Just found your channel. I'm not a pilot but understand enough to know this was a challenging departure. The self critique you have in the video is the mark of a true professional.
Nice Vid! I learned to fly in Colorado and KGWS was my home airport. I learned in a PA28-235 Cherokee. I too learned some valuable lessons flying in and out of GWS. It is a very challenging airport, and an inexperienced or unfamiliar pilot can get in trouble if not careful. Considering the conditions you stated in your video, it might have been a good idea to make a left 360 just to gain a little more altitude to exit at McClure pass. I’ve had to do that several times in high DA. Keep up the great work! Nice plane by the way! Wishing you blue skies and tail winds! Just not on the take off roll! 😎
I enjoy your channel very much. One quick question is at ounce point you were level at 9k and you take that thing to Flt levels all the time so why not keep climbing to get away from the mountainous terrain?
This was my question while watching the video as well. I flew out of Glenwood Springs in a turbo charged A36 Bonanza once. After departing, I flew about 8 to 10 miles south east near the LINDZ intersection and climbed in a circle to about 14,000’ before heading south towards Blue Mesa (HBU). I’m assuming he was doing it for the scenery and footage. It is absolutely gorgeous through there but I was on pins and needles until I got clear of the area.
COINCEDENCE...previous video I just watched was Man and a Mooney fly into that same box canyon at Marble CO and did a 180 and low pass over the Marble strip. Love your Malibu, and thanks for the great content!
Lived & flew from CO for about 12 yrs. Early departures & altitude are your friends. I'd want to be a lot higher here than you were...gives you more options.
Just ran across your channel this morning and now I'm a couple of hours behind on my day! LOL. I don't subscribe to channels, but have subscribed to yours. Love your willingness to show the not so great stuff and lessons learned. Great stuff! Be safe and thanks for throwing my schedule out the window this morning!
Flew out of Glenwood last weekend and live on the Colorado front range... having an appreciation for the mountain airports, density altitude and the challenges around it has been instilled in me. Based on what you discussed in the video you hit the primary spots. Checking POH for takeoff performance, 50/70 (although I’ve heard it as 50/75) and then the discussion around the box canyon. Glenwood is definitely wanting to keep the traffic coming in there as the airport is struggling to stay open due to the common issues, noise and wanting to use the land to build homes. So anyone looking for a great place to go into - Glenwood is fantastic. The FBO is top-notch and will bend over backwards for you to help out.
I have made this departure as well but where you went west through McClure pass, we went east through Schofield pass, past Crested Butte, and down to Gunnison. And, oh yeah, we were in a normally aspirated Dakota.
The box canyon you would have flown into is Marble, CO. It is the location of the Colorado-Yule Quarry which produced white marble for many landmarks in Washington DC, including the Tomb of the Unknown. It is also the box canyon with the picturesque Crystal Mill. While you were climbing along the Crystal River near McClure Pass , you also passed over the Redstone Castle in Redstone, Colorado, one of the most unique towns in all of Colorado. All locations worth researching and visiting someday. One can always land at the nearby Rifle airport, which is easier to get in and out of. Or Aspen if one can find room to park among the large number of private jets that frequent the ramp on most weekends.
I have only been watching you but for the last three-four days. This one thing for sure I would not be afraid to go anywhere with you. Praise God for Pilots like you who give the Lord credit where the credit is due.
As a 400 private pilot with most being X country stuff , love that you post the learning experience we all go though but don't like to admit! love the channel
@@burgercube The 180 turn was poorly executed imho. It's not something most people do very often but it does need to be trained and practiced. The amount of runway lost could have been greatly reduced.
Malibu Flyer I live near and fly out of AEX often. I’d be glad to send a contact number if there was a way to do that without posting it publicly. I’d love to see that beautiful plane in person sometime!
I fly a Mooney 252 out of kbjc. I have flown into about every Colorado mountain airport except Glennwood. Although I have 4500 hrs and a CFI I’ve been practicing at kbjc to consistently takeoff and land under 2500’ before visiting my daughter in Glenwood springs. I’m sure you are a reasonably competent pilot but I think you put your lives directly in Gods hands on that flight. First TWO mistakes... leaving in the afternoon. 1 Temperature lengthens roll,reduces climb.2 down drafts are plentiful. Third mistake. LOOK at those clouds! Building tstorms! A puff of a downdraft would have put you in the creek on take off. Wind shear in your turns would’ve put you in the rocks. My wife hates getting up early and we’ve damn near been in divorce court over it but when flying in the mountains we leave at dawn.... cooler,calmer....Safer. Please learn, don’t do that again.
