aktahoe1 wrote:No doubt, one of the best TR's we have seen on here!

Keep it coming please!

AKT

Agreed! I'm enjoying this thread immensely. I would love to make that trip some day.

Nice Fantastic looking girl! Your wife should be jealous! You were only an hour flying from me! Cool.

Troy Hamon wrote:The flights were a bit nuts because we got to Anchorage at 9 pm then left at 5:45 am. Just the kind of timing where nothing really makes sense. Including staying at the airport. But staying at the airport is the least complicated not-making-sense thing we could do, so that is what we did. Thankfully they let us check our bags immediately, so we didn't have to lug them around until 4 hours before the flight or whatever the rule I had heard some time in the distant past.

We ended up so tired that we actually had some of that most uncomfortable sleep in the world kind of sleep on the flight to Minneapolis, then on to Milwaukee, run around and shop real quick, and get up the road to Clintonville arriving 10 pm and going straight to sleep.

We were camping at the airport in Clintonville last night, had a semi-heated room we threw our sleeping pads and bags in, and this morning we met our new girlfriend. The sides of the plane say she is, "Island Girl." I hope my wife doesn't mind me adding a girlfriend to the mix.


Saturday in the morning before I finished packing, my wife asked me whether I was going to visit my brother in Kansas City, he who flew up with me last time. I responded that of course I was not, it was out of the way. But then I ran a quick flight plan and it added less that 3 hours of flight time...so here we are in Kansas City. It looks like the next few days are pretty good, so we may hang out one day since I haven't seen his family in years, but we're launching for Buffalo, WY early on Wednesday.

On the way down, DS got some quality stick (okay, yoke) time. I showed him where the heading indicator is and how to maintain a heading. Here he is fixating on the heading indicator and flying straighter than I did when I was flying.

This is one of the most enjoyable reads I've had in a long time.....don't want it to end.

Okay...where were we...

As we pulled up to the self-serve fuel in Tok, a few folks were walking out of the Fortymile Air offices. They nodded and went on their way, talking, while I got the aircraft fueled. I put Cedric to work figuring out our evening accomodations, so he was calling the parents of a good friend of his to see if we could crash on their couch or floor or both. Then he called and talked to his Mom.

"Hey Mom, guess what! You're not going to believe this, but we are going to fly in to Anchorage International! Yeah, I know!"

I didn't hear the other end of the conversation, but I could imagine it. Becky probably had a huge smile, bright eyes, eyebrows raised, and was surely laughing her infectious laugh. But I wanted to get on our way so as to make use of good sunlight and to minimize the total length of the active day for me, so I just worked on getting the airplane ready. When the Island Girl had had her fill, I asked Cedric what the situation was. He said we were good to go, had a place to stay, and were to call them when we were ready for them to come pick us up.

That left only one thing...Canadian Cokes...the ones we already drank...

I went over to Fortymile Air to see if they had restrooms available, but the doors were all locked. All those people were leaving when we arrived because it was time to go home for the day. I did a quick look around and realized I really didn't see anything promising. So we made some yellow snow...then off we went.

Taxiing out, it looked like it was going to be pretty much the same conditions we had landed in. I had a good look at the windsock as we taxied past, beating itself around, its gyrations centered around an angle of about 60 degrees off the runway heading. Would hate for it to get boring anyway...

We backtaxied for departure on runway 25, and with a strong crosswind correction in we leapt off the runway and climbed out as if it was no issue. But it was still burbly, and we turned almost immediately upon clearing the trees toward the pass, following the highway up into the mountains.

Last time we had flown this route, I had been impressed with the pass through to the Copper River Basin, but when I flew through Lake Clark Pass a few days later, I came to the conclusion that it was probably even more impressive. Now, here I was back heading into Mentasta Pass, after having flown through Lake Clark Pass many more times. And I wasn't so sure anymore about Lake Clark being more impressive...maybe it is...but Mentasta Pass was an amazing sight on this day. The wind was whipping along and spinning snow off the tops of the mountains, and the sun was backlighting the snow as it blew off the ridges. Like magic fairy dust on all the mountains.






Looking at the wind ripping off the tops, I kept expecting to hit turbulence, and we did find a few burbles on our way up to 6500 feet. But as we came out of Mentasta Pass into the Copper River Basin, we had really not hit any noteworthy turbulence. I turned to Cedric to tell him I was happy that we hadn't hit any rough patches...

"!!!!!!!Gawk!!!!!!!"

