Mountain Flying 101

On Tuesday night, May 17th, Brandon Hughett taught a course on Mountain Flying at the Knoxville Flight Training Center located on Downtown Island Airport. Brandon is the president of the Knoxville Flight Training Center and considered to be an expert on mountain flying in the Appalachians, The class was sponsored by the Knoxville Flyers as part of our quarterly Hangar Flying series. This was a very real cost-saving opportunity for our club members to receive excellent ground (and flying) instruction by an extremely qualified mountain flying instructor.
Tuesday night's ground school covered why flying in the Appalachians is different than flying in flat lands along with how it's different than flying in the Rockies. Brandon covered weather, weather resources, flight planning including proper route selection, and all other aspects of mountain flying. He also showed us how to use available webcams to see what is really going on in hte mountains before taking off.
The following weekend, Brandon Hughlett and Al Akerman led several club members and 3 planes on a flight to two of North Carolina's more challenging mountain airports: Macon County Airport in Franklin, NC and Jackson County Airport in Sylva, NC. We started at DKX bu conducting a pre-flight briefing on our route, checking the weather together, and discussing all aspects of the trip. Things were a little foggy in the mountains.  Checking those webcams sure came in handy making sure the fog had lifted and the route was clear.  We departed DKX and flew first to Franklin's Macon County Airport and we based our training there in their excellent FBO facilities. Next we flew in groups with an instructor through the pass over to Jackson County Airport.  The airport at Jackson Co. is on top of a mountain with drop offs on all sides.  It was quite intimidating and it was comforting to have an instructor along for the ride.