My Grandmom Huddleston would be so proud. She frequently used to comment about people who clearly lacked horse sense. (She was right, most of the folks she mentioned had real issues.) Well, her grandson demonstrated that he does in fact have horse sense, even if there is an abundance of evidence to argue to the contrary!
The month is October, and the place is Alamosa, Colorado. I was at the excellent avionics shop located there to upgrade my second radio by switching the non-WAAS Garmin 430 in my plane to the WAAS version. The WAAS version allows one to shoot precision (glideslope guided) GPS approaches whereas the non-WAAS version only handles non-precision GPS approaches (although it will handle the radio-based ILS precision approach).
The picture below says it all: The afternoon brought winds in excess of 30 knots. Although those winds were straight down the runway, the dust blown up by the wind brought visibility down to the point that nearby mountains were obscured.
Fourteen thousand foot Mt Blanca and a nearby 13,000 foot mountain are normally easily viewed from this vantage point.
Alamosa lies in the Rio Grande Valley of Colorado. Some of the tallest mountains in Colorado and Northern New Mexico lie to both the east and the west. I would have to fly over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the west to get home. High winds, low visibility, mountain waves (high winds across mountains that cause extreme up and down drafts), and mountains are a toxic mix – thus the exercise of horse sense that would make Grandmom proud. You can see the high terrain in the profile below:
RizAir1 is a stout stead, but better to be on the ground wishing I was flying than flying and wishing I was on the ground. I always carry an overnight bag on cross-countries for this reason.
The decision was simple. The weather the next morning was forecast to be cold, calm, and clear. There was nothing worth risking my life that required me to go home that particular evening. I borrowed a crew car, grabbed a hotel, had dinner, went to bed early, and was back at the airport at 7 a.m. the next morning.
The avionics shop was kind enough to allow me to keep the airplane in their hangar overnight to avoid the morning frost. I was airborne by 7:30, in Farmington by 8:30, and into the office a few minutes after 9 a.m. The cost of staying overnight was cheap life insurance and I was in the office less than an hour after my normal arrival time.
It seems like a simple decision to make, but the aviation literature is littered with stories of people who don’t exercise horse sense. We all take calculated risks each day by simply walking out the door, but we should not take unnecessary, life-threatening risks absent an absolute emergency.
Training is important, the equipment is important, but the most important element of safe private aviation flying is good old-fashioned horse sense – so don’t leave home without it, and don’t fly with someone who does not have it!
Clear skies and tailwinds.
Gary Risley
RizAir Blog 8 1-31-2019
RizAir - A Private Aviation Journey 