not to get involved in a hot topic or anything but I'm genuinely curious... who paid for all those teachers in the last episode I watched to fly from all over alaska to Unalakleet and home again..as the pilot of the 207 remarked... " a big teacher Party."...at 600 bucks an hour or whatever, that rounds out to a bunch of taxpayer money... maybe it's all worth it but seems like a lot of taxpayer money spent there...

Lets not make the mistake of confusing state tax money and federal tax money... Alaska is in MUCH better fiscal shape than many other states.

My 2 cents...

Darn! just spilled my government-subsidized soda on my keyboard, hope Jim will fly me in another one

iceman wrote:not to get involved in a hot topic or anything but I'm genuinely curious... who paid for all those teachers in the last episode I watched to fly from all over alaska to Unalakleet and home again..as the pilot of the 207 remarked... " a big teacher Party."...at 600 bucks an hour or whatever, that rounds out to a bunch of taxpayer money... maybe it's all worth it but seems like a lot of taxpayer money spent there...

Let's see, someone from California is critiquing other state's expenditures?? Sorry, couldn't help myself

In California, and everywhere else in the country, teachers generally have in service days, and teachers from the whole district sometimes meet to discuss, well, teaching. Nobody seems to think that's a bad deal, except that the poor parents have to find someone else to baby sit their darlings, cause the school isn't....

So, in California, everyone gets in their car and drives to the meeting. In places like Unalakleet, there's not much of a road system, so the teachers have to fly to the district office for this required training. How else are they going to get fully briefed on "No Child Left Behind", for example?

In other words, IT'S ALASKA, fer cryin out loud. THERE ARE NO ROADS, so they use airplanes.
MTV

If the taxpayers would prefer that roads be built in Alaska so taxpayers wouldn't be paying for flights, it would behoove the taxpayers to run some numbers and consider the difference in costs. The flights are cheap.

Troy Hamon wrote:If the taxpayers would prefer that roads be built in Alaska so taxpayers wouldn't be paying for flights, it would behoove the taxpayers to run some numbers and consider the difference in costs. The flights are cheap.

Finally an intelligent statement.(and MTV)
Let's get back to talking about flying, plenty of blogs out there for this type of crap.
Turn off Fox news for just a bit.........

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Troy Hamon wrote:If the taxpayers would prefer that roads be built in Alaska so taxpayers wouldn't be paying for flights, it would behoove the taxpayers to run some numbers and consider the difference in costs. The flights are cheap.

I think their point is that we should all live in California (or Florida) like normal people

Mongo wrote:Let's get back to talking about flying

Damn right!!!!!!

We Sled Drivers are the absolute bastard step-children of the aviation world. We are the lowest of the low. So let us enjoy our brief moment in the spotlight.

Thank you, thank you very much.

Gump

was I criticizing... gee news to me... I said I was genuinely curious who was paying... US gov't or State of Alaska... and our teacher get togethers are teacher parties too... when I watched the show and saw the coke cases it never occured to me who was paying for the damn things to get delivered... I gather they have stores in those villages too that need supplies and groceries... THey gotta get there somehow and somebody has to pay for them..doen't mean they are gov't subsidies... some of you guys are pretty self rightous on here...

GumpAir wrote:

Mongo wrote:Let's get back to talking about flying

Damn right!!!!!!

We Sled Drivers are the absolute bastard step-children of the aviation world. We are the lowest of the low. So let us enjoy our brief moment in the spotlight.

Thank you, thank you very much.

Gump

Lowest of the low and its what we all want to be.


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My comment may have come of a bit flippant, sorry about that. The point is, we are pretty good as a nation at identifying huge projects that aren't sustainably affordable without batting an eye, but the nickel and dime of regular operational costs can sometimes be scrutinized as if it represents a huge potential savings to the nation. I didn't respond as to who it was that was paying because it doesn't matter, the flights are still cheap compared to the road. And that is no matter how many years you amortize the road...when you start paying for road maintenance, that will be more expensive than the flights as well. I acknowledge that I haven't run the numbers...but I've seen proposed costs for some roads in rural Alaska and it is hard to conceive of.

I would also say that it is sometimes hard to explain to a third party what the purpose of a meeting or conference is, unless they are familiar with the job you do. Many times the shorthand characterization is not flattering to the value, assuming there is some, or the necessity even, of having such gatherings.

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?

shorton, my opinion of this is a bit like mongos, but different... it also happens to be (IMHO) the only thing stopping a really light 180 from following a cub anywhere

1) the gear on a cub are triangulated. They can not move fore and aft at the axle, unless something really bad happens. Even though the Cessna springs are triangulated to some degree, it is nowhere near as much, and it is all spring. So they can and do move fore and aft. This is really obvious on glastars too.

2) Cub gear have springs (bungees) and Hydrasorbs (shock absorbers) Which do a pretty piss poor job of dampening, but they do a whole lot better job of dampening than No shock absorber. They only dampen in the rebound, but again, it's better than nothing. An AOSS cub is a notch better, but it's a pretty good $$$ hit for an airplane that should be hitting the landing bumps at 30 mph...

All opinion... but at least it's airplane talk, that's not likely to get this thread heated
Take care, Rob

Shucks I forgot to download the episode where he has to throw out his cargo before landing... Does anyone remember the reasoning behind that?

does that one come after Ariel has a lesson and almost spins the airplane...That's the one I saw last night and Jim and Fern going to check out two cabins where they land on a gravel bar again..all in all a good episode showing some hellacious cross winds landings...

Ridge Runner wrote:Shucks I forgot to download the episode where he has to throw out his cargo before landing... Does anyone remember the reasoning behind that?

lightening the load before he landed on a short hill side strip.

I have had a theory that a light 180 could follow a heavy cub around ok except for one problem, at least on my 180. When I use heavy braking on rough ground my plane starts hopping, and the only way to stop it is to get off the brakes until it settles down then use lighter braking. If I could continue the heavy braking it would stop much shorter. Could this be just my plane or do all spring gear planes suffer from that problem?..........

iceman wrote:all in all a good episode showing some hellacious cross winds landings...

I haven't seen this episode yet, though Cloudy told me that the Feds are gonna bust someone's chops over landing two Sleds on a runway at one time. Why do they do that shit when they know cameras are rolling?

Glad they're showing a bit of what the winds can be like up there. I don't think anyone really believes me when I tell people about the crosswinds we used to routinely operate in (and current crew still do).

Gump

GumpAir wrote:

iceman wrote:all in all a good episode showing some hellacious cross winds landings...

I haven't seen this episode yet, though Cloudy told me that the Feds are gonna bust someone's chops over landing two Sleds on a runway at one time. Why do they do that shit when they know cameras are rolling?

I wondered the same thing but I thought it may be another Alaska-ism. I'm gonna have those " Free the Tweto's " t-shirts printed up first light tomorrow ..see if Zane will let me peddle them here if I can de-code the sticky instructions

What is wrong with "flights of Two" or "formation landings" with two planes at a time? I have seen a lot of that.

Not Part 135 you don't.

Gump