Hello. I just hit 900 hours and just got my instrument rating two years ago. You’ll see plenty of mistakes and inexperience in these videos but I’m learning from each one.
Reminds me of the Angel Fire, NM airport. It’s in the floor of a box canyon at an elevation of about 9,300 feet and you need to get up to about 11,000 to get over the mountains and out of the canyon We took off in a normally aspirated Bellanca Viking on a sunny summer day with four people baggage and Just enough fuel to make it to Dalhart, TX with VFR reserves. We planned to fly down the right side of the canyon and circle Bull Moose lake then back down the canyon in the opposite direction on the other side to the airfield where we could cross over the runway diagonally and head for the lowest spot on the ridge where we would exit the canyon and head east toward our destination. I had to keep a small button on the panel depressed to defeat the automatic gear extension mechanism. We stayed as close as we could to the best angle climb speed until we had to make our turn around the lake then we picked up some speed until we completed our turn. Then we went to the best rate of climb airspeed until we cut across the airport then back to best angle till we cleared the ridge. The stall horn chirped on and off again until we got out of there and leveled off. The plan worked but we scared ourselves and we pushed our mighty little Viking to the limit. Never again.
When I was a student, I talked my Instructor to come with me on a business trip from Cleveland to West Virginia. I flogged a lot of hours including some IMC for which I was only an observer. One of my passengers asked if we could drop him off at an airport which would save his wife about 50miles of driving. I was left seat for about 8 hours of flying. My instructor calculated all the numbers for grass strip, AND short runway. At least I thought he did. Our Piper Archer II was full of passengers and full of fuel. Although I was familiar with the airport, I had never landed there. The strip ran parallel and beside a river. In fact, the end of our chosen runway ended with a cliff and water. Did I mention it was a hot summer day? I had my reservations about, not just the landing, but getting out of there without getting wet. As I approached the field, everything began to go wrong. I told my passengers "the strip looks ok. It's river that bothers me." I flew back to HTW and let his wife drive a few extra miles to pick him up. Later I ran weight and balance and discovered to my horror that taking off from a grass strip with most of your passengers on the high end of average weight just just barely over 3000ft to do it in was foolish and risky. To anyone out there who has concerns about you Instructor, you can fire them. Before I did my check-ride, I dissed 3 of them. One of them was for screaming constantly, especially during critical phases of flight. Some people are not suited to flight instruction. Don't waste your expensive air time and instructor time with someone who is not determined to help you succeed.
Piper says your airplane will cruise at 25000 feet. You stayed in the valley for the view, I assume. Will that airplane climb well enough to get you out of trouble have you gone ahead and flown into the box canyon?
Very nicely done! I found your channel while looking for TXi instructional videos. Looks like you know how to run that system! As an aside, its been years and years since I flew into Glenwood Springs... (so I am not familiar with the current departure) besides the obvious staying VMC, was there another reason you leveled at 9000, instead of using all that glorious Lycoming power to get above the granite clouds? Looking forward to your next submission!
Hi Denny, thanks for the comment. The only reason I leveled at 9000 was to capture the scenery going through the pass. My wife agrees with your logic as evidenced by her "keep climbing" comment. My plane has the Continental TSIO-550-C which I prefer over the Lycoming for various reasons.
Just an idea. How about adding some individual way points in the nav to indicate when you may need to alter course such as for the right turn to follow your exit pass? Does KGWS not have sufficient traffic to justify the installation of an AWOS?
Hi Mike. I actually did enter a few waypoints through the pass but didn't do one for the exit... I'm not sure why they don't but my guess is that you're correct, just not enough traffic.
As a mountain and backcountry CFI I would say: Go in the morning when the temp is cooler and the DA is lower, limit weight by not having full fuel and use the ForeFlight drawing feature on the Map page to draw your course from the airport through the pass. Just stay over the course line you drew. It’s easy to fly the wrong direction in the mountains unless you are familiar with the surroundings. I would also turn off the terrain aural warning to minimize distraction. You’re VFR and can see the terrain out the window without the requirement for aural alerting. I’m thinking an 8 knot HW with a .3% upslope is better than an 8 knot TW with a .3% downslope.
Can you add more as to what the temperature was when you took off and density altitude. I do know that the field is at 5916 ft. You said you learned some lessons on that flight. What where the key lessons? Last question, how did your wife do on that bumpy flight? My poor wife would have freaked out. She is one of these people that see bumpy flight = about to crash.
