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

No experience with Cessna but you might consider a Luscombe. I flew mine in the Idaho mountains a lot. Only made it to S UT once but had fun. Commuted weekly from Idaho Falls (4740) to Marbleton WY (6993) one summer. DA was usually around 10k when I took off out of Marbleton to head home. 85hp or better will do the job.

Haven't flown in the mountains, but the C140 I got my tailwheel in was a dog with 400 pounds of people in front on a hot day at 1000 feet. <400 ft/min was the norm. It was okay solo, but nothing special. Might be better with a 235 in it. It was fun and easy to fly, and would probably be cheaper and easier to maintain than a lot of airplanes, if only because of the metal and it being a Cessna.

Get one with an O-290 and you won’t be disappointed.

I instructed two summers for Fred Shotenbeaur at Monte Vista, Colorado (MVI 7611 MSL) in his C-140. It is not a big deal in flood irrigation and desert county, but taking a pass out of the valley is different. Different even than what is taught in most mountain flying books.

I don't care what the advertised ceiling is, climbing up in the summer from ten AM on is not doable with engine alone and still have gas to go anywhere. Down the Rio Grande is no problem. Just don't try to climb. It is all down hill with few obstacles.

The same is true down Dos Rios, I forget the name of both rivers.

Going over passes can also be done with the help of wind energy (orograraphic or ridge lift.) It takes wind at an angle to the ridge we want to ride and acceptance of the very possible need to energy management turn (1g in the banked part of the turn) back if ridge lift doesn't pan out.

Some very gusty days provide good full power thermalling. Simply fly slow in updrafts and fast through downdrafts. This is done over the wide valley before attempting the pass.

In any case, engine (85 hp Continental) and fuel make an engine climb to altitude inefficient unless very early in the morning. Wind, very available, is the key any other time. The C-140 is a bit heavier than the Luscombe, but that makes it ride the rough air more comfortably.

If you get a low powered light airplane, read Safe Maneuvering Flight Techniques (,click signature box below) or I'll take a cheap airline flight out and give you a mountain checkout.

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Thanks all!
Probably will just hold off on a purchase and make the drive. Used to more power.

If a Pacer is an option, as you mention above, look for a 160 hp Pacer. They perform quite well at altitude when lightly loaded.

29singlespeed wrote:Thanks all!
Probably will just hold off on a purchase and make the drive. Used to more power.

You're missing the point!
C120/140's are great mountain airplanes, because they're so anemic you have no choice but to learn what the air is doing as it interacts with terrain. THAT will make you a mountain pilot...nothing else will. The tail wheel is a bonus, but it's the lack of power that's the real benefit. A mechanical autopilot understands everything there is to know about using the throttle, but flying low and slow with terrain all around you demands understanding air, and pilots who started out with big engines rarely (usually never) reach that understanding.

My wife and I regularly flew our Cessna 140 (with a 235 Lycoming) back and forth across the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Great Basin while traveling between California and Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. We learned more about air movement, orographic lift, cross country planning, fuel endurance, weight and balance, energy management, and diurnal weather patterns in one year of flying our 140 than we would have learned in decades of flying a powerful airplane. We had to get REALLY creative, again and again, to get where we were going, and it never occurred to us that we couldn't go somewhere because we didn't have enough airplane. There's simply no substitute for that sort of learning.

The way the FAA teaches flight doesn't work in the mountains because GA airplanes simply don't have enough power to compensate for the dynamic air movement that occurs in tight terrain. NONE of them do. I had a Carbon Cub dealer tell me "terrain is no longer a factor", and I think he believed it. If he ever moves off the coast and starts flying backcountry, he's going to die.

Learning the nature of air movement by flying an anemic airplane in the mountains (with safe airports on each end) is the best backcountry flight training you can get...and a WHOLE lot more fun than just pushing the throttle in and pointing the nose up.

Hammer nailed it. [emoji23][emoji851]

An enthusiastic +2 on Hammer's comments. The same thinking applies to flying floats also.

I flew my O-200 powered with climb prop and 8.50s C120 into all the big name Idaho strips without much hassle or worry. It all boils down to visualizing wind flow around the rocks. Ride it up, ride it down, have a Plan B escape route in your head locked and loaded. Nothing happens fast in that airplane. Same with the BC coast, as that little airplane took me on a whole lot of trips from where I was living in Kalifornia to our property on the Dean Channel. It would get in anywhere I wanted to go, and to get out, I just paid attention to DAs and weight. And, at 6 GPH of car gas, it makes for pretty economical flying.

Gump

+3 in hearty agreement to Hammer, Whee and Gump.

I agree.
My C120 has the McKenzie conversion, 0235C.
I always seem to have enough power.

Hammer for the win.

That said, it's hard to spend money knowing you're buying yourself a handicap and a lesson in workarounds. it's always more fun to reminsce about those lessons in underpowered airplanes than it is to actually fly them.

Zzz wrote:Hammer for the win.

That said, it's hard to spend money knowing you're buying yourself a handicap and a lesson in workarounds. it's always more fun to reminisce about those lessons in underpowered airplanes than it is to actually fly them.

But, it's really nice to have developed the skillset to wring that performance out of the wing and available horsepower too. Then, moving up to the real deal lets you climb up the cool ladder and play with the big boys. Never learn it, you're just a rich guy with a cool toy who doesn't know how to use it.

But, from personal experience, moving backwards down the HP and performance scale sucks pondwater.

Gump

GumpAir wrote:
But, from personal experience, moving backwards down the HP and performance scale sucks pondwater.

Gump

Heh heh...yes. As long as you keep moving up, all's good.

Zzz wrote:..... it's hard to spend money knowing you're buying yourself a handicap and a lesson in workarounds. it's always more fun to reminsce about those lessons in underpowered airplanes than it is to actually fly them.

I agree. KInda like the rich guy talking about when he was poor--
those "good old days" weren't really all that good, at the time.

IMHO some of the lessons you learn about flying an under-powered airplane don't come into play unless you're flying one.
And some lessons come at a pretty high price.
If you can afford a more capable machine, I say just go for it.

I think another point that hasn't been touched on yet is that learning to read the air and fly the wing makes the higher horsepower airplane perform better or more efficient (i.e., less fuel consumption, or faster when you need it). That knowledge still pays off as you move up the HP and performance ladder.

IMHO some of the lessons you learn about flying an under-powered airplane don't come into play unless you're flying one.

I couldn't disagree more. Understanding how air interacts with terrain is the single most valuable thing a backcountry pilot can learn, and you learn it a lot faster the less hp you have to work with.

And unless your airplane burns jet fuel at a rate that requires a dedicated fueling aircraft to launch an hour before you take off, ALL aircraft are underpowered in the mountains. Thinking that HP will compensate for DA and mountain air currents has killed more pilots than cirrhosis of the liver and syphilis combined.

As for the rose colored lenses of nostalgia...sure, and no. When we were flying our 140 we could have easily afforded a 180. Hell, we could have afforded two 180's. We chose the 140 because it was the right airplane to learn in, and frankly a lot more fun than a more powerful aircraft for us at the time.

To each their own of course, but I guarantee I know more about mountain flying because I didn't go straight to the big displacement airplanes.

I agree with Hammer that believing we have more horsepower than natural heat and wind energy in the mountains is a very dangerous orientation. We do what we have practised (muscle memory) in a crisis. It is possible, but not probable, that we will take all energy sources into consideration on every flight regardless of our horsepower. Not needing to weakens the resolve and usually degrades currency.

Trying to convince a student we can simulate the low power, energy management orientation in a high powered airplane is false teaching. You really kinda have to be there.