If you are looking for gravel bars to land on,cables and power lines are a real threat.
If you are zooming just following the river its even more dangerous because the speed makes it harder to spot them.

Yesterday had a close encounter with power lines and a cable while looking for gravel bars in a remote area, power lines run parallel to the river one my left side , on my right side was the forest and mountains, no civilization.

Being aware of that I thought I dont think they will cross to my right until farther down the river that there is more civilization, but still had them in view, saw a nice tempting gravel bar, went lower than tree level to take a good look, made a right turn above the river and there they are the power lines in my face, split second first thought,full power to out climb them, but they were waay to high , and too close, impossible,I needed to go under ,added 10 degrees more of flaps to 20 now to slow down even more, and have more time to see things, while at the same time radioed warning my friend who was flying behind me,a bit higher and not too close, so I went lower, to be clear of the power lines, just when Im close to going under them I see a lower cable running across in the same direction as the power lines,, so I ended up flying between the lower cable and power lines.

In this kind of flights I always tried to fly above the tree line, looking for towers, posts, houses (cables across) Fly slow with 10 degrees of flaps (to be able to see more) and that always worked until now.


So here is a lesson learned.

If you do this kind of flying to spot gravel bars,share your tips on spotting power lines and cables to avoid this kind of situation?
My 2 GPSs terrain data didnt show this power lines.(sometimes they do show them though)

A few years ago I followed the Yellowstone River to where it ties in with the Missouri. I was bebopping along, low level of course, landing every few minutes, on any bar that looked good. I always watch and look for poles, scanning side to side more then looking for the wires themselves, in one area the poles were hidden by some trees, and this was a very remote area, no homes or anything around, so I probably let my guard down a bit. Whatever, I saw power lines (mid sized ones, feeder lines) in my frigging windshield, about 20 feet in front of me. I pulled up, and missed them. NO BS, I'd bet my tailwheel missed them by inches, I was fully expecting to crash. I still remember the view of them in front of me, CLOSE, and right at eye level. I don't remember cogitating over Up or DOWN was the best way to avoid them. Up worked, probably down would have been better, but there was zero time to ponder it.

Several times in the last 20 years, I've surprised myself with how fast I can (still) react, once when a black bear was about 35' away and walking directly towards me. Once when one of my boom trucks started rolling on a residential street, and this wire incident. Did I stop flying low along rivers and landing on gravel bars? No. Did I get even more careful about eyeballing for them? Hell yes. Flying slow is the absolute best tip I have, it hugely increases your reaction time available. I'm sure Captain Obvious will chime in with "just don't do it", and I can't and won't argue with that. But if you do, slow it way down, flying like this, especially down below the tree tops following a river, a strange river, really is, other then the obvious dangers, great practice and experience in how your aircraft handles. When you have close obstructions on either sides of you, you get immediate feedback on how to properly turn at low speed, those who never fly like that will be a real disadvantage the first time they have a real emergency landing. Doing low speed turns at altitude is one thing, doing it for real is another, and again I'm sure some will say "don't do that either." Like a lot of risky flying, it's great practice and can teach you useful skills, if it doesn't kill you first. For sure don't do it with a passenger. I see nothing wrong with risking your own ass doing something most think stupid, just don't put someone else at risk.

I've had some close-ish encounters with lines as well, but nothing like what you described. That's scary. Where was this one located?

In the desired working area, investigate how every line enters the area and how every line exists the area. Any change of direction will be stabilized with a guy wire (cable). Look for poles but distrust rivers and drainages where poles could be hidden by trees and the support structures for large wires and cables could be far away. Distance between large cables/wires and smaller cables/wires changes with temperature changes and only one or neither set may have marking balls.

When avoidance is no longer possible, level wings and go under or attack with tthe prop.

Look for wires with the intention of finding wires rather than with the intention of confirming they are not present. Get eyes as high and as forward as possible. Apparent rate of closure out the front windscreen works for the human brain. The apparent rate of closure out the side window is too fast unless too high to see wires anyway.

Samintel: Between Darrington and Concrete, you probably seen those before, on the eastern farthest end, I flew back same route and marked the GPS at the exact point where the powerlines crosses the river, will give those coordenates to you.

Thanks for the tip Contact.

I know this is not new for many pilots here.

Good to have GPS for the general area but exactness is an illusion without both aircraft having sophisticated targeting systems. Speed and distance from target are big factors. Does your and his GPS mark when you push down or let up? Are both pilots looking out the same windscreen?