Hi Mike. The temperature was 80ºf (27ºc) when we departed and density altitude was just under 8700 feet. Knowing what I know now, I would have departed earlier in the morning and taken off into the 8kt wind as opposed to favoring the downhill runway slope. The was no margin in this departure and that's not a good way to live.
That's what I was wondering. A nice turbocharged plane like that! Shoot Glenwood Springs runway is almost 6000 Ft MSL itself. Maybe to show the folks flying normally aspirated airplanes what to expect on warm days with limited performance capability.
The Malibu climbs like a Cessna 150. I love the avionics, saftey features, etc... And it's beautiful, but I could not tolerate climbing out at 500 fpm with passengers. The Meredian is the way to go with this airframe. There would be no passes to fly in the turboprop. It would have scaled those mountains in a short time.
Not sure what you were worried about, at any stage you could orbit and climb, reverse track and climb then reverse and climb. What was all the waffle about dangerous about? Why bother to fly low down a “pass” just silly. You had blue sky ahead...
Just found your channel. I'm not a pilot but understand enough to know this was a challenging departure. The self critique you have in the video is the mark of a true professional.
Nice Vid! I learned to fly in Colorado and KGWS was my home airport. I learned in a PA28-235 Cherokee. I too learned some valuable lessons flying in and out of GWS. It is a very challenging airport, and an inexperienced or unfamiliar pilot can get in trouble if not careful. Considering the conditions you stated in your video, it might have been a good idea to make a left 360 just to gain a little more altitude to exit at McClure pass. I’ve had to do that several times in high DA. Keep up the great work! Nice plane by the way! Wishing you blue skies and tail winds! Just not on the take off roll! 😎
Me too. But, mainly out of RIL. I flew in and out of GWS many times.
Mountain flying certainly has its challenges, and as pilots, we are always learning. Great video.....
I enjoy your channel very much. One quick question is at ounce point you were level at 9k and you take that thing to Flt levels all the time so why not keep climbing to get away from the mountainous terrain?
I wondered exactly the same. Why, given that terrain, you'd stay at 9000. I appreciate the beautiful views, but I'd of been up and outta there! :o)
This was my question while watching the video as well. I flew out of Glenwood Springs in a turbo charged A36 Bonanza once. After departing, I flew about 8 to 10 miles south east near the LINDZ intersection and climbed in a circle to about 14,000’ before heading south towards Blue Mesa (HBU). I’m assuming he was doing it for the scenery and footage. It is absolutely gorgeous through there but I was on pins and needles until I got clear of the area.
COINCEDENCE...previous video I just watched was Man and a Mooney fly into that same box canyon at Marble CO and did a 180 and low pass over the Marble strip. Love your Malibu, and thanks for the great content!
Lived & flew from CO for about 12 yrs. Early departures & altitude are your friends. I'd want to be a lot higher here than you were...gives you more options.
Amazing scenery, thank you for sharing this and your other videos! Keep up the great work!
How much is that doggie in the window?.....Love your channel. Keep it up. And from a Colorado pilot - CLIMB!!
Just ran across your channel this morning and now I'm a couple of hours behind on my day! LOL. I don't subscribe to channels, but have subscribed to yours. Love your willingness to show the not so great stuff and lessons learned. Great stuff! Be safe and thanks for throwing my schedule out the window this morning!
Flew out of Glenwood last weekend and live on the Colorado front range... having an appreciation for the mountain airports, density altitude and the challenges around it has been instilled in me. Based on what you discussed in the video you hit the primary spots. Checking POH for takeoff performance, 50/70 (although I’ve heard it as 50/75) and then the discussion around the box canyon.
Glenwood is definitely wanting to keep the traffic coming in there as the airport is struggling to stay open due to the common issues, noise and wanting to use the land to build homes. So anyone looking for a great place to go into - Glenwood is fantastic. The FBO is top-notch and will bend over backwards for you to help out.
I have made this departure as well but where you went west through McClure pass, we went east through Schofield pass, past Crested Butte, and down to Gunnison. And, oh yeah, we were in a normally aspirated Dakota.
The box canyon you would have flown into is Marble, CO. It is the location of the Colorado-Yule Quarry which produced white marble for many landmarks in Washington DC, including the Tomb of the Unknown. It is also the box canyon with the picturesque Crystal Mill. While you were climbing along the Crystal River near McClure Pass , you also passed over the Redstone Castle in Redstone, Colorado, one of the most unique towns in all of Colorado. All locations worth researching and visiting someday. One can always land at the nearby Rifle airport, which is easier to get in and out of. Or Aspen if one can find room to park among the large number of private jets that frequent the ramp on most weekends.
