BRD sent me this cool video of his ride along for a Fish and Game stocking op.

http://www.backcountrypilot.org/videos/slow%20fish.mov

I don't understand how they're not killed by the shock of impact? Tough little suckers. I love the vantage point.

1SeventyZ wrote:BRD sent me this cool video of his ride along for a Fish and Game stocking op.

http://www.backcountrypilot.org/videos/slow%20fish.mov

I don't understand how they're not killed by the shock of impact? Tough little suckers. I love the vantage point.

There was an article about just that not long ago. I think it was in Plane and Pilot.

Not enough mass to create high impact forces, I'll bet. You suppose they dive in the pike position or just flounder their way down?

They found when they first did this that they had to increase the height enough so that the forward speed bled off. the drop didn't seem to bother the little buggers but skipping them across the surface of the water did.

To add to that, dropping from 100-150 feet also allows the fish to stop tumbling and streamline before hitting the water headfirst. As Shane points out, smacking the water on their sides had deleterious effects...

Dropping in the cold water of the Spring and Fall also helps their survival rate.

(mucho' great fun all around! and yes 'looper, I got it...)

1SeventyZ wrote:BRD sent me this cool video of his ride along for a Fish and Game stocking op.

http://www.backcountrypilot.org/videos/slow%20fish.mov

I don't understand how they're not killed by the shock of impact? Tough little suckers. I love the vantage point.

Something wrong on my end, I can not view the video

58Skylane wrote:Something wrong on my end, I can not view the video

It's a Quicktime (mov) movie file format, which is not supported by Windows by default. You either 1) have to install Quicktime for Windows from Apple, OR 2) install this (which I recommend...it plays everything): http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

The latest Real Player version also handles .mov files

GroundLooper wrote:

1SeventyZ wrote:BRD sent me this cool video of his ride along for a Fish and Game stocking op.

http://www.backcountrypilot.org/videos/slow%20fish.mov

I don't understand how they're not killed by the shock of impact? Tough little suckers. I love the vantage point.

There was an article about just that not long ago. I think it was in Plane and Pilot.

Not enough mass to create high impact forces, I'll bet. You suppose they dive in the pike position or just flounder their way down?

I think you are right it depends a lot on where the airplane is perched.

BRD wrote:To add to that, dropping from 100-150 feet also allows the fish to stop tumbling and streamline before hitting the water headfirst. As Shane points out, smacking the water on their sides had deleterious effects...

Makes em all walleyed!

I think it takes a special pilot to do these drops. Some pilots just don't give a carp!

Not enough mass to create high impact forces, I'll bet. You suppose they dive in the pike position or just flounder their way down?


Flounders don't fly right, they go like a frizbee and skip over the water!!!!!

Poor pilots kill a lot of these fish because their flying technique is so crappie.

When you watch from the ground and they are dumping them into the water, if the light hits the mist of water trailing behind the plane just right you can see the rainbow.

Some of them hit the water head first, it is a good thing that, I swear they act like they have steelheads.

I've heard the ones that get "tore up" in the slip stream end up as cutthroats/// Of course if you drop them off from too high with all the broken bones they just turn to jellyfish

I think some of these pilots fly to low and that is not good. You can explain it to them but they are just too bullhead ed.

You all are a bunch of Suckers for continueing this.

I think they would land on their feet if they were only cat fish.

I think that pilots that do this type of backcountry flying, especially in and out of these small lakes, have bass balls!