Flying in mountains, you can plan your landings as good as you can, but whether you can actually land or not – that would depend on many factors. The weather could be very nice at the airport of your departure, but very different in the mountains.
Gilles, my mountain flight instructor from the Leon Morane flying club, based in Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrénées airport, had always several alternative options at hand. We thought, we had good chances that day, and headed for Artigues.
After completing the pre-landing procedure that includes overflying the airstrip in a certain pattern, low pass to evaluate the air down at the airfield, and several other parameters, our decision was “we are good to land”:
Artigues’ runway is 310 m long, “only” 10% gradient of slope, and is at 2,428 feet. On final:
We landed, and decided to have a stop, to take a couple of pictures – it is always a special moment, to land on a mountain airstrip:
When you stand there at Artigues and look down, you cannot see the airfield. But you can see the tip of the house roof (yellow arrow points at on the photo below), and it is a good indicator, indeed – the runway is to the left of it:
Gilles proposed to fly to another interesting airfield – Vallon des Bergons, and we took off. On the way, we enjoyed the view of those amazing landscapes:
Gilles showed me the airstrip from air, we did all those pre-landing procedures and desicion making. I have indicated the runway with the red line:
Vallon des Bergons is at 3,460 ft. You need to be able to count density altitude, keep in mind the adjustments to engine power, and many other things…
The airfield is 320 m long, with the slope of 17%. It also has a turn – and you need to follow it.
Both airfields were not that far from our home base, but so different! I have indicated them on the map below by drawning a red line under each name:
Together with Gilles, we landed on several other aerodromes that day, and I was very tired by the end of our flying practice, but very happy.
