Agree with the latter posts,

I have been a bit embarrassed by some of the chest pounding PIC banter that had earlier been presented. Of course we all understand the final authority and responsibility for inflight decisions. That is not the issue here.

Personally I feel enormous gratitude to the family that after all...made the wonderfullnes of JC possible. Very generous people who also allow us to tramp over their land so we can hike and experience the "tub and warm spring." It seems to me that they deserve every consideration. If all of us don't continue to respect their hospitality.....they could fence everyone off and become our worst nightmare. Frankly if I owned that piece of Heaven....I would have probably kept it all for my selfish self!

If we are not careful our attitude could become our greatest enemy. Haven't been to JC since 2008. Looking forward to returning.

Bob

The part no one has mentioned is the fact that departing to the south, even with big power, is not a good idea...i can show u the evidence of 4-6 aircraft, 6 lives and a dog, if u don't believe it. there are many more factors taking off south than u realize...but, what the heck, maybe call up gene and ask him
what he thinks...! keep yourself safe, and as mr scout says, use your head and arrive to the north if u need to, power off away from the house, but just leave to the north every time...

Being one that landed to the south Saturday afternoon, I'll chime in here. Every person has to know their abilities and their airplane's abilities. There is also a lot to be said about experience in flying this area. The winds that I saw and landed with were well within my comfort zone, as well as my and my aircraft's capabilities. While I appreciated the guy's concern on the radio who advised me of the tailwind, I couldn't help but wonder how often he had been into JC (there were a lot of funky patterns and orbiting around Yellow Pine waiting for an approach slot going on. Had the guy over YP known how to join the pattern, he would have had plenty of time to check out the strip, check out the current traffic, and coordinated with the aircraft taking off so he could land...instead of blindly orbiting YP.). Hopefully this good discussion will help those not familiar. Too bad it hadn't taken place before the fly-in.

My landing ended up a hundred feet or so longer than the norm, but I was still turned around and back taxiing to my parking spot well before firewood stack. The guy on the radio was nice enough to compliment me. By the way, one thing that hasn't been mentioned here that I noticed during rollout. It isn't uncommon to see one windsock at JC pointing one direction and the one at the other end pointing exactly the opposite (one being north, the other being south). I've seen it a number of times there, as well as Smiley Creek and other locations. Another thing to mention is being familiar with the wind patterns and knowing what to expect at different times of the day/year. This puts you in the right frame of mind before you get to the strip...you already have an idea of what you should expect, which affects your prelanding planning.

Bottom line, know your aircraft, know your limits, know the local preferred patterns, and do what you think is the going to keep you safe. With the cargo I carry, I wouldn't take an unnecessary risk, and for me, a tailwind (to a point) is perfectly doable at JC. When my tailwind tolerance is exceeded, then of course I'd move to a north operation. In 14 years of coming up here, I've yet to land to the north though. However, I've been on the ground plenty of times when the wind was blowing hard enough to require it, at which point, follow the advice already given and avoid the white house.

that windsock description is exactly what i am referring to...strange winds and patterns later in the am and pm...

Grassstrippilot wrote:Being one that landed to the south Saturday afternoon, I'll chime in here. Every person has to know their abilities and their airplane's abilities. There is also a lot to be said about experience in flying this area. The winds that I saw and landed with were well within my comfort zone, as well as my and my aircraft's capabilities. While I appreciated the guy's concern on the radio who advised me of the tailwind, I couldn't help but wonder how often he had been into JC (there were a lot of funky patterns and orbiting around Yellow Pine waiting for an approach slot going on. Had the guy over YP known how to join the pattern, he would have had plenty of time to check out the strip, check out the current traffic, and coordinated with the aircraft taking off so he could land...instead of blindly orbiting YP.). Hopefully this good discussion will help those not familiar. Too bad it hadn't taken place before the fly-in.

My landing ended up a hundred feet or so longer than the norm, but I was still turned around and back taxiing to my parking spot well before firewood stack. The guy on the radio was nice enough to compliment me. By the way, one thing that hasn't been mentioned here that I noticed during rollout. It isn't uncommon to see one windsock at JC pointing one direction and the one at the other end pointing exactly the opposite (one being north, the other being south). I've seen it a number of times there, as well as Smiley Creek and other locations. Another thing to mention is being familiar with the wind patterns and knowing what to expect at different times of the day/year. This puts you in the right frame of mind before you get to the strip...you already have an idea of what you should expect, which affects your prelanding planning.

Bottom line, know your aircraft, know your limits, know the local preferred patterns, and do what you think is the going to keep you safe. With the cargo I carry, I wouldn't take an unnecessary risk, and for me, a tailwind (to a point) is perfectly doable at JC. When my tailwind tolerance is exceeded, then of course I'd move to a north operation. In 14 years of coming up here, I've yet to land to the north though. However, I've been on the ground plenty of times when the wind was blowing hard enough to require it, at which point, follow the advice already given and avoid the white house.

