I heard about that incident John. Icing certainly not unlikely. It's been cold and wet with mixed rain and snow there. Had to be bad if that was the cause. My plane will fly just fine even when completely covered with ice to the point where I can't see out the windshield. You can get away with a lot.

I talked about this with a friend of mine who is probably one of the few private pilots I fly with, and iceing was his call. Apparently, the field they were trying to land at was not a good one, and was not a straight landing - required a 90 degree series,and perhaps contributed to the accumulation of ice, leading to the crash. I'm sure the NHTSB will spend a lot of time on this

Generally, by the time the NTSB gets an aircraft incident report out it's ancient history. A year or two for the final report is not unusual. The trick if you're interested is to get the N number of the plane so the final report is relatively easy to locate on the NTSB website.

I went back down to camp on the 14th to see if I could find a grouse I figured was living around a trailhead on the edge of the airstrip. I had a pretty good idea where to look for him and took snowshoes and my 24" PHE16 along. Took me less than 5 minutes to flush him from a roost along the trail. Didn't get a shot, but that was fine. It was a win-win day for me and the bird and I won't bother him again. I had figured out where hung out and had a good idea where to look for him and I was right - The bird was smart enough to flush soon enough that I had no shot, so we both won. It was a good hunt for me and I was happy to let him go and saluted him as he disappeared amongst the large spruce trees. I also found his roost and his grit mine, where he clearly spends a lot of time. His roost told a story. I think he started out back in under the tree then moved out into the open a bit more to get more sun as he snoozed, as the sun would be to the left/south in the picture and low in the sky. I've had them do that in my yard before; one moved twice as the sun moved across the sky. It was a very good day.

Good spot for grit!





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Roger that. It's a unique spot there. It's a little overhang on a Cat pushpile along the edge of the airstrip consisting of spruce logs and sand/gravel/silt. The overhang prevents it from being buried by snow so it's an ideal spot year round. He won't be leaving that area anytime soon.

My friends daughter crashed his Cesna 172 a couple of weeks ago. Luckily she walked away but the plane was totalled. The FAA is doing an investigation but I suspect, by the way the plane was loosing power, that her problem might been icing in the carburator. The accident might have been prevented if she thought to engage carb heat. She is only 15 years old.

Well, that's very unfortunate, but in pilot circles and based on the alternative, if she walked away from it, we call that "a good landing".

Quick question Richard, do you see many Husky's showing up in Alaska. They are a great plane and fun to fly.

I assume that you have tundra tires for the summer.

By that standard, it was good landing but scary as hell for her father and the rest of us. Looking at the plane, she was extremely lucky to walk away with only minor injuries. I'm no fan of 172's but it was a shame the plane was totalled. One of my favorite planes is my friends 180 tail dragger. He has tundra tires on it and it really is a sharp looking plane.