After doing a few days of mountain flying in New Zealand in 2023 I was keen to do some more and learn a bit more about what to do and what not to do when flying at altitude amongst the mountains. There’s no place to do it in Australia but I knew that it’s possible in the Rocky Mountains in the US. I’d also wanted to fly in the US for a while and had plans to visit the EAA Airventure in Wisconsin in 2024 so, wanting to make the most of my trip to the US, decided to add a couple of days of mountain flying training to my itinerary prior to arriving in Oshkosh.

I contacted a few flight schools by email to find out pricing and the types of aircraft they used and decided on flying with Matt Beyer who is based at Rocky Mountains Metro Airport, about 30km north of the Denver city centre.  Matt had three days available in the week before AirVenture so I booked two, with the third held in reserve in case of bad weather.

Matt is about my age and grew up in Denver where he’s spent most of his life.  He’s flown around the Rockies since about 1990 so knows the area really well.  And he’s survived that long in the mountains so I reckoned there’d be a good chance he’d be safe to fly with.  As it turned out he’s also the chief safety officer for the Rocky Mountain Flight School.

So, in early July Brett Silvester and I flew from Brisbane to Los Angeles. I’d originally planned to fly commercial from LA to Denver but after telling Brett of my plans he suggested we do a road trip.  As a result, we drove the 1,600km over four days, arriving in Denver the afternoon of the day before the first flying day.  That gave us the advantage of getting over jet lag and seeing some amazing country that we’d otherwise never experience.

The first lesson we learned for flying in the mountains was to fly early because the weather often deteriorates in the afternoon and storms build up, so we’d arranged to meet Matt at 6:30am on Day 1.  He had the C182 fuelled up and ready to go so after a quick preflight I climbed into the left hand seat with Matt in the right and Brett in the back.  Situated at 5670ft MSL as they say in the US the air at Rocky Mountains Metro has a fairly low density, even on a cool morning, so after taxiing to the runup bay I had to lean the mixture to obtain the maximum RPM. This is to ensure the maximum power for takeoff. 

We took off to the north west into the clear morning air and climbed slowly to about 12,000 feet.  We had to climb that high to cross over the continental divide on the eastern side of the Rockies so we could reach the vast array of mountains to the west. You could tell the 182 was struggling a bit to climb in the thin air with the three of us on board. 

Surrounded by beautiful mountain scenery we descended into the ski resort of Steamboat Springs, passing over a number of chair lifts that service the ski area.

The airport had a pleasant FBO (Fixed Base Operator) where I had a good coffee that was even free! The FBO’s are of varying qualities but all have great facilities for itinerant pilots.

After our break at Steamboat we flew over amazing mountain scenery to our next destination. Eagle County airport, that services the Vail ski resort, nestles in a valley next to the I70, the trans Rockies interstate highway. I did a touch and go on the incredibly long runway.

From there it was a short hop over some more mountains to Leadville for another full stop.  Leadville is North America’s highest airport at 9934ft MSL and was the site of a lead mine and smelter in earlier days, so two points of interest for a metallurgical engineer turned pilot like me.

I was amazed at how vast the mountainous area is and how much wilderness there is.  There are certainly a few towns and ski resorts scattered around and some farming in particular areas but the vast majority is pure wilderness.  Amazing!

After obtaining my commemorative certificate for flying into the highest airport, and buying the mandatory t-shirts we made our way back to Denver.

On the way we passed over more wild country and also some grazing land where one of Matt’s friends has a farm with its own strip. Landing just before noon we all agreed it’d been a great morning. There’d been little wind so not much opportunity to practise how to avoid mountain waves and downdrafts but at least the flying had been very smooth.  Clouds were forming over the mountains as we tied down the plane and by 3pm that afternoon a major thunderstorm hit with some torrential rain.  We were glad we were back out of the mountains.

The next day we met Matt at 6:30 again. We took off to the south west this time, once again climbing to about 12,000 ft to make it over a different pass for a flight into Aspen. 

