Best one yet IMO. I have been to most of those places. Back in '05 we had our base camp set up on a Kelly River bar. Even though that was our 3rd AK trip, this one was our first pretending to be bush pilots.

The gravel bar we were going to use looked real short for a "heavy" loaded scout, so I landed on a big bar on the Noatak (?sp) at the mouth of the Kelly and left my wife out promising that I'd came back and get her! After unloading all our gear, I went and got her.

Somewhere in that general area was Serpentine Hot springs which we enjoyed after 7-8 days of smelly body wear and tear. There are real cool rock formations too.

I liked the bridge jumping with Ariel and Ayla myself ... but then I'm just a dirty old man....kidding aside.. great show and non pilots must be mouth open at the site of a wheeled 180 touching down on water transitioning to a rocky bar... now here's where they should do some splicing with big rocks and long props....

Checked Ariel on youtube. Turns out she was in the "finals" on wipeout a few times and makes the rounds in LA/Orange county on a regular basis trying to get a Hollywood career going when not going to college down there. Did one of the twilight episodes as well, apparently. Just wonder if that was the connection for the Discovery show. Either way, seem like genuinely nice people and glad to see them mainstreaming airplanes in a positive way.

GumpAir wrote:Good show tonight. Lots of shots of home.

Gump

I knew I had pics of N7384U when she was mine. Paintjob wasn't quite as nice back then. But I guarantee you she got flown harder, and in worse weather.



Gump

I've enjoyed the show, and I admire them for building Era to what it is. I also have some first person info that they go out of their way for people in need, from a recent Angel Flight passenger I had. But having said that, I dislike any "reality" show scenes that take ordinary flying and make it appear dangerous. I learned to fly in Alaska, and although I left after getting out of the USAF only 3 months after getting my private certificate, I know that there is enough danger in Alaskan flying without manufacturing it for the Toob.

I like Alaskan Wing Men a bit better, since it appears to have toned down the manufactured danger element--although mixing up the Otter and Beaver was a bit stupid, I thought.

Cary

The sled will carry a bit of ice, won't she Gump!!! I kinda find the show irritating. They talk like Era is the only people out there doing it, "Era, Alaska's only life line to the bush". That kind of B.S. is stupid, but it is funny to see my line of work made to look cool and its fun to give my buddies over at team green a hard time about it! Oh and by the way Gump, I was looking at your pictures and I saw you standing next to N9943M, and I thought you might like to know that she is in Dillingham owned by and operated John Bouker of Bristol Bay Air. Small world

I had heard 9943M was down there. She was by far the best Sled I ever flew, bar none. What a nice flying airplane and heavy load hauler. I have about 3,000 hrs in 43M, and over 10K in Sleds total, for almost half of my total flying time. For the most part I enjoyed every minute of flying them.



That's Russell Adams of Kivalina. Loading from one Sled to another.

Gump

I've never been to AK, but since it's about aviation, I record the show too.

Not detracting from Tweeto's building of Era, remarkable as that is. But I wonder how much of it would have been possible without the dumping of massive amounts of tax dollars, subsidies, into a system made possible by our underlying entitlement mentality.

It's pervasive. I saw it in the 70's as an Oakland cop. We'd go on a 415F (family disturbance) in winter (CA winters being relatively mild). When the door opened, a thermal blast wave would hit you full on. They'd have the heater going full tilt, all the stove top burners on high, and the oven door open with that cranking too - - a damn sauna with us sweating in our Tuffy jackets! No problem, their energy bill was subsidized, while at my house the thermostat was 65 max.

No folks, it's gotta change.

bumper wrote:I've never been to AK, but since it's about aviation, I record the show too.

Not detracting from Tweeto's building of Era, remarkable as that is. But I wonder how much of it would have been possible without the dumping of massive amounts of tax dollars, subsidies, into a system made possible by our underlying entitlement mentality.

It's pervasive. I saw it in the 70's as an Oakland cop. We'd go on a 415F (family disturbance) in winter (CA winters being relatively mild). When the door opened, a thermal blast wave would hit you full on. They'd have the heater going full tilt, all the stove top burners on high, and the oven door open with that cranking too - - a damn sauna with us sweating in our Tuffy jackets! No problem, their energy bill was subsidized, while at my house the thermostat was 65 max.

