Winter flying
 

This was a few days ago on Dec 29. Heading south from town towards the Alaska Range before sunrise at 11am(the gps isn't adjusted to daylight savings time). Best day we've had in some time and a gorgeous pre-sunrise. I delivered 250# of cement blocks to a friends hunting camp just in front of the mountains that I use. I tried to fly down there this morning but had to turn around a few miles short as there was a pretty thick ice fog bank over the river and camp area. Too bad; I had my 24" PHE16 along and was going to chase ruffies on snowshoes after seeing tracks along the strip on my first trip down. I'll try again when it gets back up above 0deg sometime next week, hopefully.

I always enjoy these photos and reports from Alaska -- thanks!

Amazing, you're a lucky person to have that wilderness.

Sunrise at 11:00. Sunset at 3:00??

Still pretty close to that. We're gaining 5-6 minutes per day of daylight since the solstice.

CABIN FEVER!!!

Worst sunburn I ever got was in Alaska in the last week in June.

It goes both ways.





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Very nice pictures Richard, I hope to 1 day fly over some of your beautiful state, preferably in warmer temperatures.
Stan

Friend of a friend and his family were killed in a private plane crash yesterday west of Detroit. Suspected icing. Gotta be xtra careful in the winter

That’s sad news John, I was just reading the online report and wondered what may have gone wrong.
I had plans to fly into Philadelphia International yesterday afternoon to pick up my sister, but that got cancelled because her flight was delayed by 6 hrs when she was leaving from Florida.
Not sure what conditions were like in Michigan yesterday, it was not the nicest day for flying in Pa.
Stan

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.

Scary, of course.... but... she did walk away, and that's all that counts in the end. Was she flying solo??

There are some Huskys up here, but too many of the pilots try to fly them like a Super Cub and get in trouble. Regardless of what anyone says, they just don't fly like a Cub. I understand they're a good float plane though. The landing gear is like the old PA12 gear and often gets replaced with Cub gear here, which helps a lot. The southern border patrol bought 16 of them years ago and after the boys crashed too many of them they got rid of all of them and went back to Cubs. If you want to live to be and "old and bold pilot" up here, you fly a Cub.

I do run on 31" Bushwheels in the summer.

Yes, she was flying solo. She has about 20 hours.

Husky's are big in my area. Three of my friends own them and they love them. But they are not flying in Alaska. They claim that they compare favorably with the Super Cub but none of them has ever flown a Super Cub. Neither have I. That statistic about too many of them crashing in Alaska is interesting. I'll mention that this weekend. The response should be interesting.

We fly on my friends private airstrip and we walk the airstrip from time to time to look for rocks protruding from the ground. Certainly a lot more tame than flying in Alaska.

They were flying the Huskys along the Mexican border not in Alaska.

The original Husky landing gear is a bungees under the front seat system, with no hydrosorb shock absorbers. My plane originally had that and it was a bitch to land on rough ground. You'd bounce like a tennis ball if you landed hard. Definitely dangerous. I couldn't wait to swap the gear out. Every Husky owner I've ever spoken with has claimed that they're as good as a Cub. Don't believe it. If they were as good as a Cub, all the guides up here would be flying them instead of $100,000 - $250,000 rebuilt Super Cubs, many of which were built in the 1950's or earlier. Mine is a 1947. Many of them fly at the "edge" all day every day during hunting season; if there was a better plane, they'd have it. Cost is irrelevant; Everyone walking away from every landing is everything.

Here's a picture of a friends freshly rebuilt Super Cub on a strip in August here in Fairbanks less than 2 miles from my house. He was taking off and a landing C-180? couldn't see him over his nose and landed on top of him from behind. Larry was pretty beat up, but was out of hospital and home after, I think, 2 days or less. The Cessna burned to a crisp and I think two onboard died. You can see what's left of it in the background here - just a small pile of aluminum slag. I'm pretty sure Larry starts every day with a big grateful grin at this point.

20 hours? Kinda young to be flying solo.... adult judgement plays a big part in getting out of critical situations. I get it that she walked away... that may have been her only chance. I’m sure she was trained in all sorrs of critical situations and when to apply carb heat is certainly one of them.

Lucky girl.






