I like the way you hang close to one ridge. Even in the early morning, some air is coming upslope from the valley as the sun warms the earth.

Love these videos. Looks a lot like home.

If you brought your bike you'll have to make a trip up to Squamish.

A question from a student/wannabe mountain pilot: How do you get comfortable that you aren't going to encounter a strong downdraft when you are in one of those valleys? I'm reading Sparky Imeson's book on mountain flying right now and one of his commandments (that I'm sure he doesn't always follow) is one should always have an escape path, a way to reverse direction in a descending turn.

I may be underestimating the ability of a 182 to turn sharply, but it looks as though the only way out of those valleys is up.

Allan

This valley goes downhill and before entering it I saw where it opened up.
I wouldnt do it if was even a bit windy.

Allan,

The wind is not necessarily our enemy. Yes, we need an escape route down drainage. motoadve was already going down drainage, but your point is a good one. To reverse course when going up drainage, hopefully using ridge lift on the ridge downwind of the valley, we can turn incredibly tight, especially into a crosswind which becomes a headwind in the turn. Also we want to use the often greater vertical space than horizontal space available. A bank of any angle is safe, if we allow the nose to go down into that greater vertical space. Energy management turns need be practiced in open conditions first, but become most useful in tight conditions. We are making a turn to target with the target being the middle of the valley or canyon. We keep turning, we keep pushing the nose around with rudder, we keep allowing the nose to go down a much as it wishes, until we are lined up on the target. The airplane cannot stall unless the pilot pulls back on the stick.

Jim

contactflying wrote:....Also we want to use the often greater vertical space than horizontal space available. A bank of any angle is safe, if we allow the nose to go down into that greater vertical space.
...

Unfortunately a lot of times the reason for turning around when headed up-canyon is the fact that the terrain is out-climbing the airplane. So there may not be much of this "greater vertical space" beneath us.
The more commonly practiced canyon turn is to pull nose up to a suitable maneuvering speed, drop 10 or 20 flaps, add full power, and crank it around using about a 30 degree bank. I've used it a time or two myself.
Very small turning radius, and if you keep your speed up and your bank angle down, plenty safe.

I forget that to non crop dusters, 100' of vertical space is not a lot of vertical space. If, however, there is an eighth mile to the opposite ridge and an eighth mile of vertical space, putting my nose in that hole seems a lot more comfortable than making the other ridge the target.

Sure! Not putting ourselves there is a solution. What about being there and having nothing but a flat turn in our data banks?

Unwillingness to give up altitude to keep g loading under control in whatever turn is necessary to miss things is a hard, hard ideological concept after making thousands of flat turns and only descending turns at the airport. The airplane doesn't care if we're at the airport or not. It likes descending turns. It doesn't try to hurt us if we will just let the nose go down as designed.

Use a forty acre field, one quarter mile by one quarter mile, to make level turns while watching ground track. Yes, wind makes a big difference as to which way is the better way to turn around and go the other way. Now make energy management turns. Keep increasing bank, but not holding back on the stick. What is the difference in turning radius of an upwind turn at seventy degrees of bank verses an upwind turn of thirty degrees of bank? Now try to stay in the field making a downwind turn. Yes! At ninety degrees of bank the airplane is still flying, unless we have pulled back on the stick. And yes, a lot of rudder is needed throughout the turn to keep the nose moving across he field and to help keep the nose going down when past forty five degrees of bank.

All this stuff is worthless if not practiced and then used in real life.

Contact top rudder ?

Bottom, I think


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Use rudder in the direction of the turn. In a canyon turn back or crop duster turn back or any turn to miss things requiring a lot of bank, we need to push the nose around. We push the nose in the desired direction of turn. We need a rapid rate of turn (bank and rudder as needed, err on the side of skid NOT SLIP). We need to be slow. Hotrod 180's flaps help, but we also need to anticipate the turn and pitch up wings level to slow down if we are at cruise. The slower we go, the faster we turn. We also need a small radius of turn. Small enough to not hit the other ridge defining the valley would be best. When the choice is limiting radius or limiting bank, we need to err on the side of too much bank. The whole trick is to not load the wing in the turn by pulling back on the stick too much. Some to mitigate tuck in really steep bank is fine. We don't need to regain cruise airspeed as quickly as the airplane wants to do. However, we need to err on the side of too little stick pulling. Better allow the nose to go down to sixty degree dive angle rather than stall the wing. A headwind here would really, really help with the radius of turn. We should have that if we have been riding the ridge lift really close to the ridge on the downwind side of the valley. Just bank as necessary to turn to the bottom of the valley. The other ridge and the slope up to that ridge need not come into play. When the nose is diving at the bottom of the drainage (the lowest point available,) we now have to remember to level the wing before we pull up. Here, as in the entry and in the turn, we don't want to load the wing in a bank. OK to load the level wing to slow down to prepare for the turn. OK to load the level wing in the pull up to end the dive.

You were hugging the ridge very well in the video. You had room to make an energy management turn, but we would have to be in a real crisis to want to turn back up drainage. With that kind of restricted horizontal space, however, a level turn would put us very close to the other ridge and very close to a stall. Once over there and all out of vertical space, our options may become controlled flight into terrain or pull back even more and fall into terrain. The hunters usually find the wreckage on the opposite ridge. In these tight and restricted situations, we need to turn, as steeply as necessary to miss things, allowing the nose to go down to prevent wing loading. Turning not quite steeply enough to miss things just doesn't seem safe.

albravo wrote:Love these videos. Looks a lot like home.

If you brought your bike you'll have to make a trip up to Squamish.

A question from a student/wannabe mountain pilot: How do you get comfortable that you aren't going to encounter a strong downdraft when you are in one of those valleys? I'm reading Sparky Imeson's book on mountain flying right now and one of his commandments (that I'm sure he doesn't always follow) is one should always have an escape path, a way to reverse direction in a descending turn.

I may be underestimating the ability of a 182 to turn sharply, but it looks as though the only way out of those valleys is up.

Allan

Couple of comments:

First, when it's windy, don't go there. My personal rule is if the winds at the peaks are more than 20 knots, I don't go into the mountains. Assuming that there's not a major weather system moving through, winds in the morning and in the evening are often markedly less than during mid-day.

Second, Sparky's book is full of wonderful advice, and he was a heckuva mountain pilot. But he died not following his own advice--he didn't leave himself an "out". In fact, a couple of years before he died, he and one of his students crashed because they got too close to terra firma in a descending turn. So having enough altitude to make that descending turn, if that is what is required, is essential.

Often enough, though, a descending turn isn't necessary--a level turn will work just as well, unless the canyon is too narrow, where a descending turn is king. But at a slow enough airspeed, an airplane can be turned on a dime. Canyon turns don't require any pseudo-aerobatic maneuvers; just slowing down and a moderate bank will do the trick most of the time. Fly as near to the downwind side as possible, turn into the wind at 70 knots, perhaps with 10 flaps to increase lift, bank to 30 degrees, and a 172 or 182 or 170 or 180-5 will make a remarkably tight turn with no danger of stalling.

Like anything else in aviation, practice in a non-threatening environment before it's necessary to use any new skill, or any skill that has atrophied. For instance, I will practice level canyon turns over flat farmland, when I haven't done any for awhile. I will practice short field landings and spot landings on runways that give me adequate overruns, if I haven't done short field landings for real for awhile. I will practice low ground effect soft field take offs, if I haven't done that for awhile. And if you haven't done any of that, learn from a competent instructor first.

Cary