It didn't come out quite like I intended. Just as I turned my head, the airplane lifted up hard then slammed back down. I pulled my head back straight, looked around, and tried to make sure I was ready for the next big bump, dialing back to maneuvering speed and trying to get a good scan of the instruments. Cedric was totally unfazed.

"Hey, Dad, what do you think is going to be your favorite thing about Runescape when we get home?"

"Cedric, right now I need a minute to just think..."

But the subsequent burbles were pretty unimpressive in comparison, and pretty soon as we passed through 7000 feet on our way to 8500 we left the last bumps behind and it was like floating over glassy water...

"Okay, Cedric, I'm ready. Ask me whatever you want..."

Luckily for me, he mostly wanted to tell me, rather than ask me, as I had no sense of what Runescape was going to be like, having never played it.

The immensity of the Copper River Basin is truly impressive from the air. The day was so beautifully clear that we had a perfect view of Mount Sanford towering above the valley out the pilot side.


But the air was smooth, we set a good course across the basin, and I reached in the back to pull my Alaska Supplement out of my flight bag.

Only it wasn't in the pocket where I carry it.

Hmmm...

I dug around in the other pockets...

Not there either...

The last time I remembered seeing it was when we had been preparing for the trip as I got my flight bag in order, but I certainly hadn't needed it since until this flight. And now I was having no luck finding it at all.

All of a sudden my stress level took itself up a notch or two. Anchorage is wonderfully well-managed airspace. The volume of traffic of planes of all sizes and configurations, with four airports, three public and one military, all within controlled airspace that is interwoven like a three-dimensional puzzle, is pretty mind-boggling on a busy day. And it works great. And the not-so-secret key to the kingdom is the Alaska Supplement. It includes a number of flight paths that can be used for small plane traffic accessing any of the public airports, or transitioning the airspace. There are general VFR arrival procedures, there are SVFR procedures, everything you can want.

And everything I wanted was in my Alaska Supplement.

And I couldn't find it.

Okay, that is a gross failure of flight preparation and planning. Now what?

My nifty phone app with all the current charts was certainly a good tool, so I pulled the app up to get myself organized mentally, and looked up the details on Anchorage International. The great thing about the app is that it served great as a backup, but it did not have the arrival procedures for VFR that are in the supplement. Every instrument procedure imaginable...and there are a lot for Anchorage International...was available, but none of the VFR procedures.

I got out my pen and started taking notes on my little notepad where I usually scribble weather or ATC information, and listed every piece of information that seemed relevant to my course of flight, including all the frequencies I would need, a chicken scratch of the runway diagram, and everything else I could see having any relevance at all.

As I was going through these mental gymnastics, we were headed directly toward a layer of scattered clouds, and realizing that, again, we were looking at either needing to drop below them or climb significantly, we made our second climb to 10500 feet for the day. At that level, we flew over the clouds nicely, and they left a patterned mosaic on the ground below.

Cedric was awake. After getting a pretty good nap in on the other three legs of the day, he was fully rested, and bubbling over with energy and commentary. The result of his energy was that I started to get a sense for how fatigued I really was. At some point as we neared Tahneta Pass I finally had to make a request...

"Cedric?..."

"Yeah, Dad?"

"I'm really sorry to tell you this, but I think I'm going to need you to tone it down until after we land."

"Okay..."

"I'm just realizing that I really need to be able to concentrate, and I'm not quite as sharp as I would like to be after flying all day. And to top it off, I am now going to be going to the busiest most tightly controlled airport in Anchorage and I can't find my supplement..."

Cedric really did hold himself in check, and I watched the landmarks click by with a sense of welcome relief, knowing that we were really close. Soon the Matanuska River was snaking below us toward Palmer.


The wind was still ripping snow off the peaks, and the view south into the Chugach Mountains was a lovely sight in the evening, but I was more interested in the view on the ground in Anchorage by now.


As we passed over Palmer and started our descent toward Goose Bay, we started to feel some of the bumps below us, so we leveled off at 6500 until after we contacted Anchorage Approach. They brought me down to 2500 feet, then asked if I was familiar with the Mackenzie arrival...

"Negative, sorry."

"Copy, seven six delta, maintain at or below two thousand five hundred and report at the mouth of the Little Su."

"Maintain 2500 and report mouth of Little Su, seven six delta."

Meanwhile, I'm thinking to myself, "Why are they sending me over there? Must be purgatory for people that don't have a supplement handy..."

"And, seven six delta, wind is 310 at 11, can you accept runway 7 left?"

Quartering tailwind...not terribly high, but not good...but I know I can do that...

