I was recently at Big Bar in Hells Canyon and while walking the airstrip I found about fifty nails on the downstream (17) end of the strip. All the nails are old, but all of them were in the strip, not off to the sides. All of them were within about 100 feet of the end of the airstrip. There is a lot of old construction on Big Bar and there is a lot of wire and wood and nails around, but this looked pretty unusual to me.

While I was there another pilot flew in from Grangeville and when I mentioned it to him he said he'd walked the strip dozens if not hundreds of times over the years and never seen any nails.

IF it was monkey wrenching it was a pretty half-assed attempt given the materials on hand, but it might be worth giving any of the HC airstrips a good looking over and posting anything unusual.

And if at all possible, can we please, please not turn this into a platform for the denigration of whatever group of people we happen to dislike? That would be swell.

Do you think this was a random act? Or...is it connected to other actions of this kind?

A good reason for Bushwheels with sealer in them.

OregonMaule wrote:A good reason for Bushwheels with sealer in them.

Is this something the guys with real bushwheels use? Is that like Slime™ ? Or is it something you spray/apply to the inside of the tire before installation?

I used to run Slime in my motorcycle tires, I think it helped me a few times to not go flat before I got back to the truck.

Hotshot suggested NoTubes years ago for use in bushwheels. I use it in my little tires. Way better than slime.

Several years ago, when camped at Big Bar, I picked up a couple handfuls of nails in the area you mentioned. These were all the old, rusted and pitted type I would have expected if a structure had been there and had decayed. They weren't on top of the dirt, but when you kicked at the dirt to pull one out, you found another. Did you find a bunch of fresh nails scattered on the runway surface??

I was in on sat and didn't notice any.....

I'm not aware of any rascalism in Hells Canyon or anywhere else, and I don't know the origin of the nails.

They were old...same vintage as the rest of the stuff around there. But they were all on the surface and when I kicked around I didn't find any buried ones (which doesn't mean they aren't there; I didn't do any sort of excavation). Maybe a building once stood there and it burned down...I don't know. If it was a deliberate act, it was a lot less nefarious than a whole lot of other things that could be done with the materials at hand.

On the other hand, the local pilot I spoke with was certain that the nails were new to the strip. If they were "naturally occurring" and being exposed by erosion then they should have been visible for quite a while. There hasn't been any rain for months and the strip doesn't get much summer use. Maybe they've been on the surface for a while and nobody noticed. You wouldn't see them unless you walked the strip. I picked them up on Sunday, and Hotshot was in on Saturday and didn't see them.

In any event it seems prudent to note it as an irregularity and keep our eyes open for other things we wouldn't normally look for. It doesn't do any harm to have an elevated awareness when something doesn't look quite right.

this is atleast the 3rd or 4th time this has happened, last time I remember it was a hand full like above only they were all bent in a 45* or 90* bend.... ugly for sure.

Hottshot wrote:this is atleast the 3rd or 4th time this has happened, last time I remember it was a hand full like above only they were all bent in a 45* or 90* bend.... ugly for sure.

Probably bent like because they were pulled out, they look typical. They also look pretty old. I'd be more concerned if they were newer and what is commonly referred to as Simplex nails. They are used by roofers for nailing tarpaper down, and have a large square head that results in most them ending up pointing straight up when dropped on the ground. These look to be the result of sloppy work over time by unskilled carpenters, ones who didn't have enough sense to not throw them on the ground. I'm on construction sites all the time and am always amazed at the amount of nails that end up on the ground, some in my crane tires.

Could possibly fell off of a plane horizontal stabilizer? I know I'm in the habit of using mine as a bench/table for small light items I take out of the luggage compartment

Glad to hear folks are using the Big Bar strip. Those nails have been an issue for quit some time, but talking to the old timers who worked down there when there was a hay field in operation there along with the hay grinder (the old engine that is still there on the lower bench)it was a busy place and those nails are probably just relics of the times gone by. And I've got to apologize that the outhouse is not up and running as yet there as we normally try and get it up just after Labor Day, but Wup doesn't know it yet, but he and some other of us pilots will be putting it up in the very near future. I'll post the work party date on the IAA website here soon and we'll get er done. It'll be a good time to come down and get some work done and drink a little coffee.

whee wrote:Hotshot suggested NoTubes years ago for use in bushwheels. I use it in my little tires. Way better than slime.

what whee said. buy 35s and they come with it. no extra charge

58Skylane wrote:Could possibly fell off of a plane horizontal stabilizer? I know I'm in the habit of using mine as a bench/table for small light items I take out of the luggage compartment

You would use your horz stab as a workbench for old nasty rusted nails?

Maybe Coyote Ugly pooped them out. Hell, we know he eats them for breakfast.

Zzz wrote:

58Skylane wrote:Could possibly fell off of a plane horizontal stabilizer? I know I'm in the habit of using mine as a bench/table for small light items I take out of the luggage compartment

You would use your horz stab as a workbench for old nasty rusted nails?

No.

But what I was getting at, is that maybe somebody else did at this airstrip and the box of nails fell off their horz stab as the plane was taxing and or taking off.

I've been in there twice over the years and I always landed upstream touching down within that 100 feet of the end.. I parked both times about mid field and at the upstream end... I've never had occasion to walk down to the other end but it seems rather odd that the nails were where we all touch down for that strip..

Ok ok I confess I was framing a house with rusty nails and I had them on my horizontal stab and I forgot to take them off my stab and took off they musta fell off. Send me the bill

Glidergeek wrote:Ok ok I confess I was framing a house with rusty nails and iI had them on my horizontal stab and I forgot to take them off my stab and took off they musta fell off. Send me the bill

Shame on you!!