ENTERTAINING THE ICE FISHER PEOPLE

I was overflying this lake when I noticed the local ice fishing community had set up a porta pottie, pretty fancy! I landed near it, and then ran over to it, RAN.....like I had a real emergency of some kind. I stayed inside the requisite amount of time to make it convincing, then ran back to the plane and blasted off, disappearing over the horizon, I assume.

I noticed when leaving it, that the crapper was mounted on skis, and fitted with a rope bridle. Then I realized I now have a tail took release for my home ski ramp release use,, so naturally it occurred to me to hook it up and taxi to the other side of the lake, but to my credit, I didn't, and I am damn proud of my judgement and maturity.

I had a couple of pilots drop by for a visit the other day, just as I was returning from a short jaunt down range a couple miles. The timing was perfect as I got to show them what I call my "bump landing", on the little hillock a few hundred yards from my strip. I like to hit it just prior to "entering the pattern" (as if I have one), for a final bit of fun before putting the plane back in the hangar.

Between my new tip fences and 17 degrees more flap mod, I am able to approach it at a speed that is damn slow, so slow I wanted another pilot to eyeball the short final, and tell me if it was just my imagination, or if it was really DAMN SLOW. This results of course in a very short slide out, and I even have to add power to make it to the top of the bump, when done properly. Then it's a brief burst of power to get it turned downhill, and using about 1600 prop RPM, another takeoff, with an immediate turn onto right base and very short final, followed by the whole " ski up the ramp, not too fast, not too slow, stop on top, then transition to the wheels, and pull up onto level concrete, " where I can at last shut it down, thing.

I was pretty sure that the two pilots, experienced as they were in all facets of aviation, had not seen anything quite like this aerial dog and pony show . I'm happy to say that I didn't screw it up (no dents in the hangar door yet, and didn't need to get the tractor out after running out of thrust to make it up the ramp), though I did feel a bit of pressure from having onlookers.

My neighbor's father, author Dick Williams, and son Patrick were the pilots, so between the old man's years of back country and corporate jet flying experiences, and the kid's F-22 plus Super Cub time, it was fun to show them something they most likely had yet to see. We told each other lies for a while, it was a great visit, and I pointed out the summer strip, which is different from the winter strip, and invited them to fly in any time next summer.

My next brush up with my aviation betters, may be with the retired Air Force "guy" (I don't recall his rank and don't want to get it wrong) who bought my old home and property about 13 years ago. His wife did actually, I dealt with her on the transaction, as he was in Afghanistan at the time, where I believe he was the head honcho of the entire aircraft repair and maintenance program over there. I'm pretty sure he didn't get his hands greasy, so probably a pretty high rank? I need to show him my maintenance facility, that ought to be good for a laugh.

I just read Dick Williams book earlier this week. Cool that your neighbors!

This was on this ski flying season's bucket list, a high mountain meadow I stumbled upon mountain biking last summer. 8008', nearby peaks above 9 K. I was at 10 K when I took this picture. When making my spiral descent, I noticed the air got a little burbly, but nothing of any concern, even a bit welcome as it hastened the descent a bit.

After making some yellow snow, I was off, but now that burbly air wasn't quite as helpful....still not bumpy just a bit sinky, enough that my normal climb rate was degraded to about 200 FPM for just a bit. It was coming over, over and down, the peaks. When I turned tail for home, I noticed a pretty good boost on my ground speed readout. Less then a hour earlier, when approaching the area on a reciprocal heading to my departure, there was no indication of any wind. In other words, the wind came up, and quickly, from nothing to about 10, maybe 15 mph at most. Mid morning, and not a real big deal overall just a minor heads up to not get too casual anytime while in the mountains. On a related subject, today when i returned home from work in town, it was calm. I checked the weather station at KPIH, about 15 miles away and 1200' lower, and they were reporting 27 MPH and gusts to 37!

Very Nice! You definitely have some pretty cool places to fly. I'm not sure how much longer we have here for skis. It's been warm the last few weeks and we have lost a bunch of snow. Typically we have snow on the ground into early April, but I wouldn't be surprised to see most of it gone in the next couple of weeks.

Very nice Tom! I hope to see you this year. Cheers...Rob

Got some, sort of. Looks like we are all done for off airport stuff, but I did take off and land on skis, so it kind of counts. The runway still has about a foot of hardpack on it. All the lakes still have 1 1/2' - 2'+ of ice, but no snow and the surfaces are rough with pressure ridges and the springholes are starting to show through.I got out for about a hour tour today though. With 1" - 2" of rain and warm temps the next couple of days, it might have been my last ski day for the season. Not putting the wheels on just yet though.

I help out my county building department by keeping an eye out for non compliant structures, this is a prime example. I've watched it for the last 20 years, steadily leaning downwind, and I figured it was time to see what the problem was. before it totally collapsed! As a former builder, I enjoy checking out structures like these, to see where the builders went wrong. To no surprise, the lack of any diagonal bracing on the end walls was the cause. Where as, the side walls WERE correctly diagonally braced, ( though they don't appear so in the picture) and are still plumb. A let in brace, on a 45 degree angle (studs notched to accept a 1x4 so flush to the surface) was all that was needed, and it still would have been standing straight. Nowadays, with new construction being totally sheeted with OSB for shear, and as long as the roof is maintained, the houses we're building now should be around for a very long time. The invention of modern "balloon" framing revolutionized building, and was largely responsible for the rapid development of the West. I once told a crew I was eating lunch with just that, and just as I finished (too late) I realized the crew were all Shoshone-Bannock tribal members

Skis are off, 34 hours this season, not bad, about average, with the usual thrills and almost spills. Once again, as I unloaded all my yet to be used winter emergency gear, I was wondering if the entire hassle of ski flying was worth the bother, and once again I thought HELL YA!