Now Aspen is really where all the rich and famous hang out and there was a $50 landing fee if you stopped and visited the FBO so we decided to give it a miss.  

As I did a touch and go we could see all the private jets lined up along the apron.  It was really quite a sight.

From Aspen it was a short hop over to Glenwood Springs where we did a full stop to check out the facilities.  On descent our course took us around one mountain and I had to turn to avoid another, negotiating our way down through a valley, and flying past a theme park that was perched high on the side of the mountain we had to avoid.  Wouldn’t be good to park the plane in a Ferris wheel on a mountain side would it?

The next leg took us over some real wilderness country and another pass towards Crawford, a short ‘one way’ grass airstrip that belongs to the owner of a private bed and breakfast.  On the way Matt suddenly suggested we do a touch and go at Paonia, a short runway plonked on top of a mesa (or jump up), that happened to be on our way.  I had to orbit a couple of times to descend a few thousand feet a bit earlier than expected and then headed for the mesa.  It was a great experience and what was really interesting was that the runway has a slight kink at each end to enable it to be as long as possible on the surrounding topography.

From Pionia it was about 10 minutes to Crawford, where the ‘piano keys’ of the grass strip are located on the edge of a small canyon, making for interesting updrafts on short final.  Touching down it was a slight uphill to the BNB at the end.  We didn’t have time to stop and chat so turned around and barrelled back the other way to take off over the canyon.

Our route then took us over Black Canyon, a smaller version of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, where Matt had taken his family hiking in the past.  There were impressive views down the sheer cliff sides to the river below and I could imagine it being a great place to explore on the ground.

The last stop for the morning was Gunnison, where we checked out the impressive FBO and had a chat to a young refueller who was attending university there.  It’s a very outdoorsy university with lots of courses in sports related activities and environmental science etc. 

On our way back to Denver we crossed more amazing country with varying amount of wilderness and farmland and forest.

On our return to Denver there was lots of traffic in the ‘pattern’ (ie circuit) so we made a snap decision to do a 10 minute detour around the CBD to kill some time and have some great views of the city centre. 

Approaching the Rocky Mountains Airport again the traffic situation hadn’t improved so I had to fly an incredibly long downwind waiting for a ‘slot’ to fit in.  The controller sounded like a race caller, issuing non-stop directives to numerous planes taking off and landing.  An incredible feat of professional air traffic controlling. 

Just as I thought we would have to turn to avoid the mountains ahead he told us to turn base and we followed three other planes in on final.  It turned out that the controller had been one of Matt’s students in the past and Matt congratulated him on a job well done after we’d landed.

We taxied back to the flight school and celebrated with a group photo. It’d been another great day.

Back at the flight school I paid the bill and noticed a white board showed the variety of aircraft for hire and the surprisingly cheap rates.  But they were generally a lot older than the RAC fleet.

Before heading off on to continue our long drive to Wisconsin we reviewed what we’d learned about flying in the mountains.  The following are the main tips I brought away.

Weather is even more critical in the mountains.  Weather is always a paramount consideration before we go flying but in the mountains the conditions can deteriorate rapidly.  It helps to fly early in the day.  On both days we flew we had clear blue skies when we arrived at the airport.  We took off before 7am both days and flew for over 4 hours each time so were back before 12 o’clock.  The weather forecast clouds and storms in the afternoons and sure enough on the first day about 3pm a thunderstorm hit Denver.  As we returned from our flight the next day we could see the clouds building in the mountains behind us.  You don’t want to be in the mountains once storms start to develop.

Fuel planning is, as always, really important.  Matt told us of one recent experience of a pilot who hired a plane from the flight school for a ‘short flight’ that ended up being extended due to weather.  The diversions meant he burned a lot more fuel than he expected.  By good fuel management he was able to make it back to the airport but only had about 5 litres left in one tank and basically nothing in the other tank when he did touch down!  Matt filled up with fuel on both days so we had plenty plus some more for our flights.

