Back when I was a fledgling aviator with less than a thousand hours in my logbook, I ferried airplanes for various aircraft brokers throughout the United States to build time. My goal was to gain 1,200 hours of flight time so that I could hopefully become employed flying canceled checks with a Part 135 operation. The brokers would buy an airplane and call me to reposition it to their home hangar. They liked using me because at the time I worked for a major airline with flight benefits and this saved them a good deal of money.
Density-Altitude Debacle Leads To Near Disaster
Key Takeaways:
- A pilot ferrying a Grumman Tiger experienced an extremely sluggish and dangerous takeoff from a high-altitude airport in Las Vegas, NM.
- The near-incident was due to the pilot's complacency and failure to check the critical density altitude, which severely degraded the aircraft's performance.
- This experience served as a vital lesson on the critical importance of always calculating density altitude, especially when flying from high-elevation airfields.
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