"Affirmative, we can do that if you need us to."

"And, seven six delta, would you prefer runway 33 if I can get it for you?"

"Affirmative."

"Okay, I'll see what I can do."

A few moments passed as we headed toward the mouth of the Little Su, and runway 33 was a direct shot out my window...

"Seven six delta, I'm sorry, we can't fit you in on 33. We'll arrange for you to land on 7 left."

Bummer. A direct tailwind would have been better than a quartering tailwind...

I soon found out why they wanted me at the mouth of the Little Su. They sent us across Cook Inlet, which I would never have been excited about doing, toward Fire Island, then cleared us to land on 7L. As I straightened out and looked ahead at the huge runway ahead of me, I was trying to gauge the crosswind and the groundspeed in relation to the runway, while slowing down, getting flaps in, and suddenly...

"Seven six delta, it looks like you are lined up on taxiway kilo, go around, cleared to land on runway seven left."

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!OOOPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Copy, cleared to land seven left, seven six delta."

How many ways can I feel like and idiot on this flight? I'm starting to lose count!

I punched the power in, climbed back up to get a view, sidestepped over to where I should have been all along, and pulled power back to landing power. Now, as we came down, it was obvious that the rocketing quartering tailwind was not going to be fun. Eleven knots is not a lot on the nose, or even at ninety degrees, but pushing from behind and to the quarter, it is quite something. As we came down, I was trying to hold the airplane straight with a heavy slip, and we were absolutely hauling down the runway. I held in extra power to make sure we had rudder authority and gingerly walked my way down until I touched the upwind wheel, but it wasn't totally straight so we bounced a bit and I added more power to manage the next touchdown a little better. It felt like we were landing at cruise speed, but the next touch was better, and I dragged the wheel and let it start the slowing. As the other wheels touched, I realized I was pretty happy that we had pulled that off, and I started making a fairly short mental list.

THINGS I WILL NEVER DO AGAIN.
1. Fly in to Anchorage without an Alaska Supplement out and available before takeoff.
2. Go into a large, unfamiliar airport without referring back regularly to the airport diagram during the approach (because I really don't see any need to ever line up on a taxiway again).
3. Accept a landing with more than 5 knots of quartering tailwind (just because I did it once doesn't mean I want to see how many times I can roll that dice before I come up with a bad result).
4. Fly more than 10 hours in a day as PIC.
5. Finish the most demanding flying day of my life by flying into the most demanding airspace of my life.

Okay, maybe the list isn't that short. It's a lot longer than it would have been if we'd stayed in Whitehorse and waited until Saturday to make the long voyage to Anchorage.

After all that, I was glad I knew the failsafe way to get around...I asked for progressive taxi to the customs ramp. They parked us next to a Gulfstream.

Oh, the irony of that.

I can't tell you how happy I was to shut down the engine and sit and wait for customs. Deliriously happy. After a couple minutes I remembered I was supposed to call, so I pulled out my phone and started dialing, but before I even made a call, I saw a gentleman walking out to us from the other side of the Gulfstream.

But that part of the story will be in the next installment...

The customs officer walked up to the plane on the copilot side, looked around a bit, then came around to the pilot side. I opened the window and said, "Hi."

"Hi, you all just arrived from Whitehorse?"

"With a fuel stop in Tok, that's correct."

"What do you have there in the plane with you?"

"Well, in the rear baggage we have sleeping bags, sleeping pads, tent, snowshoes, two axes, wing covers, and an engine blanket. In our back seat here we have just the clothes we needed and the airplane logs and information for the flight."

"Okay, so your baggage is pretty much emergency supplies?"

"Well, I suppose so, we do have these bags that have clothes in them..."

He peered through the window behind me, apparently saw the size of our little bags, and called in to speak with somebody in the terminal. After a brief conversation, he came back over.

"Okay, since you pretty much just have emergency gear, we aren't going to need to go through the stuff. Go ahead and get out of the plane and follow me into the terminal."

!!!!!!!!!!Cool!!!!!!!!!!

We hopped out and started to follow, and I realized I needed to dig out the passports, so I stepped back to the plane and dug them out. After a few minutes filling out papers, having our passports checked, and getting ourselves legally re-admitted to the US, we were done.

"I hope we can taxi over to Lake Hood from here. I don't want to figure out where to park here for the night."

"I'm pretty sure that the tower can get you over there, I know they've done that before."