Pipeline guys who have to investigate every patrol pilot's spot report hate GPS for this reason. Yes the Air Force can put a smart bomb in the window. Most of us don't have the money for that kind of targeting.

You are welcome motoadve. We all are gaining good experience through your and Jughead's videos.

This is a bit of a dig so don't take it the wrong way. I worry that you guys don't have low wings, sit high on the trailing edge, have cutters on windscreen, and have a cable between the cabin and vertical stabilizer. Seriously, helmets and nomex.

Thanks for your post Larry. I've had one close encounter while following a gravel road. I saw the glint of the sun shining off the line at the last second and just pushed forward on the stick. Not sure how I missed it. Like Tom, I never had time to think up or down, but it worked out. Thinking back, I'm quite sure I would've hit it if I'd pulled up.
I agree that slow is key. Also, making a high scouting pass and then coming in lower would work. But I realise that when you are bar hopping it's nice to stay low and hop. That's what I do on the river I fly, but I kow where the 2 lines cross and I'm usually under them.
Keep up the safe and good flying!

David

Good topic. Power lines are nothing to mess around with. I have a couple of family members who have hit them, and have seen the results. Take the time to scout the section you are going to play on first. When you do drop in, use energy management turns. This allows you to pop up and give each new section a good scan before you commit. Also adds a vertcal movement to your perspective, and can make them easier to spot than just flying straight toward them at eye level. Always assume there are wires even on sections you fly regularly. It only takes them a few hours to string a new wire. If you do spot a wire, don't fixate on it, assume there are others you haven't spotted yet. Avoid flying into the sun, or other conditions that limit your visibility.

A couple of us were goofing off across the desert when we spotted a strip and decided to set down for a bit. After a flyby we told a newbie to give it a shot but watch for the power lines. Unfortunately he saw the lines running parallel to the runway, thought that's what we referring to, and came in without seeing the lines at the end at the runway. They caught across the front of his aircraft, catching an aluminum down tube in front of him, which as it snapped, broke the power line, lessening the impact to his neck. Fortunately he recovered from his injuries, and remembers to this day you never see the lines, and he always looks for the poles and perpendicular lines. He was very, very lucky on this one.





You can see how a 300 lb aircraft can snap a pole like a toothpick

Do not have time to read all of above but used to study charts first then back that up with latest USGS charts/maps avail. - but then I was only a couple miles from the Menlo Park Ca. USGS. Only caught off guard and close 3 times in 60 yrs.
My river flying generally used peripheral vision for the trees while moving forward focus in small box forward looking for a color that did not belong in nature.

Started learning this by following irrigation ditches in central valley of calif. about two hundred feet - Always random power lines to various farms and pumps.

Nothing like flying at 100 agl in flat farm land to find out how bad your "level" turns are to start with.

motoadve wrote:Samintel: Between Darrington and Concrete, you probably seen those before, on the eastern farthest end, I flew back same route and marked the GPS at the exact point where the powerlines crosses the river, will give those coordenates to you.

Thanks for the tip Contact.

I know this is not new for many pilots here.

Do you mark all the lines you find on your GPS? That's what I do. That way when I come back to an area after several months I don't have to try and remember where all the lines are. Obviously one still needs to be vigilant and keep looking for new ones, but it definitely helps having them already identified on the GPS. It would be neat to have a shared map of some sort where we could mark ones we've found.

So I will say one time a friend of mine was talking to a Ag guy, said the same thing if you can't miss them hit them square on Preferably with the prop!
So 2 weeks later this friend of mine!! Who was strafing a coyote and trying to hit him with the tail wheel in the middle of a field happens to notice a set of power lines dead ahead, with no time to do much but kick to rudder a bit and shove the throttle forward to hit them square!
Surprising going from Zoom to almost stopping before the last powerline broke!!
Had enough power to keep flying.
Finished getting home and landing! He told me he hopes never to do that again!!
Dam coyotes!!

Once in awhile I'll have a nightmare of flying into multiple power lines, with no way to go up or down to miss them. I don't know why the dream, because so far, I've never been surprised by power lines. I've flown purposely pretty close to ones I knew were there, though, and usually I've known about them because of watching for poles, or because I knew of them in advance.

For instance, there used to be wires strung before the approach end to 21 at Laramie, the typical 40' AGL type. I tried really hard when I chaired the airport board there to get them buried, but the best I could get done was to have orange balls attached to them. I haven't noticed whether the wires are still there. Over several years, we had a number of airplanes hit them, although no tragedies happened. One that I recall was a Baron that actually flew not quite low enough below them at night, sawing off the top few inches of the tail. The wires snapped, cutting power to the airport. I was told that he came into the FSS, fuming and accusing the FSS specialist of shutting off the runway lights just as he was landing.

