Alpine Flight Training in Eagle Colorado provides year-round mountain flying instruction and mountain checkout.  We have options for a 1 or two day course.  No matter what time of year you come, we’ll always we talking about density altitude, even though, the influences of density altitude are most significant in the summer.  If you’re interested in learning mountain flying and getting a mountain checkout then come to the heart of the Colorado Rockies and fly with Alpine Flight Training.

There are more factors than just Altitude and Temperature

Most people commonly believe there are only two factors related to determining density altitude: field elevation and temperature.  The belief that these are the only factors stems from the age-old use of the “density altitude chart” that every pilot encounters in textbooks, on tests, and in aircraft performance manuals.

This chart doesn’t tell the whole story, a pilot also needs to determine the effect on density altitude of humidity and atmospheric pressure.

In reality, humidity and air pressure also impact density altitude, however not to the extent of temperature and field elevation.  Combined however the impact of these two factors can be significant.

Today, many of the electronic flight calculators include functions for calculating the actual density altitude.  Additionally, there are several web sites with complete density altitude calculators such as the one created by Richard Shelquist that can be found at:

http://wahiduddin.net/calc/calc_da.htm

See Also