I have only been watching you but for the last three-four days. This one thing for sure I would not be afraid to go anywhere with you. Praise God for Pilots like you who give the Lord credit where the credit is due.
Great channel! Thanks for sharing your flights and experiences and documenting them so well (text and audio explanations). Well done!
As a 400 private pilot with most being X country stuff , love that you post the learning experience we all go though but don't like to admit! love the channel
Well done. You have definitely more guts than I have.
+Malibu Flyer . You made the right departure choice, especially if you were unfamiliar with the area. Great video!
Just a small tip - use all the runway. You started the take-off with about 100' of runway behind you.
And how you suppose to push the plane back that 100 ft after U-turn?
@@burgercube The 180 turn was poorly executed imho. It's not something most people do very often but it does need to be trained and practiced. The amount of runway lost could have been greatly reduced.
Just curious, why not go into KEGE , 9000’ of runway vs KGWS with only 3300’? Only 20 minutes away by car.
Why did you not bring up the power before releasing brakes ? Plus why did you not keep climbing above 9000 ft. ?
yea that was close, particularly if you had any issues
Enjoying the videos very much. Looking close at the Malibu myself! Thanks l!!
If you’re ever around KAEX again, give me a shout out and I’ll buy lunch!
neroja neroja Will do, thank you!
Malibu Flyer I live near and fly out of AEX often. I’d be glad to send a contact number if there was a way to do that without posting it publicly. I’d love to see that beautiful plane in person sometime!
I fly a Mooney 252 out of kbjc. I have flown into about every Colorado mountain airport except Glennwood. Although I have 4500 hrs and a CFI I’ve been practicing at kbjc to consistently takeoff and land under 2500’ before visiting my daughter in Glenwood springs. I’m sure you are a reasonably competent pilot but I think you put your lives directly in Gods hands on that flight. First TWO mistakes... leaving in the afternoon. 1 Temperature lengthens roll,reduces climb.2 down drafts are plentiful. Third mistake. LOOK at those clouds! Building tstorms! A puff of a downdraft would have put you in the creek on take off. Wind shear in your turns would’ve put you in the rocks. My wife hates getting up early and we’ve damn near been in divorce court over it but when flying in the mountains we leave at dawn.... cooler,calmer....Safer. Please learn, don’t do that again.
Great lessons learned... Thanks for sharing. ;)
Was it your intent to stay in the mountain passes, or did you not have enough climb rate ability to get over them in short order. Love the vid!
I intended to stay in the pass as climbing out would have put me into the clouds.
Just found your channel...
Enjoyed your efforts..
You seemed very experienced.
Curious about your training,certificates,hours.
We fly A Mooney M20J.
Hello. I just hit 900 hours and just got my instrument rating two years ago. You’ll see plenty of mistakes and inexperience in these videos but I’m learning from each one.
Malibu Flyer
Great job!!!!
Capable beautiful aircraft.
Safe flying....
We’ll be watching.
Reminds me of the Angel Fire, NM airport. It’s in the floor of a box canyon at an elevation of about 9,300 feet and you need to get up to about 11,000 to get over the mountains and out of the canyon We took off in a normally aspirated Bellanca Viking on a sunny summer day with four people baggage and Just enough fuel to make it to Dalhart, TX with VFR reserves. We planned to fly down the right side of the canyon and circle Bull Moose lake then back down the canyon in the opposite direction on the other side to the airfield where we could cross over the runway diagonally and head for the lowest spot on the ridge where we would exit the canyon and head east toward our destination. I had to keep a small button on the panel depressed to defeat the automatic gear extension mechanism. We stayed as close as we could to the best angle climb speed until we had to make our turn around the lake then we picked up some speed until we completed our turn. Then we went to the best rate of climb airspeed until we cut across the airport then back to best angle till we cleared the ridge. The stall horn chirped on and off again until we got out of there and leveled off. The plan worked but we scared ourselves and we pushed our mighty little Viking to the limit. Never again.
Thanks for sharing that lesson learned. I’ll go back to Glenwood one day but there are 3 or 4 things I’ll do differently next time.
