It started out clear enough

[sightseer]

Heres a recent flight from s88 to Darrington and then on to an airport north of KBLI (I think it was W38 or something)

weather was cool!

[Iain Emms]

Very nice indeed Dave.

cheers

Iain

[macca22au]

Fantastic Dave;  but IRL there is no place for a small plane with a slow climb rate to be in cloud and below hill height.  You'd join the skeletons found years later by some lost hiker.

[John Lovell]

Fantastic Dave;  but IRL there is no place for a small plane with a slow climb rate to be in cloud and below hill height.  You'd join the skeletons found years later by some lost hiker.

I'd be making an emergency turn to the left in that shot!...

Very nice 

[sightseer]

Fantastic Dave;  but IRL there is no place for a small plane with a slow climb rate to be in cloud and below hill height.  You'd join the skeletons found years later by some lost hiker.

Thanks for the advice Ian.

Just out of curiousity, what plane would be right for such a trip?  I thought I was doing a pretty good thing by buying the Scout for excursions into the mountains of PNW.  Im the type that lands the default Cessna ANYWHERE the sim will let me   I very much enjoy flying the Extra at 180knots 20 feet above the interstate.  ive shadowed 18 wheelers in the trike.

Ive never really pushed the 'in real life' thing very far.  I dont have  a pilots liscence for example.  Ill bet most flight sim pilots dont.

[macca22au]

The Scout, the A2A Cub they're all great fun.  Keep on flying below the hilltops, the scenery is great for that and enjoy it.  But IRL you watch the weather like a hawk.  First you wouldn't take off if the airfield was socked in, if flying you would never enter cloud unless you were instrument rated (and 1500 ft above the highest elevation en route).  If confronted by cloud you would turn away, or reverse course.  That's why bush pilots are taught never to fly into a blind valley, they might not fly out.  There is a lot of local knowledge involved.

Clouds form quickly in valleys, and can clear just as quickly so IRL you take a lot of care.  How do I know from Australia?  One summer I enjoyed this country in a Cessna 172.  Loved it, but gee I had to maintain a good escape route all the time.  Of course I was a nervous Nellie.

The glory of FSX is that you can try these rules out (Visual Flight Rules v Instrument Flight Rules) and live to survive the crash if any.  But I find the fun of serious sims is that you can really try and fly by the seat of the pants, the rules and commonsense at the same time in mountain country.

To keep clear of cloud get a turboprop bush plane, the Quest Kodiak, the Flight 1 PC 12 Pilatus, or the default Caravan and climb quickly and safely above the valley sides and stay above and clear of terrain.