We were led back out past the Gulfstream, and the officer released us to the plane. By this time, the sun was nearly down, and I was pretty tired. I realized after we were in that I had completely failed to get any photos of our airplane on the ramp. I dug out the camera and took a photo of our neighboring Gulfstream (for all you jet pilots...the customs guy called it a Gulfstream...I took him at his word...)


Out the other window, Alaska Airlines jets were parked at the next terminal.


After getting the airplane running again, I called ground and asked for a progressive taxi to Lake Hood. They sent us a little north of the customs terminal, and then we made a right turn and headed toward the airport fence. As we approached the fence, there was a gate, with instructions posted to key up a frequency and click the mike a specified number of times. I dialed it in, clicked as instructed, and the gates slid open. Pretty slick. The taxiway from there to Lake Hood crosses Postmark Drive, which is pretty busy. At that intersection, the plane crosses onto one of those sensors, and there is a red light instructing the plane to stop. As soon a the sensor is crossed, train track crossing guards start coming down to block traffic on the road, and as they finally stop, the plane gets a green light and we taxied across the road, looking left and right at people in cars looking in at us.

Felt kind of funny. Next, the taxiway passes a bunch of airplane parking I was too tired to gawk at, and then runs along Lake Hood itself.


As we approached the Lake Hood gravel strip, we again came to a road crossing, where the taxiway crossed Lake Hood Drive. Again, there was a frequency to key to open the gate, so I opened the gate and we waited for it to open, but this time there was no crossing guard coming down to stop traffic, I guess they just had a light this time.


We taxied over to fuel up, and shut down.

Whew.

Cedric called our friends while I fueled the plane, and I walked around looking for a tie-down. I had only flown into Lake Hood one time before, although I've been over there a number of times. The reason I had only been in to Lake Hood once is that it is a little bit of a headache to find parking. One of the greatest GA airports on earth, no doubt, but transient parking that is obvious is limited to two spots next to the little airport shack by the fueling station. Luckily, they were empty. Unluckily, the tie-downs were encrusted in ice and snow. I kicked around enough to verify that I was not going to be able to free them up, then realized I was going to have to find another solution.

The wind was hitting 20 kts by now, and I knew I wanted to tie the plane down rather than just set the brake. So I walked around and looked over the options. The only place that seemed like it would work, where the tie downs were out and available but there was no airplane in place, wasn't too far away. There were tracks a couple days old where an airplane had taxied out from the spot, but hadn't returned. As the sun was now down, I figured the odds were that if somebody was coming back to that spot it would likely be soon, but more likely it would be okay. Cedric and I pushed the plane over there, lined it up, then tried to push it back into the spot.

That wasn't so easy.

There was basically a berm of snow we had to push the mains over. We made a good effort a few times, but it became obvious that we were going to have trouble...

I pulled out the ratchet straps...

Alternating straps from the skid bar to the tail tie-down, we got the airplane up over the berm and tied down. As we started unloading, Brian pulled up...

"Good timing! Could have used your muscle a few minutes ago!"

"Well, I figured if I timed it just right I wouldn't have to do any work..."

We put on the wing covers and engine blanket, put our bags in the car, and let him drive us to their house. I went in and sat down, and then I just really couldn't move. Or at least, couldn't talk myself into moving. Cedric, of course, had shared immediately how I was lined up on the taxiway, so after we got to the house, Brian wanted to hear that story.

Sigh.

He took pity on me and went and fixed some sandwiches, probably because he noticed that I was more likely to just sit there until I faded away...the sandwiches were excellent, but I just didn't have any energy left. So I went to bed.

Cedric? He was having a party with his pal. He had plenty of sleep that day, and they were on the computers playing something that probably rhymes with Runescape. I think it would be a very close rhyme, if I do not miss my guess.

I have enjoyed this story immensely!

Troy,

Your experience with the ANC controllers seems pretty standard. Those guys seem to have heard it all, and don't get too shook up about many things us pilots do.

You always want to be aware of FAR Part 93 airspace around ANC, which is why he vectored you to the mouth of the Su. Part 93 airspace specifies all the routes and corridors, etc. It's pretty complex airspace and it's regulatory.

You did exactly what you should have done: Tell the controller you aren't familiar with the airspace. They have no issues with helping people out.

Finally, another "get out of jail" card, if you don't like some of the crossing altitudes over Cook Inlet, request a waiver of FAR 93 procedures and tell them what you want to do. If they have no conflicting traffic, they'll usually grant a waiver. I've done that many times going to and from Lake Hood from the north.

Good job getting through all the hoops.....and home!