When I was a student, I talked my Instructor to come with me on a business trip from Cleveland to West Virginia. I flogged a lot of hours including some IMC for which I was only an observer. One of my passengers asked if we could drop him off at an airport which would save his wife about 50miles of driving. I was left seat for about 8 hours of flying. My instructor calculated all the numbers for grass strip, AND short runway. At least I thought he did. Our Piper Archer II was full of passengers and full of fuel. Although I was familiar with the airport, I had never landed there. The strip ran parallel and beside a river. In fact, the end of our chosen runway ended with a cliff and water. Did I mention it was a hot summer day? I had my reservations about, not just the landing, but getting out of there without getting wet. As I approached the field, everything began to go wrong. I told my passengers "the strip looks ok. It's river that bothers me." I flew back to HTW and let his wife drive a few extra miles to pick him up. Later I ran weight and balance and discovered to my horror that taking off from a grass strip with most of your passengers on the high end of average weight just just barely over 3000ft to do it in was foolish and risky. To anyone out there who has concerns about you Instructor, you can fire them. Before I did my check-ride, I dissed 3 of them. One of them was for screaming constantly, especially during critical phases of flight. Some people are not suited to flight instruction. Don't waste your expensive air time and instructor time with someone who is not determined to help you succeed.
Ken, Excellent advice!!!
What a great aeroplane.
Piper says your airplane will cruise at 25000 feet. You stayed in the valley for the view, I assume. Will that airplane climb well enough to get you out of trouble have you gone ahead and flown into the box canyon?
Yes, we had plenty of margin.
Very nicely done! I found your channel while looking for TXi instructional videos. Looks like you know how to run that system! As an aside, its been years and years since I flew into Glenwood Springs... (so I am not familiar with the current departure) besides the obvious staying VMC, was there another reason you leveled at 9000, instead of using all that glorious Lycoming power to get above the granite clouds? Looking forward to your next submission!
Hi Denny, thanks for the comment. The only reason I leveled at 9000 was to capture the scenery going through the pass. My wife agrees with your logic as evidenced by her "keep climbing" comment. My plane has the Continental TSIO-550-C which I prefer over the Lycoming for various reasons.
If this is very challenging, I wonder what these are: LFLJ, LFKX? Nice vid.
Just an idea. How about adding some individual way points in the nav to indicate when you may need to alter course such as for the right turn to follow your exit pass? Does KGWS not have sufficient traffic to justify the installation of an AWOS?
Hi Mike. I actually did enter a few waypoints through the pass but didn't do one for the exit... I'm not sure why they don't but my guess is that you're correct, just not enough traffic.
Did you guys able to land...🤭?
As a mountain and backcountry CFI I would say: Go in the morning when the temp is cooler and the DA is lower, limit weight by not having full fuel and use the ForeFlight drawing feature on the Map page to draw your course from the airport through the pass. Just stay over the course line you drew. It’s easy to fly the wrong direction in the mountains unless you are familiar with the surroundings. I would also turn off the terrain aural warning to minimize distraction. You’re VFR and can see the terrain out the window without the requirement for aural alerting.
I’m thinking an 8 knot HW with a .3% upslope is better than an 8 knot TW with a .3% downslope.
Can you add more as to what the temperature was when you took off and density altitude. I do know that the field is at 5916 ft. You said you learned some lessons on that flight. What where the key lessons? Last question, how did your wife do on that bumpy flight? My poor wife would have freaked out. She is one of these people that see bumpy flight = about to crash.
Hi Mike. The temperature was 80ºf (27ºc) when we departed and density altitude was just under 8700 feet. Knowing what I know now, I would have departed earlier in the morning and taken off into the 8kt wind as opposed to favoring the downhill runway slope. The was no margin in this departure and that's not a good way to live.
I don’t get it. Why not continue climbing to get above all the mountains?
Why stop climbing at 9000‘? Add another 2000‘ and still be below clouds... 💁♂️
That's what I was wondering. A nice turbocharged plane like that! Shoot Glenwood Springs runway is almost 6000 Ft MSL itself. Maybe to show the folks flying normally aspirated airplanes what to expect on warm days with limited performance capability.
500' goes by pretty fast!
The Malibu climbs like a Cessna 150. I love the avionics, saftey features, etc... And it's beautiful, but I could not tolerate climbing out at 500 fpm with passengers. The Meredian is the way to go with this airframe. There would be no passes to fly in the turboprop. It would have scaled those mountains in a short time.
Old pilots and bold pilots.
Jesus. Why didn't you climb to a safe altitude instead of flying 9000 through a mountain pass?
Any reason you didn't do a full power take-off on the brakes from the start of the runway rather than a rolling take-off?
No reason in particular
Not sure what you were worried about, at any stage you could orbit and climb, reverse track and climb then reverse and climb. What was all the waffle about dangerous about? Why bother to fly low down a “pass” just silly. You had blue sky ahead...
This looks a lot like what bomber pilots did in the Himalayas during WWII. They called it "flying the hump".
Learn lessons at home with your e6b. You wasted space on take off. Leave early in the day. Never add risk. It’s not fair to your passenger.