|
Download your free copy of the award winning ForPilots LogBook program today! |
If a skier can take Mondays, Fridays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays
off, he doesnt need an airplane! Are you still in TRK? Mike MU-2 Seth Masia wrote in message ... >All of these warnings are appropriate. I learned to fly, in a 172, at >Truckee, and my second solo cross country was to Mammoth. It was a >glorious, clear spring day and I had no trouble. Ive also flown 172s down >the Owens Valley in the summer. Its safe enough in clear weather, as long >as youre loaded lightly enough to handle the density altitude and know >enough to stick to the ridge-lift side of the trench. > >Winter flying is something else. One of my friends died flying this route >in his Bonanza. Piston airplanes are not equipped to handle ice, day or >night. Id fly my 250hp Comanche into Mammoth in the winter only during >daylight hours in clear, dry weather, and with winds aloft under 30 knots. >And Id postpone my return until conditions are benign. In the real world, a >piston-engine airplane is useful to a skier only if you can take Fridays and >Mondays off from work, and preferably Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, >too. Fly *only* when the weather is fine. Storm days are for skiing. > >Another note: Crosswind and a snow-packed runway are not a happy >combination. The Mammoth runway bakes dry after several sunny hours, but an >early-morning landing after a storm passage could put your airplane into the >snowbank. Think about that before you accept a terminal forecast as fully >VFR. > >Seth >N8100R > > |
| [BACK] | Return to the ForPilots.com archive page |