Density altitude becomes critical at high altitudes.  You need to consider what actual lift you can achieve given the ambient conditions.  Both the measured air pressure and air temperature affect the amount of lift you’ll achieve.  At higher temperatures the air is less dense so you lose lift.  In summer you won’t get as much lift as in winter.  You need to calculate whether you will be able to take off from a runway that may be fine on a high pressure day in winter and may not be long enough on a hot day in summer.  It may be fine to land but will you get out again?

Lean the engine for best performance prior to take off at high altitude.  Denver is at about 5700 ft above sea level so the low air pressure means that there’s not as much oxygen available as at sea level.  At full rich mixture it’ll be over rich and the excess fuel will reduce the power delivered by the engine.  So, during your run ups lean the mixture and watch as the RPM increases to a point where there’s maximum RPM then enrichen it a couple of complete turns to get it a bit rich of peak RPM.  This process ensures you can take off in the minimum distance.  Not so critical on a long runway like at Rocky Mountain Metro or Aspen but certainly at short strips like at Crawford.

Recognise pockets of air that have the best lift to help you climb.  You need to fly at maximum power the whole time anyway but the higher you go the slower you climb.  So, just like in a glider, you need to hunt for those spots with maximum lift and stay away from areas with sink.  Work out which way the wind is blowing (from the forecast, looking at the surfaces of lakes, smoke) and then stick to the upwind side of the mountain where the air is rising.  If you’re flying along a valley don’t fly up the middle.  Fly as close as practical to the upwind side to take advantage of the lift.  It will also allow you the maximum radius for a turn if you need to return back down the valley – just in case you can’t make it over the pass at the end.

Approach passes at 45 degrees so that if you can’t make it you have only a 90 degree turn to get away from the mountain.  You don’t want to have to negotiate a 180 degree turn in a tight spot.

Watch out for downdrafts and mountain waves.  We had minimal wind on the days we flew so there were no major downdrafts and certainly no mountain waves and minimal turbulence.  The downside was that there was also minimal lift but that just meant we had to hunt a bit harder to find the lift we needed to get over the high passes.

There is a limit to how high you can fly with a given engine.  At high altitude the ‘thin air’ (low oxygen partial pressure) results in lower engine performance.  A Cessna 182 at maximum weight has real trouble climbing when you get up over 13,000ft like we did.

Keep an eye on your airspeed and decide on the minimum speed you’ll accept to stay above the stall speed.  Matt specified 70 knots for the 182.  If you can’t climb over a pass without reducing the speed below that then turn around and try another pass (or go home).

Know your aircraft.  A Cessna 152 has much less power than a 182 or a 172 so is not really suited to mountain flying.  They are cheap to buy and operate however, so flight schools still use them for routine training.  Rocky Mountain Flight School owns one C152 in which the second seat has been taken out to minimise its weight so student pilots can build the 1500 hours minimum they require to apply for jobs at the airlines as cheaply as possible.  But it’s not intended for flying in the mountains.  Matt told us the story of one student pilot who did take it to the mountains on 4^th July this year (just two weeks before our flights) and very nearly killed himself trying to fly over the continental divide near where we flew over it.  The location was where we were but we decided to fly over a different pass a bit further to the north as we couldn’t get enough lift to get over that particular pass in our 182.  The student’s resultant stall and nose dive followed by miraculous escape were captured on mobile phone video taken by a family that was hiking nearby (see screenshot below) and went viral on the internet. 

Matt shared with us a video posted by one of his ‘favourite YouTube people’ that you can access via the QR code or the link below.  He analyses the video and talks about the incident.  As Matt said, ‘It’s just nuts.’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcM7O9JYXKU&t=28s

Another useful hint Matt gave me that’s unrelated to mountain flying is keep to one side of the centreline of a sealed runway when backtracking rather than taxiing down the centre.  When you’re off centre you’re more likely to be spotted by any aircraft who may be on approach.

I can’t recommend Matt highly enough.  If you’re in the US and want to improve your mountain flying skills get in contact with him.

https://www.mattbeyer.com/files/Matts-MountainFlying.pdf