I landed a few minutes ahead of you to the North with around a 10 knot+ head wind, both socks pointing South. Grabbed a hand held just to make sure you knew the winds.
You nailed the landing, but you are right it was beyond my capabilities to land with that tail wind in the tail dragger I fly.
Hope to see you again next year.

Vick wrote:

nmflyguy wrote:We're talkng life and death here, folks, not political correctness.

Good discussion of course rules/standard entries for JC, but it's gotten a bit dramatic. We're not talking life and death, we're talking about staying to the east of the house if conditions suggest that landing to the north would be preferable - it's just not that difficult. If you suspect that any aspect of visiting JC is beyond your current experience or comfort level, take a friend who is experienced there or find an instructor to show you the ropes.

Absolutely!!

Small Tail Caddy wrote:

Grassstrippilot wrote:Being one that landed to the south Saturday afternoon, I'll chime in here. Every person has to know their abilities and their airplane's abilities. There is also a lot to be said about experience in flying this area. The winds that I saw and landed with were well within my comfort zone, as well as my and my aircraft's capabilities. While I appreciated the guy's concern on the radio who advised me of the tailwind, I couldn't help but wonder how often he had been into JC (there were a lot of funky patterns and orbiting around Yellow Pine waiting for an approach slot going on. Had the guy over YP known how to join the pattern, he would have had plenty of time to check out the strip, check out the current traffic, and coordinated with the aircraft taking off so he could land...instead of blindly orbiting YP.). Hopefully this good discussion will help those not familiar. Too bad it hadn't taken place before the fly-in.

My landing ended up a hundred feet or so longer than the norm, but I was still turned around and back taxiing to my parking spot well before firewood stack. The guy on the radio was nice enough to compliment me. By the way, one thing that hasn't been mentioned here that I noticed during rollout. It isn't uncommon to see one windsock at JC pointing one direction and the one at the other end pointing exactly the opposite (one being north, the other being south). I've seen it a number of times there, as well as Smiley Creek and other locations. Another thing to mention is being familiar with the wind patterns and knowing what to expect at different times of the day/year. This puts you in the right frame of mind before you get to the strip...you already have an idea of what you should expect, which affects your prelanding planning.

Bottom line, know your aircraft, know your limits, know the local preferred patterns, and do what you think is the going to keep you safe. With the cargo I carry, I wouldn't take an unnecessary risk, and for me, a tailwind (to a point) is perfectly doable at JC. When my tailwind tolerance is exceeded, then of course I'd move to a north operation. In 14 years of coming up here, I've yet to land to the north though. However, I've been on the ground plenty of times when the wind was blowing hard enough to require it, at which point, follow the advice already given and avoid the white house.

I landed a few minutes ahead of you to the North with around a 10 knot+ head wind, both socks pointing South. Grabbed a hand held just to make sure you knew the winds.
You nailed the landing, but you are right it was beyond my capabilities to land with that tail wind in the tail dragger I fly.
Hope to see you again next year.

Hey STC,

Thank you for the concern and the call. That's one of the great things I've always appreciated in aviation...the willingness of people to share information. To be fair, I guess I should have also wondered what you were flying. Flying a tail dragger definately changes things and were I in one, my tolerance for tailwinds would have obviously been less. Again, this isn't a one-size-fits-all situation and each person has to know what is best for them and their current ride. Hope to see you next year too! Ugh! It came too fast and now here we are talking about "next year" already.

Vick wrote:

nmflyguy wrote:We're talkng life and death here, folks, not political correctness.

Good discussion of course rules/standard entries for JC, but it's gotten a bit dramatic. We're not talking life and death, we're talking about staying to the east of the house if conditions suggest that landing to the north would be preferable - it's just not that difficult. If you suspect that any aspect of visiting JC is beyond your current experience or comfort level, take a friend who is experienced there or find an instructor to show you the ropes.

Vick - with all due respect, we actually ARE talking about matters of life and death when it comes to providing advice to pilots on how to approach and land that runs counter to their own expectations, skills, and performance of their individual aircraft. Given all the recent mountain flying fatalities, and others in recent years (re: Sparky Immesson (sp?), the godfather of mountain flying was killed last year doing something that he probably did a thousand times before, not thinking it "a matter of life and death", but of course, it was), there's nothing about mountain flying that doesn't demand the utmost attention to safety. I was responding in my posts to the discomfort expressed by another poster who was encouraged by others to land downwind in order to avoid a noise complaint from the nearby home, and he did so, and he didn't like the result. It could have been a very bad ending, however.

I'm just saying that we should be extremely cautious about encouraging people to do things in their airplanes that runs counter to their own judgement. just for the sake of avoiding some momentary noise discomfort for a neighbor. In the overall scheme of things, of life, and of flying - a couple of minutes of noise for someone on the ground is absolutely nothing compared with the agony and aftermath of a cracked-up airplane and its occupants.

