as we approach another busy summer at j.c. and other strips in central idaho, here are a couple of ideas we use when departing...

1) when u depart to the north, which is definitely the best, look straight ahead and try to push her up thru the "notch" directly north. yes, it is kind of a tall order, but not that hard to do. stay as far right as possible, and this allows incoming traffic plenty of room.yes, i said straight ahead, not thru the canyon. once up thru the notch with lots of elevation, u can turn easily either direction.

2) if you are headed south after departure, stay right as much as possible with at least 20 on the flaps, climb hard and turn left in the bowl. get 700-1000' up, lower the nose and turn hard left to the south and stay to the
west side of the canyon, still climbing. all the while listening and using every eye in the cockpit for traffic.

3) while i realize others will disagree, try to never depart to the south. that slightly uphill runway with any kind of breeze in the canyon produces some mighty strange conditions...keep it fun and safe...!

4) post any other ideas u might have...this can help a lot of folks, considering all the other types of a/c we all fly. j.c. is a cool place with a lot of fun to be had...

Maybe flaps 20 for takeoff, and that is by no means a universal number, but soon after raise the flaps for a better rate of climb. Last week I posted a scan of a couple of pages of a book that shows the numbers for initial takeoff and climb of Bonanzas. No flaps far outclimbs flaps after a few thousand horizontal feet. Your typical spamcan will have similar results. See my uploaded pics to read the relevant numbers.

BM,

Remember in these situations, however, that it isn't feet per minute we're looking for, but rather feet per nautical mile. FPM can be misleading if it requires you to fly at a much higher forward speed to achieve. This is why Vx is much lower than Vy in most airplanes. Vx is obstacle clearance, not time to climb.

You may still be correct for a Bonanza, I have little experience there. Just something to consider.

MTV

In most departures in the backcountry (well at lest next to a stream) you are departing over lowering terain. I take off with 20, drop the nose, blead off flaps, get air spead up, then climb. I prefer spead over altitude.

As I recall there are a few trees to the north at JC, so of course it is a good idea to clear them.

But at Chamberline Basin and most others, you need only get 10 feet off the grass, follow the stream, and you can maintain that altitude tell you get to the Pacific Ocean assuming you had the fuel.

Tim

This is pretty obvious, but.....

If you're going to the backcountry and haven't been out and practiced lately, spend the time and money and go practice. And make it good practice too, not an hour straight and level enroute to breakfast. Make yourself learn. Identify your weakness and attack it

Be sharp with your own skills and know your airplane.

Besides being damn fun, lots of practice will keep you safe.

Slow flight, Slow flight, Slow flight.

I'm guilty of this one myself, but I've seen it cause some very tense moments at Johnson Creek, and that is the formation take offs, or not allowing enough time between departures for the air to smooth out. I've seen cubs and been in cubs that were caught in the wake of the plane in front of us and one of these days it may not end so pleasantly. Just something i've noted for myself to be more mindful of. Joe

jomac wrote:as we approach another busy summer at j.c. and other strips in central idaho, here are a couple of ideas we use when departing...

1) when u depart to the north, which is definitely the best, look straight ahead and try to push her up thru the "notch" directly north. yes, it is kind of a tall order, but not that hard to do. stay as far right as possible, and this allows incoming traffic plenty of room.yes, i said straight ahead, not thru the canyon. once up thru the notch with lots of elevation, u can turn easily either direction.
...

Umm.... not to argue with anyone but is trying to go for the “notch” the greatest idea. Maybe if you have the correct plane that is fine. But I do not think telling people who have a lesser plane and less experience going into and out of JC to shoot for the notch is the greatest idea. They may not know what to do and get themselves in trouble. If you suggest the notch they may think it is the only way because a “More Experimented pilot” told them that’s what needed to happen.

I personally would not shoot for the notch I will stay on the radio, fly to the north through the canyon, staying as far right as I can, climbing all the while, and head for Yellow Pine.

pif_sonic wrote:

jomac wrote:as we approach another busy summer at j.c. and other strips in central idaho, here are a couple of ideas we use when departing...

1) when u depart to the north, which is definitely the best, look straight ahead and try to push her up thru the "notch" directly north. yes, it is kind of a tall order, but not that hard to do. stay as far right as possible, and this allows incoming traffic plenty of room.yes, i said straight ahead, not thru the canyon. once up thru the notch with lots of elevation, u can turn easily either direction
...

