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Chapter-6 Takeoffs and Climbs-V20_Sport Pilot Handbook 8/30/2021 6:10 PM Page 12

6-12 Rod Machado’s How to Fly an Airplane Handbook

Here’s a thought ex- Climb Attitudes for Airports Having Different Density Altitudes
periment. Imagine you
are climbing out from an
airport located at sea
level. During the climb
the airplane’s nose is
pointed upward at some
relatively nose-high atti-
tude. Now, what would
you have to do to that at-
titude if I pulled the air-
plane’s throttle back a
bit? You’d have to lower
the nose to maintain the
same climb speed, right?
The ability to climb de-
pends on the availability
of excess power. So if
you suddenly have less
power available to you in
the climb, you can’t climb
as steeply, which means
your climb angle must
be shallower.
This is precisely what
can happen when taking
off. In high density alti-
tude conditions, your en-
gine doesn’t develop as
much power. If you raise
the nose and attempt to
climb at the angle that’s
familiar to you from your
sea-level departures, your
airspeed decreases be-
cause of the large amount
of induced drag associ-
ated with higher angles
of attack.
When departing a high
density altitude airport,
rotate and keep a nose-
low attitude initially, at
least until you see that
the airplane is accelerat-
ing to climb speed (Vy).
Then continue raising
the nose attitude to keep
the climb speed at Vy.
Think of it as the old
high-low.
Since you’re working
with less power because
of the density altitude
(just as in our thought
experiment), you’ll find
that the climb angle is
much less, and the rate
of climb is less, too.