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[QUOTE=Dean Romig;322632]20 hours? Kinda young to be flying solo.... adult judgement plays a big part in getting out of critical situations. I get it that she walked away... that may have been her only chance. I’m sure she was trained in all sorrs of critical situations and when to apply carb heat is certainly one of them.

Lucky girl.


She is young, but she was well trained and was flying solo on a training flight.

She picked the only spot where she could have survived a crash, the sparse area under high tension wires surrounded by tall woods and hills. She kept her head and somehow got the failing plane under control enough to make the landing in a very daunting area. Seeing the crash area, I was amazed that she was able to land where she did. Her father, despite the airplane loss, is very proud of her and rightfully so.

Carb heat is something that could be forgotten by someone not reading what his engine is telling him. I was flying with a friend in a J-5 Cub and he was losing airspeed and responded with more throttle. I screamed at him carb heat and the problem went away.

As for her young age, it all depends, like guns, on the maturity of the individual. I started my son flying when he was 14. He never had an incident. The only incident I ever had was when I foolishly took off with an overloaded airplane. In retrospect, it was a very foolish thing to do. I ignored the basics and almost paid the ultimate price.

I’m hoping my friend will replace the 172 with a 182. It’s a much safer airplane to fly on our somewhat limited airstrip.

The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the cause of the crash but, as Richard mentions, it will be at least two years before we know anything definitive.




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I’m sure she’ll remember that incident forever Tom.

Again, she was incredibly lucky...





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Richard…..quick question…..did you ever attend the Valdez Stol competition? I just re-watched some videos. Incredible! I saw just Super Cubs and experimentals.

I did know one of the great bush pilots, Sonny Thomas (Lowell Thomas Jr.) My father grew up with him in Pawling. He moved from Pawling to Alaska many years ago. But he always came back every couple of years or so. Up until his death, he still owned part of his father’s estate (more than 3,000 acres at one point) in Pawling.

He kept part of the property for some reason even after he moved. He’d come back to Pawling to see old friends. He never forgot Pawling and his friends here. He always landed on our airstrip which his father’s property bordered on the Norh.

He was an Alaska state senator and later Lieutenant Governor. He was in the air flying during the destructive Anchorage earthquake years ago. He took many pictures and movies of the devastation from the air. After the 1980’s he owned and operated the Talkeetna Air Taxi, a bush flying service.

The last time I saw him he flew in with a Cessna 185 A. He had to be helped out of the airplane and he couldn’t walk well.

Sonny build a small airstrip on his father’s property back in the 30’s. But when he flew into the trees, Lowell Thomas wouldn’t let him use the airstrip anymore. After 1948 he used our airstrip built by Thomas E. Dewey when he thought that his Pawling Estate was going to be the summer White House.

I briefly knew/met Lowell Thomas Jr and Sr. I met Sr at an evening bonfire/BBQ party on a beach in Juneau in '73 I think, and Jr when he and his young son flew into the glacier research camp I was working/studying at just to do some skiing around on the glacier. I never encountered either of them after that. I've been in Talkeetna many times but never saw Jr there, but knew he had an active air service and often flew out of there.

I've never been to the STOL competition since they moved it from Gulkana to Valdez. You risk getting stuck for days/weeks in Valdez if you fly there from here, and it's a long flite. It's gotten a bit too techy too with all those custom featherweight souped up planes. It isn't only Cubs and such that compete; they have classes that go up into the Single Otter class. My neighbor did a short field takeoff demo there with his C-1, which was designed as a supply plane for our aircraft carriers and would take off in less then 200ft empty and with low fuel. That was fun to watch and popular with the crowd. He flew that C-1 down to Oshkosh one summer when I was there also. I watched a friend compete with a S Otter that managed a takeoff in 88ft! My mechanic here pretty regularly wins or places high in the C-170 class; his is pretty amped up with a giganto engine with almost 2x the HP of the original O-300. It used to be mostly unmodified planes too, so the local hunting guides would all compete, and they would, using the good headwinds that ruled in Gulkana, get stock Supercubs in as little as 22ft. I watched a guy who had showed up with his family in their C-206; he was watching the competition and pacing all over and clearly fretting and wanting to get into the game. He finally gathered up his family and they started stripping the seats out and anything else they could remove and draining the fuel down to a minimum, after which he signed up and competed. He grunted that 206 off in, I think, 85ft and got more cheers than anyone else, especially from his enthusiastic family! The whole thing was more like a small town county fair than it is now. People come from all over the country for it these days. I'm sure you've seen some of the videos of how they go out of town, generally after the competition is over, and land on river bars in the area. There are good vids of guys hovering modified Cubs in just like a helicopter in strong winds and just setting them down with no rollout. There are also some idiots who push it too far and trash their planes. I think one guy 2-3 yrs back landed on a bar near a glacier face and a pc of ice calved off and and the wave it created hit his bar and rolled his plane up into a little unrecognizable ball of scrap metal and fabric. No thanks.

