Density Altitude is something I once never calculated, cared about, or even knew what it was all about. I tell you this because I don’t want you to fall into the same trap I did as a student pilot thousands of hours ago… This Video You’re About To Watch Will Shock You!
Shifting winds, density altitude, runway conditions, etc… All can attribute to similar occurrences to what you’re about to watch.
The best part about this video is I was able to interview the pilot Chris Palmer who’s actually a great friend in the industry.
I promise you’ll walk away from this video a safer pilot. I’m so thankful Chris has shared this footage with us. Remember A Good Pilot Is Always Learning – Jason
Learn More About What Chris Is Doing On His Blog Angle of Attack
What did you think? What are your experiences with density altitude or difficult runway conditions? Tell Me Below!
Text Transcript
Hey everyone. Jason Schappert of MzeroA.com with my buddy here, Chris Palmer. Now, Chris is someone that you guys are quite familiar with. He was on my radio program back on the very first episodes actually and we talked about he does on flyaoamedia.com. We’re talking about that more here in just a second, but Chris had an interesting experience doing some flying and Chris, why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself first and just tell us a little bit about that flight? We’re gonna cut to a video footage in seconds as well.
Chris:
Alright, so again, my name is Chris Palmer. I own a company, Fly AOA Media… Angle of Attack actually. Flyaoamedia.com is my website. But the particular instance Jason is talking about is a short field takeoff that I was performing in the Pacific Northwest. Everything should have been normal, but as you’ll see in the video, it turned out being a lot scarier than we want it to be for a number of reasons. Initially, I wasn’t gonna share this video but I decided it would have to be a good learning experience so someone could actually.. fly safer than what I experienced and though that time, I did exactly what I knew to do, there were other things that pilot can certainly learn from it.
Jason:
For sure, I mean that is… first, it took guts to put something like that out there because you’re worried about people saying stuff but that’s such a good learning point. I’m so thankful for letting us share that with my viewers, so I really appreciate that. Go ahead now, run me through what was happening. You’re rolling down that runway… you’re used to density altitude. Here, in Florida, we don’t deal with that quite, at least not to that extent, quite as much. You’re in Bonanza, how many people are onboard, and what’s going through your mind while you’re rolling down the runway?
Chris:
So typically, where I fly, we deal with longer runways because of density altitude. This particular runway was 2600 feet long, and it had trees at the end… obviously. And, you know, in private pilot training, they teach you how to deal with soft-field takeoffs and landings and what I learned was.. it’s not always what the FAA says it is. Apart from that, as a pilot, in these types of circumstances, you have to keep your cool. This wasn’t a particular situation where the density altitude was high, it was just the couple of us aboard, and for the FAA short field takeoff requirements and how they say to do it, I did it absolutely to the T… and it wasn’t good. Now would that be a lesson.
Jason:
It’s not that it wasn’t good. I mean, you’re talking to me today so it couldn’t have been that bad. Another thing, do you always film your flights or is this just one where you said, “Hey, I’m gonna film this flight today.”
Chris:
I like to film them a lot. I have several videos that I’ve done. You know, I like to, just like you Jason, show people what I know. We are very blessed to be able to do what we do, especially when people from other countries see what we are able to do. That’s something I like to share, so this is another one of those circumstances that I just kind of want to show people but they ended up capturing something that was a little more interesting than most of the other flights I’ve done.
Jason:
Okay, so let’s wrap this up real quick. I won’t take anymore of your time. You got a, let’s say, a listener or someone who’s watching us right now. He’s in the same situation. They may be in a 172, four people fully loaded with a 2200 foot strip in front of them. What kind of suggestions do you have for that person? How would they know to make a go or no go decision? Put them in your shoes, kind of thing.
Chris:
Everything starts with planning. You have to know the situation you’re in, you gotta know what the aircraft is capable of, and you got to know if you can actually handle that airstrip with the obstacle. In my particular case, everything checked out. This was supposed to be a non-event, we should have been able to go right over the trees. But something happened with the wind that took our margins away and it ended up being a very scary situation where those basic pilot instincts or things that are taught to you like airspeed… you know, I was gonna go through the trees before I lost my airspeed. You just got to be able to keep your cool in that situation, but it all starts with planning.
I guess another point of view is that no set amount of planning is going to save you from situations like this. It’s gonna be your skills or what you do that comes down to it. Now, if you watch the video again, you’ll see that, intuitively, I flew to the left of centerline and went in between some trees. I didn’t even know I had done that until I replayed the video. Just intuitively, I saw that there was a place for me to get out and I went there… that was just a pilot instinct. Those are the things that you build up over time with experience. You can’t necessarily teach all those but, you know you got to keep your cool.
One of the biggest lessons I learned is that you gotta know your aircraft because there were a lot of things about the Bonanza in that situation that I didn’t know about, that are completely contradicting to the FAA procedures and it could’ve made this a much more uncomfortable situation for me.
Jason:
For sure. Well, awesome, Chris. Thank you so much for sharing that video with us. Guys, if you’re interested in checking out what Chris is doing… Chris, tell them about your website real quick and I’ll send down the links below the video.
Chris:
I have kind of a different niche within flying. I teach people how to use flight simulators. We teach a lot of people that weren’t able to fly or are getting ready to fly with the use of flight simulators. They’re some really great tools especially when you’re looking to go into real-world instrument flying. It’s a great place to learn how to get focused on scanning the instruments and stuff like that. That’s kind of our specialty, we’re not into real training but we do the flight simulator. It’s a lot of fun.
Jason:
Awesome. If you guys are interested in learning more about Chris and what he’s doing, there’s some links down beneath this video that you guys can check out.
Chris, thank you so much for your time. Guys, most importantly, remember: a good pilot is always learning. Catch you guys later.
