Marc J. Zeitlin wrote:
Ron Wanttaja wrote:

Certainly, because a diagram to scale couldn't illustrate anything.
While the distances involved are exaggerated, the visual effects
are the same.


Ron, thanks for the diagram and the explanation. I frequently fly with
my wife out here (socal) in the mountains, and she will regularly look
out at a ridge 50-100 miles away from us when we're cruising at
8500-9500 ft. and say "those mountains look higher than us - are we
going to hit them?", or the functional equivalent. I glance at the map,
say "well, they're 7500 ft high, so we're 1K-2K ft above them, but
acknowledge that they DO look higher than our altitude, judging from the
horizon position.

Of course, when we get there, we find that we're above the ridge, just
like the map says (it's never wrong [so far]) and we shrug our shoulders
and go "huh - how do you like that".

Now I have the explanation for her (and me) as to why it looks like it
does - thanks!


I had the same issue flying to Tucson from the east one time. The
mountains looked much higher than I was. But looking at the charts and
the MEAs, I was fine at my altitude. As we motored along, they went
right below us.

--

Regards, Ross
C-172F 180HP
KSWI