Once upon a time, I took off from a grass strip in a 150, in Utah. 250 lb
passenger beside me.
10 gallons of gas in cans behind the seats as well as a box of tools and some
luggage.
The strip was short too...
Stall warning horn was squeaking as I barely cleared the powerlines at the end
of the runway.
I think that is about as close as I ever cut it.
I was young and dumb and was flying the company airplane on the clock.
From: Bill Prince
Sent: Saturday, July 4, 2020 8:37 AM
To: af@af.afmug.com
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT Cessna 172
When I was getting my SEL, one of my instructors was ~~ 230 lbs, and I am 200
lbs. We were in a Cessna 152. 'nuff said. Fortunately we were doing local stuff
around PAO, which sits barely above sea level and it was a cool day.
My main instructor was a little guy; maybe about 140 lbs. When we went over
mountain flying, his standard watchword was "When you don't like it where you
is, go where you ain't."
bp
<part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
On 7/4/2020 7:25 AM, ch...@wbmfg.com wrote:
Again, someone loaded 4 fully grown adults into a 172.
Then they did something even more stupid, flew up a canyon in the summer in
the mountains of Utah.
While a 172 may technically have 4 seats, it is horribly underpowered for
that load. It has a legal useful load with full fuel as low as 425 to as high
as 600 lbs depending on its model year and particular configuration. So if
each of the passengers weighed 125 lbs it may be legal to fly but still a
stupid move.
People do this because a 172 is cheap to rent and they want to show off for
friends.
Couple this massive mistake at take off with the fact that Utah is at
altitude. Planes behave much differently at sea level than in an area where
the runway starts a mile high. We have thin air. Whenever I fly in a costal
area I always feel like I am flying in thick air, it is nice.
Couple that with hot summer days when the air is even less dense.
And then, fly up a canyon, in the mountains.
You should always fly DOWN canyons.
Anytime you have to fly up a canyon (I would argue you never HAVE to fly up a
canyon), you need to fly up the side of the canyon so that when you get that
sick feeling that the terrain is rising faster than you can climb, you can do a
steep descending turn into the canyon and reverse your course.
I don’t know where this guy learned to fly, but mountain flying is special
and needs special attention during training.
If I rented out 172s I think I would just remove the rear seats.
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