Convertible Mentor - Brief Article

We took off out of NAF El Centro on a beautiful day. The first order of business was a takeoff roll at less than 700 feet. "What were the winds again?" I wondered. "Oh well, as long as they're straight down the runway, who cares?" Just another great day to be flying VFR in our high-performance T-34.

My copilot and I had briefed with the strike lead that we were going to low-safe while we were in the Chocolate Mountains. We mounted up for the 20-minute flight to the restricted area.

We climbed to our VFR cruising altitude of 7,500 feet and contacted Yuma Range to check into the target area. Everything about this flight reminded me of the hundreds of similar flights I'd flown during the past three years ... until we started to enter the Blue Mountain Airfield area.

We cruised comfortably into the area, started to cross the Chocolate Mountain ridge line, and promptly ran into a little turbulence. I'm talking the normal turbulence that we feel almost every day out here in the West flying our T-34s, but that's where the similarities stopped. Reaching the downwind side of the ridge, the aircraft felt like it was falling out of the sky.

"This can't be happening to the Mentor," I thought. "It's too high-performance for that!" My next thought was that the wind blast was odd. Then I wondered what this plexiglas was doing in my lap.

No sooner was the aircraft flying again than I looked in my rearview mirror to see my copilot pulling his head back into the cockpit. His inertial reel had failed, and his head had burst through the canopy. I asked the obvious questions: "Are you OK? Did you get cut? Can you still move your head?" I began to slow down the aircraft to minimize the wind blast; 120 knots seemed to work well. I figured we'd better turn around and go back to El Centro.

The flight back seemed to take an eternity, no doubt due to the 40 to 50 knots of wind now in our faces, combined with the 120 knots we maintained to keep down blast. Let's see, that would be a total of 70 knots ground speed. Kind of like driving down the freeway with your convertible top down.

The approach and landing back into NAF El Centro were uneventful, albeit extremely slow. Our ground speed on approach was whopping 65 knots! Once comfortably back in the ready room, I began to research mountain flying and light aircraft. As a jet aviator, I hadn't thought much about the effects of wind. But as a light-prop aviator, I realized that I'd better start thinking again. I hit the books and went to work. Interestingly, the Federal Aviation Administration had dedicated a whole section to Mountain flying in the FAR/AIM.

Here are some of the highlights and recommendations:

* Don't fly a light aircraft near mountains when the winds at your proposed altitude exceed 35 miles per hour.

* Expect winds to be of much greater velocity over mountain passes than reported a few miles from them.

* Approach mountain passes as high as possible.

* Don't fly near or above abrupt changes in terrain. Expect severe turbulence, especially in high winds.

The FAA also suggests that when you mountain ridge, you should fly a 45-degree ant horizontal direction of the ridge. You'll find it retreat from the ridge with less stress on the you run into severe turbulence and downdrafts. If you encounter severe turbulence, reduce power and adjust pitch until your aircraft approaches maneuvering speed, then adjust power and fly away from the turbulence.

We learned a lot of things the day we created the convertible Mentor. The main thing was to respect your environment. Something as simple as wind ca wreak havoc on your otherwise beautiful day. Had we been just a little closer to the ground, we could have crushed.

LCdr. Clark was attached to VMFA-101 as an instructor when this incident took place. He flies with VFA-201 as a reservist.

COPYRIGHT 2000 U.S. Naval Safety Center
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