Seeing wires is really, really difficult. I think I realized how difficult when I took an intro seaplane lesson some years ago in BC. One of the places I landed was at a cove (Montague Harbor) which requires flying under wires at 100' AGL/MSL, both coming in and going out--the wires are at 200' AGL/MSL. The poles are the big Erector set type, so they're really visible. The wires themselves, although they must be pretty thick because of the span, are almost impossible to see.

Another thing that is pretty visible when less obvious poles are used is the swath removed from the vegetation when the wires are strung. It usually runs pretty straight along the path of the wires and is pretty obvious from above. That justifies reconnoitering at some altitude before dropping down.

Although perhaps not as well known as Sparky Imeson, another experienced mountain/back country flyer and author, Fletcher Anderson, died in a wire strike incident, flying a CAP 182 low along the Snake River in 2005. So even experts who supposedly know the territory aren't immune. As the sergeant in Hill Street Blues used to say at the beginning of each show, "Let's be careful out there!"

Cary

Cary wrote:Once in awhile I'll have a nightmare of flying into multiple power lines, with no way to go up or down to miss them.

Funny you say that, I've had similar dreams of flying into wires.

No dreams, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express. I couldn't resist. I have hit small ones twice going into fields. I thunked a big phone cable with a Pawnee tire coming out. I knew it was coming up part way through the field but had forgotten it. No way I would have cut that one with the prop as I had the others.

SamIntel wrote:I've had some close-ish encounters with lines as well, but nothing like what you described. That's scary. Where was this one located?

Somewhere north of the Wyoming border, in Montana (that narrows it down a lot), I don't remember where exactly.

On the subject: there is a bad set of big lines about 5 miles south of the Palisades dam, along the Snake. Say a pilot was leaving Alpine after breakfast, and flying over the reservoir south (beautiful flight, did it just last week) then goes over the damn and just naturally follows the drainage out to Ririe. Say he's flying a couple hundred feet above the river, high enough to be safe, but then he gets to the area where the river has some higher bluffs, and those suckers are right there.....at least 200' above the river. And, and this pisses me off, hardly marked at all. Meanwhile, further up towards Alpine, the same lines are almost excessively marked over several short dead end canyons that even a screwing around low level pilot would fly up anyway. But the natural and most scenic route has them almost totally unmarked (one or two real faded balls, way off centerline, one just half of a ball. I went so far as to call the BPA (Bonneville Power Administration) who operates the lines, and got nowhere. It'd be nice to at least have them marked on the sectional, I guess I should do this with the SLC FSDO or whatever its called?

I spotted these years ago, way before I got close, but trust me, for a tourist pilot following the river downstream, these things are an accident waiting to happen. Just an unfortunate combination of features that sure calls out for at the very least the sectional warning heads up. I've posted about these very lines before, someone give me a way to proceed, what agency, and I'll quit complaining about them and I will follow up on getting them on the sectional, it would really suck to have someone hit them now that I've brought them up, again.

There is at least one set of large high tension transmission lines between Blythe CA and Death Valley that are made out of a steel truss framework. These are not galvanized, but are colored either brown or rust instead. Despite being out in the wide open desert, they blend into their surroundings and are damn near invisible.

The point being, even in the wide open, towers may be very hard to see. And if the angle of the sun is wrong, forget it. Scary stuff for sure.

The first time I saw them, i noticed a 2-track road ahead and then an odd shadow on the ground next to the road; it was from a tower. Pretty bad when the shadow is easier to see than the tower itself! I was low level and had time, but not not more than about 5 or 6 seconds. If i'd have been distracted at that moment, i'd have hit the line, Just because you don't see them doesn't mean they are not there!

It is certainly advisable to scout an area first. Someone posted earlier about looking with the expectation that a line exists. That is sound advice since it is more likely you'll see a line, pole, or tower that way.

SamIntel wrote:

Cary wrote:Once in awhile I'll have a nightmare of flying into multiple power lines, with no way to go up or down to miss them.

Funny you say that, I've had similar dreams of flying into wires.

Me too - even though I've never had a close call with any I have a reoccurring dream that I suddenly find myself about to fly through some.

What is with this power line dream deal. I had dreams of trying to land in the city between all the power lines that crossed the street. That was 40 years ago and long before I even thought of flying.