MTV

xcalibursword wrote:Nice Fantastic looking girl! Your wife should be jealous! You were only an hour flying from me! Cool.

xcalibursword...just went looking for Ava on the map, plugged it in to SkyVector...you must fly a fast plane! Looks like it would have been about 1:40 for the Island Girl. So many places to visit, so little time...I need to buy some more airplanes, preferably in Florida, so I can cover the whole country on the flights home...

Great thread. The only thing worse than trying to navigate a busy unfamiliar airport is navigating a busy unfamiliar airport where the controllers have an accent. At night.
That was a Gulfstream 550 by the way.

MTV, Probably a few other things I should have asked at the time too. The part 93 crossing altitudes for the different segments I am pretty familiar with, but from the Little Su to Fire Island is all ANC. I really should have just asked for 25 or 33 and let them sort it out. It all came out okay...but I should have asked.

porterjet...they were clearing customs after arriving from Beijing. I thought it was pretty awesome that they flew direct from Beijing, while we managed to fly direct from Tok...

I slept so soundly that I awoke with no sensation of time passing. No memory of dreams, no vague sense of having been unaware, nothing, just boom, out, and then the light was pouring in the window and I started to return to wakefulness. A new day, a good getting-home day.

I staggered up the stairs, sat down, and started checking the weather. Which was fabulous. For the entire route. All day. It struck me that there are times when I check the weather between Anchorage and King Salmon with more detail than I had to work with from Fort Saint John to Whitehorse. Largely because I have a lot of web sites bookmarked that facilitate pulling every imaginable piece of info. Briefings are usually a lot more general, and I had been flying primarily with weather briefings over the phone instead of what I can dig if I dig harder. But the weather had been generally good. When the weather is generally good, I'm not as prone to over-investigate the details. When the weather is in that intermediate zone between good and bad, I tend to spend a lot of time investigating the details.

But no details needed today. I didn't even check a single webcam, one of the best aids to pilots ever to be invented, as it was clear everywhere, so webcams weren't going to be adding much information. It was forecast to be clear all day, and the winds aloft were generally from the north, so we were going to be getting a quartering tailwind on the way home. Rather than fly through the passes, we were in the get-home mode, and 8500 feet was the target altitude for the day, as that takes you next to Mount Redoubt, but over everything else comfortably, and straight.

Kathryn made me a fresh coffee while I sat and pondered the day. After all the delays, after feeling like we had plenty of time to make it for the swim meet, then just enough time to make it comfortably, then not enough time unless we could really make some tracks, we had made tracks and were almost there. The swim meet was supposed to start in the evening, and I was needing to get Cedric there in time for warmups at 6 pm if he wanted to swim. I needed to be there around 6:30 to play official. Our flight was going to be in the range of 3 hours, so even with logistics time, if we left by 2 pm we could make it, and any earlier would just give us more time to rest in between. Cedric was resting now...so I let him sleep for a while.

But by 10 am I was feeling antsy. Why let ourselves end up rushing at the end? So I woke up Cedric so he could get himself together, and then Brian took us to...Northern Lights Avionics. I went for the simple purpose of getting new charts. And yes, an Alaska Supplement. I like paper, so I was happy to have it. I had looked all through my bags last night and didn't find my supplement anywhere. Now I had one.

Cedric and Brian were checking out glass panel layouts, and Cedric told me that we should install a panel like one that was mocked up there in the store.

"Right...that costs more than our entire plane..."

"Wow! So I guess you're saying no?"

"Pretty much..."

I always like looking around at pilot shops, and this is my favorite one. They still had my book in stock, along with a lot of others, and were selling all the Canadian charts as well as every imaginable cockpit aid. We got our charts and walked out, happy to have what we needed. Then, it was off to Lake Hood.

Lake Hood is a true marvel. The most aviation-friendly state, or probably territory of any sort, on earth, in its largest city, has a gateway to all things aviation. I prefer Merrill Field for going in and out because it is more friendly for the ease of getting parking there. But while Merrill has a nice gravel runway to go with the pair of paved runways, that won't get you anywhere on floats unless you are wanting to fly amphibs. But Lake Hood is a pair of lakes connected by dredged and engineered channels to make a facility for float operations. In the winter, the lake takes a second duty of hosting ski plane operations on the ice. And adjacent to the lake is a gravel strip. I'm not really sure how many class D airspace areas are specifically set up for a gravel strip and a lake...but that is what Lake Hood class D is. Pretty cool.

On the way to the plane we stopped to check out one of the float storage areas, where floats are waiting for the ice to melt so their owners will stick them back on the airplane where they belong.




