Our FBO recently updated their rental rules such that we can land at up to 3,000' density altitude without a mountain checkout. I have been always wanting to go to Columbia (O22), which is just over 2,000' MSL, and previously out of reach without the checkout. So I decided today was the day to try and go.
We took off uneventfully into pretty icky turbulence, bumpety bumping along through the mountain passes out to the Altamont Pass and towards Stockton. Even in the Central Valley, it was really bumpy. The ceiling was somewhere around 4,500 scattered to broken, with lots of flat-bottomed clouds and lots of bumps underneath them.
I decided to chicken out, and we turned back and bumped back to KRHV, where we bumped up and down through the pattern. I selected 15 degrees of flaps and kept my speed up through the approach, and ended up making a pretty soft landing.
Once on the ground, I chatted with the local CFIs and got some words of wisdom.
1. What I was experiencing was mountain waves, not thermals. The flat bottomed clouds were that way for the same reasons that they look that way when they are due to thermals.
2. Everybody else was getting beaten around today.
3. The bumps in the SportStar were certainly way more severe than I would have experienced were I in a C172 or similar.
4. That said, it was not an unsafe day to fly; I could probably have continued up to Columbia to take a peek from a safe distance, had I wanted to keep bumpety-bumping along.
5. That said, there's no way a landing at Columbia would have been advisable.
It's good that I got out there with the assumption that I was going to abort if stuff didn't feel right at any point. Also thanks to my pax Aden for being cool about it and not pressuring for mission completion!
We took off uneventfully into pretty icky turbulence, bumpety bumping along through the mountain passes out to the Altamont Pass and towards Stockton. Even in the Central Valley, it was really bumpy. The ceiling was somewhere around 4,500 scattered to broken, with lots of flat-bottomed clouds and lots of bumps underneath them.
I decided to chicken out, and we turned back and bumped back to KRHV, where we bumped up and down through the pattern. I selected 15 degrees of flaps and kept my speed up through the approach, and ended up making a pretty soft landing.
Once on the ground, I chatted with the local CFIs and got some words of wisdom.
1. What I was experiencing was mountain waves, not thermals. The flat bottomed clouds were that way for the same reasons that they look that way when they are due to thermals.
2. Everybody else was getting beaten around today.
3. The bumps in the SportStar were certainly way more severe than I would have experienced were I in a C172 or similar.
4. That said, it was not an unsafe day to fly; I could probably have continued up to Columbia to take a peek from a safe distance, had I wanted to keep bumpety-bumping along.
5. That said, there's no way a landing at Columbia would have been advisable.
It's good that I got out there with the assumption that I was going to abort if stuff didn't feel right at any point. Also thanks to my pax Aden for being cool about it and not pressuring for mission completion!
