Night flying in the mountians in a cessna 150,

If you are single engine over the mountains at night, you could easily fly
into a cloud or even icing conditions without knowing it, and without
sufficient instrument training and adequate additional climb capability,
you
might not find a way out before hitting something hard.

Additionally, if you lose your engine, where exactly are you going to put it
down safely?

Trent Moorehead wrote:
"Dude" wrote in message
...

That being said, putting a plane like a 150 into the trees isn't
impossible
at all. Simply mushing it into the foliage as slow as possible has
been
accomplished many times, even if it is a crap shoot. Given the
hieght of
some of those trees would make it interesting to get down
afterwards
though.

I've been doing some reading lately that advises pilots to aim for
the base
of the trees, not the foliage. Mushing it into the tops of the trees
ensures
that you will stall as soon as the plane touches the first treetop.
The nose
will drop and you will be going straight down from there. Unless the
tree
branches break the fall on the way down, there is a good chance you
will not
survive. The taller the trees, the farther you fall, the harder the
impact.

If you aim for the base of the trees, you'll be under control as
close to
the ground as possible when the stall occurs. You do have to be
careful not
to hit a tree trunk head-on, but if you aim right, the wings can be
used to
absorb energy, making the deceleration as gradual as possible. It's
the
quick deceleration that kills you or renders you unconscious and if
there is
a fire you are not getting out.

I also used to think that mushing the plane into the treetops was the
way to
go, but obviously I've been rethinking that. And just reading the
title of
this thread gives me willies. To be honest, I thought it was a joke
or a
hypothetical question, not a recounting of an actual experience.
Speaking
for myself only, outright emergencies notwithstanding, you won't find
me
"Night flying in the mountains in a cessna 150".

-Trent
PP-ASEL

It also matters what type of trees you try that mushing in. In the
East, limbs tend to point up. But in the West, they tend to point down
(Fir). If you expect those tree limbs to break your fall you can forget
it (those limbs are designed to shed snowfall). They will only spring
back up after you have crumpled yourself into the ground, hiding your
wreckage for (sometimes) years before a hapless hiker stumbles into it.

Tom

"Howard Nelson" wrote

I have flown numerous times single engine, day, over both rockies and
sierras. I don't know what the actual realities are but the sierras are
much
more "scary". They rise faster, fewer valleys and more bare rock. I have
always felt that I have had an "out" when flying over the rockies not so
the
sierras.

Howard

Although I have not flown above the Andes, except very high in an airliner,
driving through them gives me the following point of view. If you think the
Sierras are scary, check out the Andes. They are young, raw, and jagged.
--
Jim in NC

"Trent Moorehead" wrote

Speaking
for myself only, outright emergencies notwithstanding, you won't find me
"Night flying in the mountains in a cessna 150".

-Trent

The original poster has a reputation for posting (and doing) things that
make me think that he is not much of a "thinking man."
--
Jim in NC

It also matters what type of trees you try that mushing in.

Please read "How to Crash an Airplane and Survive" by Mick Wilson,
formerly FAA DEN FSDO Safety Program Manager.

He tells us we want to fly just above stall speed, in landing
configuration. Please do not attempt to "mush it in".

Sparky Imeson, of "The Mountain Flying Bible" tells us to "fly the
aircraft as far into the crash as possible", that is, "keep flying the
aircraft".

We cite both of these excellent writers and aviators in the Colorado
Pilots Association's Mountain Flying Course. See:
www.coloradopilots.org

Yes, I fly (any two of):
Mountains
Night
IFR

Best regards,

Jer/ "Flight instruction and mountain flying are my vocation!" Eberhard

--
Jer/ (Slash) Eberhard, Mountain Flying Aviation, LTD, Ft Collins, CO
CELL 970 231-6325 EMAIL jer'at'frii.com WEB http://users.frii.com/jer/
C-206 N9513G, CFII Airplane&Glider, FAA-DEN Aviation Safety Counselor
CAP-CO Mission&Aircraft CheckPilot, BM218 HAM N0FZD, 222 Young Eagles!

As a previous poster pointed out, it really all boils down to what
level of risk you are willing to accept, as well as your comfort level
and level of experience.

I live and fly in northwestern New Mexico, and frequently fly XC across
northern Arizona and up into Colorado with my family. If I subscribed
to the rule of never flying and night in the mountains, I'd never be able
to fly at night. (Mind you, I fly a PA32-300, not a Cessna 150,
but it's still a normally aspirated single-engine).

However, even as an instrument rated pilot, I will not fly at night in the
mountains in IMC. The MEA's are just too darn high around here (16,000+),
and there isn't an "out" should something go awry.

Set personal limits and minima, and stick to them.

-- Dane

In article ,
markjenn wrote:
As a non-professional pilot, my my rule-of-thumb is that won't do any two of
the following three:

Night
Mountains
IFR weather (basically in significant flying in clouds)

All three is a huge risk

- Mark

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

very thought provoking thread for me. valuable stuff to consider
personal minimums. as someone who has been riding motorcycles for 40
years, i find it kinda tough to be critical of the decisions other
people make when the biggest killer of stupid old men is really big
motorcycles. news here a couple of weeks ago about some poor old fart
who was sitting on his porch when an 18-wheeler tire exploded and blew
him away. true.

i like the line someone around here uses about safety being an
impediment to progress....(sorry for the sloppy paraphrase)...

dan