Not all the planes are float/ski/tundra tire airplanes, or even dressed up for winter in any fashion. Some of them would take some backbreaking labor to get out of their parking spots...


The Island Girl was looking happy in the parking spot we had usurped.


I tried to figure out how to show the parked airplanes, finally I stood up on the tailgate of Brian's truck...


We took our time, as we had no shortage of time, and got the plane loaded, put away wing covers and the engine blanket, made sure the last Canadian Coke was sitting on top of the stuff in the rear. The second one had been consumed in a near perfect, slightly slushy state between Tok and Palmer, so we were down to the last one.

While I worked on some of that, Cedric used his iPhone to take photos of the procession of landings and takeoffs. He was having a lot of fun just watching airplanes...I was happy that he was enjoying it. No bad can come of that...

We got in and got the plane started, then sat and waited for it to warm up while I studied the supplement to re-familiarize myself with Lake Hood operations. Taxi operations are not controlled at Lake Hood, despite the high level of control in the air. After I had looked at every Lake Hood departure procedure, we elected the one we needed, the west departure, and I dialed in the appropriate frequencies to get weather and then listen to Lake Hood tower. As we taxied to the runway, there was another plane taxiing our way, and they waited behind us while we waited for clearance. A cub had been cleared to land ahead of our departure, so we got a nice front row seat as he came in, made a small bounce, then rolled out. Then we were off.

Homeward!

Troy Hamon wrote:I always like looking around at pilot shops, and this is my favorite one. They still had my book in stock, along with a lot of others, and were selling all the Canadian charts as well as every imaginable cockpit aid. We got our charts and walked out, happy to have what we needed. Then, it was off to Lake Hood.

Really enjoying this trip report and just now clicked on your Amazon link. Picked up a Kindle copy of your book. Looking forward to reading it also.

Keep the installments coming!

As we climbed out over the narrow spot of Cook Inlet, I was watching the far shore, looking at the GPS, and watching the altimeter. Anchorage airspace over the inlet in this area is segmented pretty carefully. The Lake Hood segment as it crosses the inlet narrows down, so in order to stay out of both Merrill and Anchorage International Airspace, you need to identify where on the far shore the airspace boundary is. On the one hand, they make it fairly straightforward by using clear map features to delineate the airspace. There are two points, Point Mackenzie and Point Noname, that make easy landmarks for the boundaries of the Merrill segment. But the Lake Hood segment has only one of those as a landmark, and the other side doesn't really have a landmark. There is supposed to be a boat hull near the boundary, but my couple times through I have been too busy trying to keep an eye out for everything else to even see it. It is pretty big and obvious on satellite imagery, so maybe I'll get a good look at it next time.

The northern half of the channel has special altitude rules. The reason is that all of the airports, International, Lake Hood, and Merrill, have airspace assigned to them that lies in the approach path to Elmendorf Air Force Base. So there is a middle altitude range cut out of the airspace for the other airports to allow Elmendorf traffic to get home. Lake Hood airspace is only the segment below 1200 feet or above 2000 feet in that segment. And since Lake Hood is a very constrained wedge, it would be a pretty good climb to get over 2000 feet by there. Maybe if I was light with half fuel...and trust me, when you live in the bush, you never leave Anchorage light. This was probably one of the only times I ever left Anchorage without going shopping first. But we were mostly full already, bulk rather than weight, but not in position to try and add a bunch of stuff. So we were going to be below 1200 feet. The west route departure requires the airplane to be at or below 900 feet, so we were actually going to be limiting our altitude to 900, so I was looking for Point Mackenzie, trying to hold the west side of the airspace, the less defined side, away from the point, and watching my altimeter to make sure we leveled off at 900. The GPS was comforting information, as it depicts airspace beautifully, so after making sure we were okay according to the satellite positioning solutions, we were already across the inlet, and starting our descent.

Descent!?

At this point, we needed to head west. And while we were going to cruise at 8500 feet, the best route to the west is the powerline transition route, which would take us under the heavy aircraft arrival and departure routes in and out of Anchorage International with maximum wake turbulence separation. The powerline transition is flown at or below 600 feet...so we were headed to 600 feet.

After that, it was not long before we passed the Little Susitna River (the Little Su) and started our climb. We crossed the mouth of the Big Su at 2000 feet, crossed over Beluga at 3500 feet, crossed over Tyonek at 5000 feet, and kept on climbing. The west side of Cook Inlet has a published VFR advisory frequency, so we announced ourselves at each of these points on 122.7. But nobody else was up high, everybody was running around below us at less than 1500 feet, so we were pretty much on our own. I dialed in the Kenai airport information as we neared the entrance to Lake Clark Pass to get an updated altimeter reading, then we headed over the mountains at 8500 feet.

