Flying Thru Congested Areas

Death valley (furnace creek) is a cool place to land, but only in the winter,
its strange to watch your altimiter go below zero

"Everett M. Greene" wrote:

Craig Prouse writes:
Jeff wrote:

I live in the desert, If you go down there is not alot of places to land

I fly frequently to (for example) Laughlin, Lancaster WJF, and Palm
Springs. Also been to Tucson on occasion. Where out there in the
desert is NOT a place to land? It looks just like the pictures I've
been seeing from Mars.

Speaking of the pictures from Mars, I was thinking that NASA
could have saved a lot of money by sending someone to Death
Valley and taking a picture there.

its kind of deceiving from the air, but once you walk around on the ground or
drive it, you can see how rough it really is.
You may walk away from a forced landing in the desert, but your plane wont.

Maule Driver wrote:

My western flying has been limited to glider racing out of Minden NV where
there is plenty of desert like terrain to the east. Also West Texas and
Montana.

Nothing I've ever seen anywhere was as unlandable as the 500km circle around
Minden. If it wasn't a road or dry lake bed, you were likely to be totaled
and possibly injured. The absence of agriculture has a lot to do with it.
I've flown around Tucson and saw very little if any landable terrain. If
man hasn't processed it, it's usually unlandable. That sparse desert
vegetation is more than tough.

"Jeff" wrote in message
...

Death valley (furnace creek) is a cool place to land, but only in the
winter,
its strange to watch your altimiter go below zero


Beats the hell outta watching your thermometer go below zero.

I dont know why garmin couldnt make something like that possible, there is an
empty slot in the 430 for future options.

"O. Sami Saydjari" wrote:

Jeff,

I have already been playing with the 430 simulator to get familiar with
the controls. I never thought of using it for flight planning. Neat
idea! Would would be even cooler is if you could plan your trip on the
simulator, write to one of those small memory sticks, and then stick the
stick intot he Garmin 430 and have it download your plan. Perhaps, the
next generation will do that too.

-Sami

Jeff wrote:
Sami
what you can do for long flights is if you dont have it, and since your
getting the 430 anyways you may want it, go to
http://www.garmin.com/products/gns430/
and download the simulator for the 430
you can put in your route direct, see how it looks and amend it from there
then put it in duats for wind, time and fuel consumption.

Its a good program to have and mess with so you can get familiar with the
430 anyways.
I have a garmin handheld 295, I do my route on it, then put it in duats,
then when I get to my plane I put the route from the 295 into my 430.

"O. Sami Saydjari" wrote:


To get great circle routing which is easy to put on a chart
out of DUATS, select the "direct routing for GPS/Loran".

Must have missed this option. Thanks.


I recommend purchasing a "low altitude enroute planning chart"
(or something like that) from your favorite chart shop.

Great idea.


In truth, for longer trips, we file VOR routing (not necessarily
airways) more and more often, because with judicious use of
direct segments it usually adds very little (maybe 1%) to the
trip and makes filing flight plans easier.


It makes filing flight plans easier than what? vivtor airway routes?

Seems a direct file is the easiest. I assume I can just file my route
as "KISW direct KHEF" (Wisconsin Rapids, WI to Manassas, VA).

In article m,
"Maule Driver" wrote:

I've flown around Tucson and saw very little if any landable terrain. If
man hasn't processed it, it's usually unlandable. That sparse desert
vegetation is more than tough.

I refer to the classic definition of a "good landing." The airplane
might not fly again, but as for my own skin I'd rather take my chances
with some rocks and scrub compared to the tree-covered mountains in
Oregon and N. California.

Up there, the best option might be to find a clearcut and try to land
amongst the stumps and scrag. That would be about the same hazard as
landing in the desert provided that you can find a clearcut on
relatively level ground and not a hillside.

In article ,
Jeff wrote:

http://www.hwdairrace.org/

that race looks like it would be kinda fun,
anyone here ever enter these?

I've done it twice. It is fun.

I recommend it to you because it would be easy for you, ending up close
to home and all.

"Craig Prouse" wrote in message
...
In article m,
"Maule Driver" wrote:

I've flown around Tucson and saw very little if any landable terrain.
If
man hasn't processed it, it's usually unlandable. That sparse desert
vegetation is more than tough.

I refer to the classic definition of a "good landing." The airplane
might not fly again, but as for my own skin I'd rather take my chances
with some rocks and scrub compared to the tree-covered mountains in
Oregon and N. California.

No doubt we glider guiders are looking to save the ship too. But rocks and
scrub that stop a wingtip or the nose present a real survivability problem.
I remember looking at the country between Hobbs NM and Carlsbad Caverns.
From high it just looked bumpy. On the ground, say goodbye...

Up there, the best option might be to find a clearcut and try to land
amongst the stumps and scrag. That would be about the same hazard as
landing in the desert provided that you can find a clearcut on
relatively level ground and not a hillside.

I was with you until you mentioned clearcuts. Clearcuts in the east I
consider unlandable and deadly. Totally random mixture of big debris and
immovable stumps. Deadly. Never seen a western one but I'm just imagining
bigger and more gnarly. I've seen enough eastern tree top 'landings' in
gliders and airplanes to consider that more classically survivable than a
clear cut.

Hmmm, I'm going have to go out and walk a clearcut.

VFR OTT (Over The Top) is allowed in Canada. It's just an extra rating that
can be added on to the PPL with 15 hours instrument time. It can only be
used if you are able to climb to altitude and descend at destination whilst
maintaining VFR.

Thanks for the clarification, didn't know that ! (I remember reading
somewhere while back it wasn't allowed, it must have been a VFR-only
pilot). So how about VFR ON-Top (the IFR clearance), is that a valid
procedure in Canada ?

"Maule Driver" wrote in message . rr.com...
In my limited experience on the east coast, as long as the destination Lat
and Long are included (the Duats based stuff adds it automatically) the
direct route is generally accepted if I'm flying from something other than a
Class B or C airport with established procedures they like to follow.

'Tis true that Duats adds the lat-long for you. It's only when
filing direct via FSS that the issue comes up when talking to
ATC. Since we typically only file the first leg of an outbound
flight via DUATS, that means the issue comes up a lot.

'Tis also a point that per AIM, one is actually supposed to begin
and end the direct portion of the flight over a ground based
navaid, and include at least one waypoint defining the route
for each ARTCC -- I presume due to the limitations of the ATC
computers.

It still boggles my mind that our "antique" discontinued Palm VIIx
that we bought used for ~$60 can easily accept a database containing
every waypoint in the US but ARTCC computers can't.

Cheers,
Sydney

I have this urge to try to protect my plane so it can fly again ..I would
probably choose a gear up landing also if I had to ditch in the desert, that
way the tires dont catch the rocks and hopefully not flip the plane. Bu tthis
also assumes I am not over a mountain which are plentiful.
But I think most of the desert would be safer then tree's or tree stumps.

Craig Prouse wrote:



I refer to the classic definition of a "good landing." The airplane
might not fly again, but as for my own skin I'd rather take my chances
with some rocks and scrub compared to the tree-covered mountains in
Oregon and N. California.

Up there, the best option might be to find a clearcut and try to land
amongst the stumps and scrag. That would be about the same hazard as
landing in the desert provided that you can find a clearcut on
relatively level ground and not a hillside.