Night flying in the mountians in a cessna 150,

mindenpilot wrote:
From the time I hit Tahoe, until I get to Placerville, there is
literally
NOWHERE to safely put it down.
In fact, I don't think I could even walk away from the plane if I had
to put
it down.

With that in mind, what difference would it make if it was light or
dark
outside the plane?
I'd be dead either way, right?

Sounds about right. There are certain situations where VMC/IMC and
day/night make no difference (provided the pilot is prepared to control
the plane by reference to instruments) - and those situations are where
the terrain is uniformly bad (overwater) or uniformly good (nothing but
fields). Maybe the Sierras really are uniformly bad.

Thing is, while I've never flown the Sierras, I've made three crossings
over the Rockies doing the Houston-San Francisco run. Two of them were
day-VMC, and one included night and IMC flying.

The day-VMC crossings had a very low pucker factor, in spite of being
in a low power airplane. I flew my route so there was always someplace
reasonably flat to set down. Not good enough to save the plane, but
probably good enough to walk away. Maybe. But I didn't fly a straight
route. I mostly followed I-10 and flew the passes.

The crossing that included the night and IMC time (and some night IMC)
was in a much higher powered and much better equipped single (a
full-IFR A-36) but I must say the pucker factor was high. I flew the
airways because the OROCA's were too high and we had no oxygen. I knew
that if the engine decided to take a dump, our chances were not good.

I did it because I had a schedule to keep, a plane to move, and the guy
who hired me didn't hire me to sit on my ass because the engine might
quit. And the engine was in good shape, and the plane had a good
annual and several hours after the annual to shake out the bugs, and so
I judged the risk to be fairly low. In a typical rental, I might not
have done it - and I sure wouldn't do it all the time. The odds will
catch up with you eventually.

Michael

"Michael" wrote

I did it because I had a schedule to keep, a plane to move, and the guy
who hired me didn't hire me to sit on my ass because the engine might
quit. And the engine was in good shape, and the plane had a good
annual and several hours after the annual to shake out the bugs, and so
I judged the risk to be fairly low. In a typical rental, I might not
have done it - and I sure wouldn't do it all the time. The odds will
catch up with you eventually.

Michael

WoW. Good reasons? Hmmm. Personal standards? Hmmm. And admitting it
will catch up, signifying you realize that this will kill you? Hmmm.

Morgans wrote:
WoW. Good reasons? Hmmm. Personal standards? Hmmm. And admitting
it
will catch up, signifying you realize that this will kill you? Hmmm.

I'm a commercial pilot. When I am hired to move an airplane, I am
hired to do a job. That job includes risk. When I took my first job
out of school, troubleshooting distillation towers, I took a lot more
risk.

When you use the airplane as a tool (meaning a vehicle for getting you
where you want to go when you want to get there, and not just a way of
going up to see the pretty scenery, shoot some landings, and get a
hundred dollar burger or attend a fly-in) there is unavoidably going to
be some risk. If you don't, you could in theory get the risk down to
almost nothing. But only in theory.

In reality, the most dangerous segment of aviation isn't the people who
fly with a schedule to keep and a place to be. These people (the
self-flown business flyers and the commercial pilots) have a safety
record dramatically better than GA as a whole - in part, I think,
because they're not kidding themselves about the risks.

Who are the most dangerous people in GA? Well, it's not the the
personal flyers, who just go for hundred dollar burgers, attend flyins,
and look at the pretty scenery. They're number two - behind the
airshow performers, and slightly ahead of the cropdusters.

Don't believe me? Check out the Nall Report. It's on the AOPA site.

Michael

I think it was Chuck Yeager who said it was the third problem that
killed you. We can deal with two problems at once but we can't deal
with three.

So my rule is to never fly with more than one known problem because
unforeseen problems have a way of appearing when they aren't convenient.

As for flying at night over the mountains that is definitely a problem.
The plane and engine have to be in perfect condition. The weather has
to be perfect and I have to be current, rested and alert. If those
conditions are met then I wouldn't have a problem flying a Cessna 152 at
night over the mountains and I have done it a few times.

I personally think that weather in the mountains is a much more severe
problem than darkness.

LG

"Legrande Harris" wrote

The plane and engine have to be in perfect condition.

Perfect engines fail, too. Right?
--
Jim in NC

Morgans wrote:

Perfect engines fail, too. Right?

Yep. One that quit on takeoff at Kupper was a Mattituck overhaul with only a few
hours on it. That's about as perfect as you're gonna get in this world. The CFI
did a fantastic job of returning to the airport from about 600' AGL, refused the
offer of a drink, and went home (presumably to change).

George Patterson
I prefer Heaven for climate but Hell for company.

In article ,
"Morgans" wrote:

"Legrande Harris" wrote

The plane and engine have to be in perfect condition.

Perfect engines fail, too. Right?

Everything mechanical will break.

Do I want to be flying at night over the mountains when my engine dies?
The thought of spiraling down into a black hole doesn't really appeal to
me

I actually enjoy flying at night though. I learned to fly down in
Arizona and flying at night with a full moon across the desert was a
wonderful experience. At night I would have less turbulence, the
aircrafts performance was better and most of the time I could see the
ground well enough to probably survive an engine out landing.

So is it worth the risk? Is it worth the risk not to?

LG

Michael,

The odds will
catch up with you eventually.


You say we're ALL going to win the lottery?

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Thomas Borchert wrote:
The odds will
catch up with you eventually.

You say we're ALL going to win the lottery?

Sure, if we play long enough.

Fly long enough, and an engine WILL fail. I've flown about 1900 hours
in powered aircraft, but 800 of those were in twins so I have about
2700 hours of engine time. I've had an engine failure caused by
mechanical problems. Once.

Michael

"Michael" wrote in message
oups.com...
Thomas Borchert wrote:
The odds will
catch up with you eventually.

You say we're ALL going to win the lottery?

Sure, if we play long enough.

That's not true. The longer you play, the more opportunities you have to
win. But each time you play, you have the same exact chance to win (all
else being equal, which means ignore the variations in chance due to
different numbers of participants, etc), and there is NO length of time you
can play that will guarantee a win.

Fly long enough, and an engine WILL fail.

Likewise, there is no length of time you can fly that will guarantee an
engine failure. Just as important: it doesn't matter how many hours you
have, the chance of an engine failure is exactly the same (all else being
equal) on each flight. Once you successfully complete a flight without an
engine failure, you can ignore that flight (and every single one prior) for
the purpose of assessing your risk on the next flight.

It seems that some pilots are going around thinking that the longer they
fly, the closer they get to their fated engine failure (or other problem).
That's just not true.

Mechanical problems do happen, and an engine failure can happen as a result.
An engine failure is a very real possibility, but it is also very unlikely.
But then, so is having your wing fall off. Or running into another
airplane, or a bird, or something. There are lots of risks associated with
flying, many of which the pilot has little or no control over. We accept
them because the actual likelihood is low.

IMHO, there is no clear cut "this is just plain too dangerous for anyone to
do", and that includes issues like flying over mountains, at night, IFR, in
a single engine airplane. It's entirely possible to have a flying career
comprising only IFR flights over mountains at night in single-engine
airplanes and still never have to deal with an engine failure, never mind
one over hostile terrain.

Besides, anyone arguing against doing that needs to expand the prohibited
class of aircraft to include any twin engine aircraft with a single-engine
service ceiling lower than the terrain (or MEA/MOCA/MRA) being overflown.

Pete