No folks, it's gotta change.

I suggest starting a new thread if you want to talk about that (worthy topic btw), so you're not as surprised when the ensuing political discussion is split. This has been a fun topic so far about a show that we're lucky made it to prime time at all.

Yeah, the Alaska EAS thread is working the welfare side of it pretty well.

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6968

Gump

And, actually, ERA Aviation was a VERY large operation before the Tweetos took it over. ERA flew Dash 8s and Convairs on several routes, and they were the second largest helicopter operator in Alaska for many years. They sold the helicopter operation off to Petroleum Helicopters (the largest helicopter operator in the world) which significantly downsized their operation. The company has been around for a long time before the folks who run it now took over.

And, Gump forgot to mention that when asked what the visibility is somewhere over the radio, the appropriate answer if it's a tad marginal would be "It's a SCANT 1 (or 2, depending on what part you're operating under) miles....." If you ever hear the word "Scant" with reference to visibility in AK, expect it to be a little marginal.

MTV

Question for you Cessna drivers, when Jim landed in the water short of the gravel bar his main gear started flexing and popping fairly hard. Looked like a seal clapping his flippers Is that just a factor of the spring gear or was it beginning to settle into the water and hitting rocks or just starting to hang up in the water????

I don't see the Pipers do this, maybe bigger tires to weight?

I interviewed with ERA when they had DHC-6s and Convairs, even got to ride jump seat on the Convair into Valdez with the chief pilot. I had the -6 and Convair time but there was no ground school scheduled at the time of the interview. They called 2 months later to schedule my ground school but I was already picked up as pilot by DRFC 21 miles from my house. A job in extreme heat or cold. Something tells me I would have still ended up in 206s.

shorton wrote:Question for you Cessna drivers, when Jim landed in the water short of the gravel bar his main gear started flexing and popping fairly hard. Looked like a seal clapping his flippers Is that just a factor of the spring gear or was it beginning to settle into the water and hitting rocks or just starting to hang up in the water????

I don't see the Pipers do this, maybe bigger tires to weight?

Super Cubs have bungee gear which has some preload (and damping due to the systems inherent friction) which means its is ridged until the preload amount is over come at which time the gear will begin to deflect, where as the Cessna style gear is just a large leaf spring and has no preload.

Thanks for posting that, makes sense but I would not of thought of it.

I don't think Tweetos "Own" Era. Era, Hageland Aviation, and Artic Circle Air were bought out by Frontier Flying Service in Fairbanks a couple years ago. Frontier is run and owned (I think) by the Hajdukovich family. They may partners with the other companies principles too but I think Frontier owns the whole thing. Now the whole group is known as Era Alaska. Era had a great safety record and program and I think that was the carrot for the takeover, they were often finacially "on the bubble." Era never messed with the small planes before, I think as small as they used to get was the twin otters. I do miss the Convair service we used to have in Valdez. Now most all of the operation is headquartered in Anchorage, not much in Fairbanks now.

Hey Mongo, I know about the Piper bungies and the Cessna spring gear as well as the vastly superior oil over spring setup on my Stinson but what I don't know is if the oscillation I noticed was because of the gear type or if it was due to something else, what do you think?

This got me curious. I left AK in December of 2005, so missed the mergers. Here's a link to the history of the company: http://www.flyera.com/about

MTV

I would say it was that he was getting slow enough to where he was about to penetrate the water, and the un-dampened and non preloaded gear began to bounce on the water surface.
This does not happen with a cub becuase the gear preload is higher than the weight on the gear at the speed which the tires stop hydroplaning and penetrate the water.



Sent from my HTC Evo using Tapatalk

Love the show, the planes, the scenery, and the people. Just sort of amazes me that they keep talking about the $600/hour rides into the bush and these remote villages, and yet every other time they load the plane is with cases of Shasta Cola and such! That is some seriously expensive soda!

Looks like an amazing place to fly and pick up some serious experience. Wish I'd had made those choices... but I didn't. Probably not in the cards anytime soon.

ReddingRob