Having driven past these rock formations for about 20 years, I decided to try and get some footage.
I went on Google Earth, located a safe spot along the road to pull over, used the 'Ruler Tool' to plot a range from my proposed takeoff and destination. 4400' was the distance I calculated, easy flight, been twice that distance on numerous occasions.
There were a couple of things I did not take into account for this flight:
1. Takeoff elevation
2. Destination elevation...and
3. RTH elevation.
After the 45 minute drive to the takeoff point I flew the route only to discover that my maximum altitude setting was set about 30' too low. I had planned on an overflight of the destination as well as a couple of rotations around it. Not wanting to make adjustments to max alt. while still in flight, I kicked myself for not checking and continued without issue. Since I could not rotate behind the destination without losing signal, I headed back for an uneventful landing.
On the drive home, I realized that my RTH altitude was set for 240', if anything had gone wrong while I was near the destination, RTH would have dropped elevation from 650' to 240', possibly causing the craft to impact the terrain below.
Google Earth has all the distance and elevation data I needed, but I didn't bother to use it.
Here is the video....
I went on Google Earth, located a safe spot along the road to pull over, used the 'Ruler Tool' to plot a range from my proposed takeoff and destination. 4400' was the distance I calculated, easy flight, been twice that distance on numerous occasions.
There were a couple of things I did not take into account for this flight:
1. Takeoff elevation
2. Destination elevation...and
3. RTH elevation.
After the 45 minute drive to the takeoff point I flew the route only to discover that my maximum altitude setting was set about 30' too low. I had planned on an overflight of the destination as well as a couple of rotations around it. Not wanting to make adjustments to max alt. while still in flight, I kicked myself for not checking and continued without issue. Since I could not rotate behind the destination without losing signal, I headed back for an uneventful landing.
On the drive home, I realized that my RTH altitude was set for 240', if anything had gone wrong while I was near the destination, RTH would have dropped elevation from 650' to 240', possibly causing the craft to impact the terrain below.
Google Earth has all the distance and elevation data I needed, but I didn't bother to use it.
Here is the video....