We had a nice view of Cook Inlet off in the distance, but on the mountains there was still a little bit of snow. Okay, maybe more than a little bit.


Mt Redoubt was as impressive as always, and it was steaming away.


It's hard to decide what to take photos of when there is that much rock and ice around you, all looking pretty amazing and surreal.


The tailwind aloft didn't really add up to much, it was just enough of a crosswind to negate most of the potential benefit. But we were moving along, flying straight and headed home. To the north, we had a great view of Kontrashibuna Lake, draining north toward Lake Clark.


The Alaska Range mountains along Cook Inlet are beautiful. For the most part, they aren't particularly tall, but they come straight up out of the ocean.


But once you cross them, the world is completely different. The flatlands start with the huge expanse of Lake Iliamna, the largest lake in Alaska. It is large enough it is almost more of an inland sea, with its own population of seals even. We'd been having an interesting winter out in Bristol Bay, with a good hard cold snap from early October to late December. But after that, the weather had been mercurial, with six weeks of warm melt, then a few cold snaps. While Cedric and I had been gone, the weather had gotten serious, and the cold settled in again. I guess it must have been just enough, because Lake Iliamna was frozen everywhere I could see.


That is no small thing, as the thermal dynamics in such large lakes usually result in open water basins just because of how long it takes to cool off so much water, when the wind keeps mixing things up. On truly cold winters, everything freezes. But on winters like this one, the large lakes usually don't completely ice up.

We dialed in the weather at Iliamna, then at Igiugig, and monitored traffic frequencies, but there was nothing going on. As we passed abeam Igiugig, the Alagnak River was below us and Sugarloaf Mountain was visible in the distance, with Naknek Lake beyond.


The King Salmon weather was a bit gusty, and as we descended we started picking up the bumps as well. The tower sent us in to enter right base for 36, which I though was interesting with the wind out of 310 and there being a runway 30 available...but I know those guys, and they are pretty straight up, so I accepted the clearance. When we announced right base, the controller cleared us to land and gave us an update. Wind 340 at 14 gust 23. Ahh...makes perfect sense now.

Sporty.

Here we are, last landing of the trip...try to do it right...

There is a little area of sink air on short final coming in to 36 whenever the wind is from the north, but we came in, set up a slip to hold straight, and were down and clear in 1000 feet. I almost was to the point of feeling like I knew this airplane as well as I had known the last one. If I get a calm day to go fly some patterns we'll see how well I really have it dialed in. But for now, we taxied up next to N624A and tied shut down. Becky was on her way, and so was Josh, our mechanic. They both came out while we were tying the plane down. As happy as we were to get home, we found the wind frigid, so we started shivering our greetings, then threw our stuff in the car and headed home.

HOME!

And we had a good four hours to rest before the swim meet!

Welcome Home Troy!
BTW I think they ought to pay you to rewrite the Anchorage departure procedures in plain language!

Thanks for a great read that also brings back a lot of great memories. Since I was too lazy to write up my trips like that, reading yours is as close as I have to a journal of my own trips up and down the highway. Better-written this way!

Kind of eagerly awaiting the next installments about the swim meet, Runescape, etc, etc...!

Good on ya for doing this with your son. Hat's off!

-DP

DP, swim meet coming next. Cedric will be happy when I'm done writing this up, as these entries have generally consumed potential Runescape time...but now I have a rough draft done (or nearly done) and that makes the book easier to finish. So well worth it. And fun to share.

MTV, I saw in the supplement that the north half of the channel through ANC airspace does have an Elmendorf cutout...I thought I was pretty tuned up on Anchorage airspace, but obviously there's more to learn.

Yeah, that airspace is complex. As many times as I went in and out of there, I always kept a copy of the procedures in my lap.....

But, after I learned of the waiver of Part 93 airspace gig, I did that a few times. It only works if there's not much going on, but.....especially if you don't like crossing to the boat hull (and yes, there is one there) at low level over water.

Great trip log in any case.

MTV

I'm sorry if you have answered this already, but what camera did you take all your pictures with? Also, were you shooting through an open window? Your pictures look great. Every time I take a picture out my airplane windows they look like crap. I need some pointers.

I use a Samsung NX100 with a 30 mm pancake lens for most photos, but sometimes what I have out and available is my Samsung Galaxy S II phone. I guess at the moment it makes me seem like a Samsungite...

