Mountain checkout training in the Denver area

houston21481

Hi All,

I will be Denver, CO on business this spring and thought that this would be a great opportunity to do something new like a mountain flying course. There are several flight schools in the greater Denver area that offer mountain flying training - does anyone have any experience with any of them?

For example, Journeys Aviation on the field at BJC (Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport, formerly Jefferson County) looks like a decent outfit with a mountain flying checkout curriculum (including the obligatory landing at Leadville, CO). Based on what I've seen on the web, I am leaning toward this group, but was hoping that some POS members had experience with this outfit or one of their competitors to share.

Any comments?

alex

I think Sparky lives in the area and he would be the fellow to teach you mountain flying, he was here in NM teaching a course so I took the ground school but not any airwork, I freind of mine went flying with him and he had him flying 50ft away from the mountain in slow flight so he could make the turn in the canyon.

houston21481

Alex -

I suspect you're right. I know his book is strongly recommended by the Colorado Pilots Association website.

houston21481

Tom -

Thank you. I'm certainly looking forward to the trip and will be sure to report on how it goes.

houston21481

Thanks, Bill. Did you happen to interact with anyone at Vector? If so, what were your impressions?

houston21481

Bill -

Thanks for the extra comments. I checked out Vector's website and was surprised not to find mention of mountain check outs there, especially compared to their neighbors at JeffCo who make a big point of advertising their mountain flying curriculum. I'll have to give Vector a call. Thanks for the info.

houston21481

Well, I went and did it. I spent time with an instructor from Journeys Aviation while visiting Denver last week. Overall, it was a terrific experience. I had taken the AOPA mountain flying course and read Sparky Imeson's book, but neither compares to interactive learning with a knowledgeable instructor.

I chose Journeys for one primary reason: they had an Archer to rent so that I could do the training in something familiar to me. I did call some of the other places recommended here, but none of them really worked out.

We did some ground training on the first morning and spent 7 hours over two mornings back in the Rockies. We landed at a handful of airports, including Leadville, CO.

Pictures and a few more details are available on my website:
http://www.ncemsf.org/cthouston/newstuff/20080530.htm

alex

Chris,
Great story and pictures as usual and what we have come to expect from you.
I have a Piper Cherokee 180 and live in NM, I have flown into Colorado a number of times and have landed the Piper at Pagosa springs. One flight I took was with a freind of mine who wanted to show me Wolf Creek Pass which needed to be crossed to get to Mineral, Creed Colorado.I flew his Cessna 182 Turbo through the pass at 11,500 intentionaly to see if my Piper could make it through, the pass has an AWOS on top of it so we knew what the winds were doing, they were 15KT gusting to 20KT so winds were not an issue,flying through the pass we followed the road below just incase we had to do an emegency landing and negotiated the pass without difficulty.Once through the pass you are essentialy on a left base for Mineral which has an elevation of 8,600,density altitude is somewhat of a concern for my Piper so if it's standard temperature which is usualy the case in the mornings and evenings during the summer then it's a none issue. I have flown during the summer out of my airport KAEG when density altitude was 9,000 plus and the 180 Cherokee handled it just fine.The old rule for flying in the mountains is land by 10AM and don't fly until after 4 PM this way you avoid density issues and thermal activity.
The other day I took off from our airport with temperatures hovering near the 90's with full fuel and two onboard,this was a test flight to see how high I could climb.Using the thermals when available I climbed to 13,600 and the aircraft still wanted to climb at 100-200 ft /minute.The service cieling on my Cherokee is 13,000 and the absolute ceiling is 15,000 ft. i don't think i would like the performance of the aircraft at 15,000 since that is where the angle of attack would be close to 18 degrees or near a stall.
It's nice to see that you landed at Leadville and shows what is possible in an Archer, was the temperature at standard when you did this,I would like to know for future reference when I plan a trip to fly Colorado?
I wish someone would work on an STC to provide some turbo to our Lycoming engines, wouldn't it be nice to be able to turn on a turbo when needed to safely cross some 14,000 footers?
Let me know if you are ever in the Albuquerque area and we can go fly the mountains in my Cherokee.
Alex

houston21481

Alex -

Thanks. I wish the pictures captured how amazing it was. Some of them are nice enough, but they just don't compare to the reality.

I initially wanted to say that the temperature at Leadville was a bit above standard, about 17C. But thinking back on it, I think I'm confusing it with one of the lower elevation airports we landed at. Sorry, I don't remember what it was.

The take off was not easy -- the airplane just did not want to roll forward at all. Where I learned to fly, 6400' is a lot of runway - a ridiculously extravagant amount for a single engine Piper. 6400' seemed awfully short at Leadville that morning!