I love the Otters. My favorite jump plane was a twin Otter. It got us to jump altitude quickly. I enjoy free fall skydiving, among the best things I have done. I am AFFM (advanced free fall method) certifed. I haven't jumped in a couple of years. Unfortunately, I misplaced my log book in the move up from Maryland. When I finally find it, I'll start jumping again.

This is a picture of me and one of my jump partners Randy. We like to link in the air. In this photo I've just waved him off and engaged the chute. You can see it start to come out.

Riiiight... jumping out of a perfectly goot airplane just for the thrill of it...

I think if I wanted to wet my pants I’d just stand on the ground and do it.






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I talked to a British paratrooper and asked him "Why in hell would you jump out of a perfectly good flying airplane?" His response "Because my commanding officer told me to"

When I was Director of Financial and Information Systems at Verizon I gave a speech to my employees. Some submitted questions prior to the speech. This is an excerpt from my speech answering a question. It sums up how I have lived my life and why I free fall skydive. I have lived a very unordinary and exciting life, for which I am grateful.


4. If you could give one piece of advice to yourself at age 17, what would it be?

Work hard, provide for your family while at the same time pursue your dreams unabashedly, unafraid and uncompromising, with knowledge and foresight. Always travel the path less trodden, even though you might be thought a fool. Experience the incomparable adrenalin rush of challenging, soul satisfying and daring endeavors, despite the inherent risks that prevent most from achieving true Nirvana. Overcome fear and remember that longevity has its place, but not if it is purchased at the price of unrealized ambitions and dreams.

Quick question for Richard....Are most bush pilots in Alaska IFR pilots?

I'm not sure but I don't think so. You'd have to put too much electronic rubbish into a Cub to fly IFR.... legally, of course. They certainly do fly IFR enough though, as have I, and I'm not IFR rated.

Ahhh....I didn't think of that. No better pilots than most of those that fly in Alaska. I've always admired them. We have only a couple of IFR pilots that fly out of our airstrip and both of those flew commercial. Back in the East, most accidents occur with VFR pilots flying in IFR conditions. Most have a relatively low number of hours. Spatial disorientation sets in and they die. I've never flown in IFR conditions. I carefully check weather reports before I fly long distance. I don't have the skill or savvy of an Alaskan pilot.

When I was flying a lot I practiced IFR flying on a regular basis even though I was not IFR rated. I routinely practiced shooting the IFR approach to my home airport - just in case. You never know when it might come in handy.

Another thing that sometimes fools VFR pilots are sucker holes. They can give a false sense of security if you fly into them and the clouds move to cover up the hole.

I've flown in more IFR than I deserved to get away with. Sometimes it's intentional, sometimes not. I climbed to 14,500ft to get over thick towering wildfire smoke over the Brooks Range once and fell asleep due to oxygen deprivation.... not for long....and woke up in hvy clouds and zero viz. I knew I was way above all the peaks and just nudged the stick into a slow 180deg turn with a finger while watching the compass and the VSI. Once I had it headed south I set it up to descend at 50fpm and just let it fly itself out of the clouds hands off and tapping the rudder to keep it on course of 180. That was a good learning experience; now I know how to do it if it ever happens again, which is very unlikely. And this was nowhere near the worst I have flown in. Wouldn't even make the top 10.

Great discussion. I had no idea you were flying Alaska VFR. A feller from Ohio could broadly expand his bird hunting options with a Cherokee or a Skyhawk.

My wife would forbid me from visiting this forum if she only knew.

-Victor

I hate to keep asking youi questions Richard, but do you see many Glasair Sportsmen in Alaska. Looks like a great airplane to me.