Umm.... not to argue with anyone but is trying to go for the “notch” the greatest idea. Maybe if you have the correct plane that is fine. But I do not think telling people who have a lesser plane and less experience going into and out of JC to shoot for the notch is the greatest idea. They may not know what to do and get themselves in trouble. If you suggest the notch they may think it is the only way because a “More Experimented pilot” told them that’s what needed to happen.

I personally would not shoot for the notch I will stay on the radio, fly to the north through the canyon, staying as far right as I can, climbing all the while, and head for Yellow Pine.

While departing through the notch at JC may demonstrate superior performance of some of our aircraft it could be problematic when there
is unusually heavy traffic during flyins.

Of all my summer arrivals over the years and observations of hundreds
of "arrival aircraft" most fly a "left downwind" (landing to the south) tucked in close to the ridge and turn their base in front of the notch.
Hear is where it can get interesting, in a high wing aircraft you have departing traffic shooting for the notch climbing right up through left
base traffic with their left wing dropped blocking view of departing traffic.

My sense is that flying a departure route that could possibly create conflict with arriving aircraft seems contrary to one of the rules of backcountry airmanship- try to avoid banging up each others airplanes. O.K.,I made that one up.
Fly safe and enjoy the backcountry.
Spring is just around the corner.

Joe,

Excellent point, and one that's seldom considered by most small airplane pilots. We tend to think of wake turbulence only as associated with large aircraft, and in fact, a same size airplane can in fact leave enough of a wake to give you a real "Wake up" call...

It's fun and instructional to take off on a calm cool day right behind another same size airplane, and work the wake a little to get a feel for how strong those wakes are.

MTV

Sounds like to me that they need to set up a tower there if it's that busy. Must be quite a unique place to land an airplane and camp out if it's that popular.

Friends, be careful.

gb

dirtpilot wrote:While departing through the notch at JC may demonstrate superior performance of some of our aircraft .

High performance of people's aircraft certainly doesn't automatically equate to high performance in the pilot or a high experience level. Take what one reads as advice on these forums with a huge grain of salt.

Gump

mtv wrote:BM,

Remember in these situations, however, that it isn't feet per minute we're looking for, but rather feet per nautical mile. FPM can be misleading if it requires you to fly at a much higher forward speed to achieve. This is why Vx is much lower than Vy in most airplanes. Vx is obstacle clearance, not time to climb.

You may still be correct for a Bonanza, I have little experience there. Just something to consider.

MTV

I understand that and for my particular aircraft at 2800 pounds, gear down, flaps 20, 5000 MSL Vy is 65 knots and Vx is 61 knots. Rate of climb tops out at about 700 fpm. Raise the flaps and gear and rate of climb jumps to 1200 fpm with the Vx going up to 85 knots. So yes I'm going faster but once the two paths cross at about 3400 horizontal feet the gear and flaps up configuration allows me to be higher at any point farther away than 3400 feet from the starting point(at 320 AGL) than with leaving the flaps and gear down. Is that not the case for most aircraft? Or is the problem that the typical 182 does not gain enough increase in the rate of climb by going faster that you need to keep the flaps down?

BM,

Take a look at the table in the TERPS regarding climb gradient. My point was that you have to compare forward velocity with rate of climb in FPM to come up with Feet per Nautical mile, which is what we should really care about in mountainous terrain.

As I said, I'm not familiar with Bonanzas much, and retractable gear complicates the situation some. Note that many airplanes with flaps, however, list Vx configuration with flaps up.

Point is, though, that rate of climb in Feet per minute alone doesn't mean much. 1000 feet per minute rate of climb at a forward speed of 120 knots doesn't offer much gradient. 500 feet per minute with 63 knots forward speed will get you a much better gradient.

It's speed PLUS rate of climb that counts, and that will vary by airplane, configuration and DA. Remember that Vy decreases with an increase in DA.

