone their time and effort on his first page. Anyways, he should just buy a 160 hp Pacer or Clipper, he can then be cheap and get what he needs. Those things are undervalued.

AKJurnee wrote:

CenterHillAg wrote:

29singlespeed wrote:I work in Moab flying C207's - so want to get back and forth not hunt/seek lift.

Well that changes everything

Haha! Yeah he could have saved everyone their time and effort on his first page. Anyways, he should just buy a 160 hp Pacer or Clipper, he can then be cheap and get what he needs. Those things are undervalued.

Well I did say commuting between gunnison and moab.. but yeah, guess I could of said more. Just been seeing more 120/140's closer around here. Pacers are on the list, got my float rating in AK mod'd pacer out of talkeetna, ak.

And flying other people's aircraft is certainty a less expensive way to go.