The trip you take before the one with your family
You bought the airplane to go places. Aspen in February is one of them. The first time into these airports should not be the time your family is sitting behind you, and it does not have to be.
Who this is for
You own a capable airplane. You are current in it and comfortable flying it. What stands between you and a ski trip is terrain you have never flown into.
That is a knowledge problem rather than a skill problem, and it is a solvable one.
We fly your airplane, from your field, on the route you will actually fly, at the weights you will actually carry. A checkout in a rented 172 you will never see again teaches you very little about what your airplane does at 12,000 feet on a warm afternoon.
What I will not do is tell you your limits. You are the pilot in command and that decision stays yours. What I can do is make sure you have the real picture before you make it.
Two ways to do this
Flat pricing, no hourly clock to watch for either of us. These are not steps in a sequence. Pick the one that fits.
The Pass Briefing
No airplane neededYour trip, worked out before you fly it
We take the trip you are actually planning and work it start to finish: which route, which passes, and what the terrain tends to do in the wind you are likely to get. Which cameras and AWOS are worth watching the morning you go, and which ones tell you nothing useful. What ATC will do with you, where the radio coverage falls apart, and where it comes back.
- ✓Route recommendation for your airplane and your date
- ✓The weather sources that matter on that route, and how to read them
- ✓Where radar coverage thins, where the radio goes quiet, and where neither is a concern
- ✓Divert options, and the conditions that should send you to one
This is a complete product on its own, not a first step toward anything. Plenty of pilots take the briefing, fly the trip themselves, and never need me in the airplane. That is a perfectly good outcome and I would rather you have the information than not.
Same airports either way. Both days fly several mountain fields, both include the ground briefing, and both put you in the left seat the whole time. There is no airport you can reach in two days that you cannot reach in one. The difference is that a single day gets you there and back, while two days adds the part a day trip structurally cannot include: leaving your airplane at a mountain field overnight, and flying it home the next morning in whatever weather has turned up.
Cleared Into Aspen
Flown in your airplaneYou have a destination in mind. This is that day.
We fly into the airport you actually want to take your family to, on the arrival you will actually be given, and land there. We will work several mountain fields across the day, so your destination is not the first mountain runway you see. Aspen is the one most pilots are quietly afraid of and it earns that, but the day runs the same way whichever field you have in mind.
- ✓The ground briefing, same morning or ahead of time, whichever suits you
- ✓Several mountain fields across the day, finishing at the one you came for
- ✓The real arrival and approach, and the departure, which is the half most people have not thought about
- ✓What the controller is doing with you and why, from someone who did the job
The Colorado Loop
Flown in your airplaneThe whole trip, including the morning you have to leave
A single day always starts and ends at your home field, so there is one thing it can never show you: walking out to your airplane at a mountain airport on a cold morning and taking it home. That is the half of the trip that tends to go wrong. Frost on the wings at 7,800 feet, a wind that is nothing like yesterday afternoon, and a schedule quietly telling you it is time to go. It also happens to be the half where you get a night in a mountain town, which is presumably part of why you bought the airplane.
- ✓The ground briefing, covering both days
- ✓A morning departure off a mountain field, which is a different airplane than the one you landed there
- ✓Leaving it overnight at altitude: tie-down, frost, preheat, and which FBOs are actually open when you need them
- ✓The call on whether to come home, made with me sitting next to you, which is the decision that hurts people
Day rates cover my time. Aircraft operating costs, fuel, and any landing or ramp fees are yours. Travel is billed separately if we are meeting somewhere other than the Front Range, as is lodging on the two-day circuit. If weather scrubs a day we reschedule, no charge.
Why me and not any other CFI
Colorado has no shortage of good mountain flying instructors, and several of them have been at it a long time. What it has very few of is someone who worked this airspace from the other side of the radio. Before I was teaching in it, I was a controller at Denver ARTCC.
That means I can tell you which arrival you are going to be assigned before you file, and why the gates sit where they do. It also means I know where radar coverage thins out and where the radio goes quiet, which are two different questions with two different answers, and where neither one is a problem at all. Most pilots find that out by being surprised at the wrong moment.
And when a controller does something that seems strange, I can usually tell you what they were trying to accomplish. That is not something you learn from the cockpit, and it is most of what makes these trips feel unpredictable the first time.
The guides are free and staying that way. Read them first. If they answer your question completely, you do not need me, and that is a perfectly good outcome.
Start with a conversation
Tell me the airplane, the destination, and roughly when. I will tell you honestly whether this is worth your money, and which of the three above actually fits.
Get in Touch