The other factor that many of the posters here don't seem to appreciate fully is that yeah, sure, you or he or she have been flying into JC for umpteen years and you know all about how to make the best approach to landing or takeoff under the myriad of wind and temperature and field conditions at that strip. Fine. But just recognize that the fact that because JC is the most talked about backcountry airstrip in the USA means there are inevitably going to be lots of newbies coming in for the first time who don't have your savvy, and they likely don't know anyone who can sit right seat on their first approach to JC, and even if they did, that's still not a replacement for your respective years of experience and knowledge. Those people are going to come to JC anyway, however. And if people on this board simply write it off by saying "well, if you don't have our skills and knowledge you have no business coming to JC", that still doesn't change the fact of their coming. And many of those folks will look to this board for information on how to do it safely.

Because of that fact, we shouldn't be telling people that the most important thing to remember at JC is noise abatement, at the expense of ignoring their own training, aircraft performance, experience, and piloting skills whatever they may be. Because we ARE talking about life and death here, not aesthetics and good feelings.

If you want to call that drama, fine. The survivors of other recent mountain flying accidents might have a very different opinion.

I think the horse is dead now!!

AMEN!!

LOL!!!!!

Help!! I've fall-in out of my chair and laughing so hard, I can't get up!!!

That's funny S***, Mountainmatt!!!

mountainmatt wrote:

Wait...wait...I've got something else to say....

Couple of years ago while at JC, the "famous" lady back country pilot from McCall gave a lecture on using the slope of the runway as the first and most important consideration.

I think pilots should be able to land downwind when needed....and...I saw no life threatening situations here....done!

you don't get know how from reading anything here... The sage advice to "newby's" is hire a local instructor before you go blundering into the mountains. I don't give a rats ass what anyone does up there but a little courtesy to the locals isn't too hard to accomplish. I've made some lasting friendships of some of the people in Yellow Pine and most of them would go out of their way to be friendly and accomodating. That said they've seen more than their share of jerks fly into their community. but like I said, if you can't maneuver your aircraft around a house and line up on a over 3000 ft runway then you maybe shouldn't be there.

Amen...

Gump

Speaking of Locals...

.... Two of them provided my son and I with a good laugh during our visit there in 2008. We were hanging around the campfire when a couple of guys drove up in their pickup truck. They were brothers. One a local and the other visiting from California. Anyhow after chatting for a while....one of the guys asked if we had been up the mountain for a soak in the tub. We answered yes. He then stated that he had helped put the tub up there many years ago. I asked how in the heck did they manage to accomplish that. He answered "Four Jack Asses!" I bit right on that one saying...."you mean you used mules to pull the tub up there?" "Naw...me and three buddies carried it up there....we were the Jack Asses!"

Still a phenomenal feat either way. Come to think of it.....maybe he was just jerking this flatlander's chain. Who knows.

bob

Oldcrowe wrote:You’ll have to pardon me, because after 4 days at JC my personal desire for a fire breathing 180/185 has be muffled. Actually, if I had one I don't think I could afford the ear plugs and time it would take to walk the flight line handing out free ear plugs and apologizing profusely before the auditory offense of each and every canyon take-off.

Hey, I left Thursday morning at 06:00 and had the volume turned up to get you lumps out of bed!

You should be thanking me for providing the "Music"....... and a vacant campsite.

A sample, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQLxxJ8iu10&NR=1

Kommi
'80 A185F

good points skytruck! like how a good bird will shoot the notch goin' out of there...well done...no sense goin' left into oncoming traffic, if u dont have to...

Matt - good graphic and good point . I made my point, and others made theirs, and that's that.

Duane

Hi Everyone, With the summer flying season in full swing and many visitors flyinginto the Idaho backcountry, I ask that you remember a couple of items: First, although we have received approval to open Reed Ranch, we have alot of preparation that must be completed before we can officially openthe airstrip. Please pass to your flying friends and neighbors thatReed Ranch is not open. There will be men and equipment on or near therunway working to ready the airport for your use. Please let everyoneknow to avoid Reed Ranch for the time being to allow these people tosafely complete their tasks. We will notify everyone through normalchannels when the airstrip is open. Second, I have received comments that there may be misinformation aboutproper departure and arrival patterns at Johnson Creek. Attached is aletter concerning the traffic pattern at JC. <<Johnson Creek Letter.docx>> <<Johnson Creek Letter.pdf>> There was also an incident this week at JC involving a departingaircraft (35) and an arrival aircraft (17). The departing aircraftattempted an abort and departed the runway at the north end sustainingsubstantial damage. The arriving aircraft apparently struck a tree withits horizontal stabilizer but sustained only minor damage. I don't haveall the facts yet, but remember that JC is a non-towered airport andgood radio communications are imperative for safe operation. Please circulate this information far and wide. For safety's sake, weneed to eliminate the bad information and ensure that we are all on thesame page. If you belong to an organization, please brief all yourmembers and post this information including the letter on your website.Circulate it in your blogs; post the letter in meeting areas and FBOs.Help us get the word out and enjoy a safe summer of flying. Thanks for your help and support, Frank LesterSafety/Education CoordinatorIdaho Division of Aeronautics208-334-8780208-860-6492208-334-8789 (fax)www.itd.idaho.gov/aero