bcdpilot Boy that sure looks like fun you guys have any idea how my tubocharged 185 would do at some of these high altitude places you guys go. Sure like to try some of them out.

bcdpilot,
Your turbocharged 185 is one of the best airplanes to have for high altitudes operations, if it is set up right and know how to fly it! Unless you have a lot of experience doing this kind of flying and or you are very proficient landing on short high altitude mountain airstrips, I would not recommend this kind of place to fly into in the previously posted picture! Which kind of turbo kit do you have on your C-185? Mountainflier

I have a TSIO520C that was done in 1970, I do have a lot of time (15000 hours)but never landing at those altitudes. 9 or 10 thousand is highest I have done and thats hard surface, and around 350 hours in a 180/185. I try to keep the risks a little lower, being on the edge and being scared shitless on landing and take-off and risking a wreck with the plane is above my pay grade and is more in line with my real job as a pilot. But if there was enough room and could be done safely I would like to try some of those places. I can put the airplane where I want and practice short t/o and ldgs often and have done most strips in the Johnson Creek area. Figure it should get off quicker than a none turbo=charged plane at those high altitudes You can usually get a 180/185 into places you cant get out of.

bcdpilot wrote:I have a TSIO520C that was done in 1970, I do have a lot of time (15000 hours)but never landing at those altitudes. 9 or 10 thousand is highest I have done and thats hard surface, and around 350 hours in a 180/185. I try to keep the risks a little lower, being on the edge and being scared shitless on landing and take-off and risking a wreck with the plane is above my pay grade and is more in line with my real job as a pilot. But if there was enought room and could be done safely I would like to try some of those places.

Figure out a way to fly with one of these guys first I think. You could be at Truckee in a couple of hours with your airplane and maybe con one of them out of a ride. I dunno. Speaking out of turn here but it's an idea. I'm not the guy by the way.

EB

I definately dont have the balls to try things like Coyote Joe does

bcdpilot wrote:I definately dont have the balls to try things like Coyote Joe does

Balls, beers, or a big helicopter in the family.....

Yep short on all of that

bcdpilot definately dont have the balls to try things like Coyote Joe does!

I have not been to this place myself, so I would approach this high altitude mountain top with a lot of caution!
In my opinion, this kind of place has to have near perfect WX to go to it! And it is probably covered with snow 8-9 mo. out of the year! I think it would be fun to go to it if everything fell into place! Mountainflier

Yea me too and it would be a lot easier with cooler temps maybe in the fall before snow covers it up. I would like to
get up there when Kevin does some of his week-end hops to all of those local high alt places.

Count me in on the 13.5 spot.. Let's head up that way Kevin when ya get back together. I've got a spot at about that same elevation, but I have to hike up to it an pick some big rocks.. Puff puff... I've landed pretty close to it at 12.7, my highest, but didn't have the go or time that day to hike on up.

Wonder what's the highest anyone has landed on wheels?

Coyote Ugly wrote:Count me in on the 13.5 spot.. Let's head up that way Kevin when ya get back together. I've got a spot at about that same elevation, but I have to hike up to it an pick some big rocks.. Puff puff... I've landed pretty close to it at 12.7, my highest, but didn't have the go or time that day to hike on up.

Wonder what's the highest anyone has landed on wheels?

A supercub I think, on the side of Mt. McKinley. I'd have to dig through a lot of boxes of books to find it. I don't remember for sure if it was more than 13.5.

Here are a couple photo shots on short final getting ready to land up the mountain slopes! On the second picture flying above the terrain from about a 15% up the mountain slope to over double that just in front of the airplane! It's just pitch and power adjustments before landing! Fun! Also landing up slope with morning sun in yours eyes definitely makes the landing more difficult, I try to avoid that when I can! Mountainflier

Here is a little rough narrow logging road cut into a sidehill that I thought was a better option than risking running out of fuel over heavy timber. It worked out but man was it ever tight!
I only made one flyover pass because the edge of the marine layer that was keeping from my destination airport was right to the road and I was afraid that in a matter of seconds it might cover it and then I would have NO place to land!
I squeezed my 32' wings between a huge pile of dirt and wood on one side and the sidehill with stumps on the other. It was only 33' to 34' between them! I was so glad to be in my Highlander and so glad that I practice landing in extreme places.
The road itself wasn't too bad except that it was rounded up down the middle and rough enough to make the plane rock and roll putting my wingtip nearly into the sidehill over and over, especially on my take-off roll.
I was here about 3 hours waiting for the marine layer to clear. I knew for sure that I didn't want to have to come back and land here again. I was loaded pretty heavy too on my way to the Arlington fly-in. I could have kissed my turbo charged Rotax when I was able to lift off before that 33/34' space that I had landed between!


I took this pic after I took off and the clouds were gone. I wish I had a pic of it before I landed but there is no way I was going to take the time for that then.

taildrgfun wrote:<snip> It was only 33' to 34' between them! <snip>

good job Steve! i heard Arlington was a bit soggy.

Great job Steve, you can't make stuff like that up! For us dry siders, getting out and back from Arlington seems like always an adventure, give me mountain and high desert anytime (I don't care how rough either at least I can frigging SEE) over that fog and low ceiling stuff.

A backasswards view of a 8600' peak I landed this spring, where dodging the remaining snow drifts added to the fun. I landed this usually marshy area today (dry weather is good for something) to check out the old log cabin, and then realized I was below the mountaintop, 4K vertical between the two.

Don't know if its a record - but Summit of Mt. Rainier - 14,410 in 1951:

http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=8469

Probably the guys in Ecuador have landed higher - air is thicker and the ground goes higher.

Coyote Ugly wrote:Wonder what's the highest anyone has landed on wheels?

El Alto, the international airport for La Paz, Bolivia is 13,325 feet and 4065 metres long.
An aquaintance landed and departed in a Tri-Pacer on delivery flight to Sucre.

The highest commercial airport in the world is in Tibet, at 14,219ft. The runway is 18,000ft! They are building another that will be even higher at 14,500ft - to be completed in 2014.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qamdo_Bangda_Airport

Free Tibet!

A Pilatus Porter has laneded at 19,000ft in Dualaghiri - in Nepal - I think that's the fixed wing record
http://www.bush-planes.com/Pilatus-Porter-PC-6.html

And a Eurocoptor was landed on the summit of Chomolungma (Mt. Everest) at 29,000ft!
http://www.traditionalmountaineering.or ... verest.htm

Top that Cub Drivers!

'Greg

Now that's what you might call enhanced ground effect

-DP

taildrgfun wrote: