Flying the Invisible Currents: Reflections on Mountain Flying Across the Western United States
In the mid-1990s, I conducted several long cross country trips across the United States where I encountered some of the most vivid lessons in mountain flying. Each leg of the journey taught me something unique about the interaction between terrain, weather, and pilot judgment, and not always in ways that could be anticipated from textbooks. One flight that remains particularly vivid took me from Sandpoint, Idaho, to Boise in a Piper Archer. We were flying over mountainous terrain, far from the obvious ridges, yet encountered severe downdrafts. The winds were strong, and the air seemed to drop beneath us with a sudden intensity that felt entirely unnatural. I had flown extensively in the Rockies, the Sierra Nevada, the Alps, and the Saint Gabriel Mountains, even experiencing foehn winds in the northern Alps, yet I had never felt that kind of invisible force buffet the airplane. The experience was shocking and immediately humbling. It forced me to question whether the conventional mounta...