MTV

lots of good points, guys...goin' thru the notch proves 0, i've had all kinds
of a/c do it easily, i've just found it to be better traffic avoidance. as rob put it perfectly, slow flight rules, and climbing out hard to either go over or turn inside the bowl for a southern departure requires that...j.c. is a fun,
easy airport to practice at, then take on some of the others...

one other point worth making i haven't heard yet, i prefer 700-1000'
a.s.a.p...if possible, to avoid a rather rough landing off the airport. should u lose a motor climbing out as mentioned, i have good confindence u could
float 'er back, at least at j.c. like gump said, be cautious of what u listen to and who, but altitude is your best friend in the above situation...
the people a year ago who were told by friends to turn up such and such canyon in order to get to big ck. most difinitely pd the price of bad info and lack of slow flight proficiency. knowing how to make a 60 deg. canyon
turn, would have saved their lives...

mtv wrote:BM,

Take a look at the table in the TERPS regarding climb gradient. My point was that you have to compare forward velocity with rate of climb in FPM to come up with Feet per Nautical mile, which is what we should really care about in mountainous terrain.

As I said, I'm not familiar with Bonanzas much, and retractable gear complicates the situation some. Note that many airplanes with flaps, however, list Vx configuration with flaps up.

Point is, though, that rate of climb in Feet per minute alone doesn't mean much. 1000 feet per minute rate of climb at a forward speed of 120 knots doesn't offer much gradient. 500 feet per minute with 63 knots forward speed will get you a much better gradient.

It's speed PLUS rate of climb that counts, and that will vary by airplane, configuration and DA. Remember that Vy decreases with an increase in DA.

MTV

OK, but doesn't the page I posted that has the graph basically boil it all down to a picture? The graph is linear and the no flap line is higher at any point past 3400 horizontal feet than the flap line.
Another way to think of this, I believe, would be this: The runway at Schafer Meadows is 3200 feet long, close enough to the 3400 feet in my example. At the end of the runway I will be at 320 AGL using either flaps or no flaps. However at the no flaps climb speed I'm getting 1200 fpm vs 700 fpm with flaps. Checking a climb gradient table if you increase speed from 60 to 90 knots you would have to increase rate of climb by 50% to be at the same height AGL at any point along the slower climb speeds line. But my aircraft increases its climb rate by 75% by raising gear and flaps and increasing speed by 24 knots. So to recap then you can simply look at the graph that I posted and just look at the two lines and see where your obstacle is relative to the lines. Hasn't anybody done this with other aircraft?

BM,

Sorry, I don't see a "page" reference the Bonanza's climb performance.

If it's performance is what you're saying, I think we are stating the same thing.

All I'm saying is that every aircraft's climb performance is very different. You need to learn it's climb performance and utilize the climb performance that will achieve best climb GRADIENT in situations where you're trying to gain altitude over the shortest forward movement.

I think we're saying the same thing. Your point is specific to Bonanzas. I'm speaking in generalalities.

MTV

jomac wrote:1) when u depart to the north, which is definitely the best, look straight ahead and try to push her up thru the "notch" directly north. yes, it is kind of a tall order, but not that hard to do. ...

When I was there during a couple of 180/185 Club fly-ins, I was never able to make it through the notch in my 180 with seaplane prop using 20 degrees at Vx unless I was ALONE in the mostly empty A/C! Some lightly loaded 185's were able to do it, but most of us just hugged the east wall of the canyon on north departure until near Yellowpine. Overheating in that steep of a prolonged climb was also a concern for most of us.

This idea is something I would definitely NOT recommend to anyone not flying a SuperCub or other very steep climbing A/C.

Fly Safe,

Rocky

gbflyer wrote:Sounds like to me that they need to set up a tower there if it's that busy. Must be quite a unique place to land an airplane and camp out if it's that popular.

Friends, be careful.

gb

It's not that busy for the most part... Look at the camera on site most days and it's empty or one or two aircraft... It gets a little busier on weekends and outrageous during the SC and 180/185 fly in and on Harmonica festival weekend... Those are times you don't want to go there and judging from some of the posts here, the BCP fly in as well. Landing advice from Jomac aside, most pilots do a short approach from left downwind in the canyon from the south and fly the canyon approach from the North.. and you can forget the "notch" departure unless you have 300 HP.... You have to depart up the canyon to the north hugging the right side. The unwritten rule there is if someone announces he's entering the canyon from Yellow Pine you don't take off till he's landed.... "announces" being the operative word there...We DO have radios you know......