Mountain Training

I got my Central/South America “Mountaing Training” certification done.

We basically flew ‘hi speed’ thru the Cuban sector, learning about how to make position reports, talked about communications, how to program the FMS and such and went pretty far in depth with theater navigation in mountainous terrain.

For example, if you have a rapid depressurization, you just don’t start diving for 10,000 feet because you’re going to solve that pressurization problem quickly with controlled flight into terrain.

And that would be bad.

Anyway, on some routes in Central/South America, namely Bogota which we flew to today, there are route segments which have a corresponding alternate route to a diversionary airport with step down altitudes that will allow us to descend to a breathable altitude and remain clear of terrain.

Also, we trained a lot of RNAV/RNP approaches in Quito, Ecuador which you conduct curving approaches and missed approaches thru mountain valleys into a ‘bowl’ of sorts where the airport sits. We also did a lot of engine-out work in Quito as well, learning that the schoolhouse method of “request a straight out!!” during V1 cuts is the LAST thing you want to do in many circumstances. We did two-engine and single-engine arrivals and approaches into Quito, Ecuador and Bogota, Columbia.

Bogota is interesting because you’ve got to pre-tune two NDB’s and do a “figure 8″ climb. Hit a NDB, turn right, head to another one, turn left, back to the other one, slowly climbing to 13,000 before heading to the Bogota VORTAC.

The instructor kept the brief short because without actually seeing the procedures in the simulator, you’d feel like a dog watching “Jeopardy!” on television.

Anyway, I learned some important things. Not to step on any toes, but in Central and South America, you’re more or less on your own and ATC relies on the “fact” that you know exactly where you are, what the weather is and if you request a turn straight to the marker and a descent far, FAR below your sector altitude, they’ll reply with “Roger!” so ***situational awareness*** is life. You more or less lose it and you’re absolutely toast like the American Airlines 757 that crashed.

We did some of the curving arrivals/approaches into Quito, Ecuador in IMC/night. Then we flew it in day VMC and that solidified the point that you need to know not only where you are, where you’re going next and the navigation performance of the aircraft because when you’re flying a narrow valley on arrival, yanking and banking towards the final approach course, if screw up, you’re going to certainly make the evening news.

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