The age-old question is: what is the best camera to take a photo with?

The answer is: whatever camera you have with you.

However, with that caveat, I shoot on the NX100 because it is a large sensor camera, with a very small form factor, and very affordable. I only shoot RAW on the NX100, so every photo has to be tuned and developed in a raw converter.

As for the windows...I usually am not shooting through windows. The old PA-22 had sliding windows, which was wonderful for photography. The Island Girl has only the little pop-out window on the pilot side. That actually works, barely, as a way to take photos. I wish the little bracket pieces that allow it to pop out would grow a little longer. It would make a huge difference.

Shooting through the windows reduces contrast, which can be fixed in a photo development software. It also often results in degraded optical resolution, and that's not repairable. The biggest issue though, in my opinion, is the occasions where you get glare or reflections on the window that are in the photo. Sometimes that can really kill a good photo.

I had slept well the night before, so after a relaxing few hours at home I felt totally fine. Gwenyth had been home while Cedric and I were off on our voyage, so she had a major advantage on Cedric, as she had been at swim practice while Cedric had been learning to fly (or nap...depending on the day...and the time of day...). But nature evened the odds a bit, as Gwenyth was coming down with a cold.

They were both going to swim the 1650 yd freestyle that evening, with more events to come the following day. The freestyle events are pretty relaxed officiating compared to some of the more technical strokes, as there isn't much you can do to get disqualified. You can swim any way you jolly well please, so there is nothing about the specific stroke to look for as an official. The things you can do to get disqualified are: 1. Don't touch the wall on a turn. 2. Pull yourself along with a lane line. 3. Push forward off the floor. 4. Swim into somebody else's lane and impede them.

Without getting out the rulebook, that's what I remember as ways to disqualify yourself. We had three sets of swimmers to do the 1650, and it was going to be around 30 minutes per set, as it takes a little while to swim that far.

When we got to the pool, I grabbed a photo of Cedric before he dressed down.


Our guest officials, two wonderful ladies that have helped us get our swim team headed in the right direction by offering support and encouragement to our group from the coaches down to the youngest swimmers, showed up on the evening commercial flight, and were brought down the pool. We divided duties, which is pretty straightforward as they can serve any capacity and I pretty much am the bare intro beginner level official...so they manage the start end and I park myself down near the other end to watch the turns.

After the swimmers warmed up, I was down there, watching every turn, trying to verify that they hit the wall. No big deal. But somewhere in the middle of the first heat I realized that I wasn't as peppy as I thought. The kids were swimming. My head was swimming. The kids were turning. My eyes were rolling. I was having a hard time keeping myself in the game.

Heat two came, and Gwenyth swam. I tried to use her participation to pep myself up. I always enjoy watching her swim as she is like poetry in the water, more like aquatic ballet. But she was sick, so I wondered how she would do. It ended up being a pretty tough evening. She was struggling with her goggles. A bunch of the kids had been struggling with their goggles. As an athlete, I find that somewhat incomprehensible. How do you get to race day and not have your goggles sorted out? Who knows, but it was an epidemic problem. So there she was, stopping in her lane to fix her goggles. My fatigue-numb mind noted that she stopped.

Then my fatigue-numb mind woke up. Oh no, she wasn't just stopping, she was stopped in the shallow end, standing up.

That's legal.

But if she pushes forward off the bottom when she starts...

She did. She pushed forward.

Oh, no. I could hardly believe it, but there it was. My had went up. The referee came down to ask what I had seen, as Gwenyth continued on. I described the event, and right as I was getting to the critical point, Gwenyth came back down the lane, then stopped again, same place, same story. So as I was describing the infraction, the referee saw it too.

"Oh! Yeah! You can't do that! And poor thing, she had to do it again right when I was watching too!"

Poor girl DQ'ed on the 1650. It really is sad to swim that far and not get a time. But these things happen. It also is sad to be the parent playing official on your own kids...it's great when they do things right, but when they DQ it is a sad deal. You look around for somebody else that can be the official...but nope. My deal.

Gwenyth swam on though, and despite having no official time and despite having a cold, she swam the event 3 minutes faster than she had in December, so that was pretty impressive.

Cedric's heat was next. While Gwenyth looks like poetry in the water, Cedric is very different. She is all grace and glide. Cedric is smooth, but forcefully, powerfully smooth. They are fairly evenly matched a lot of the time. Cedric took off at a cautious pace because he was not sure what he could do after being gone so long. The event is so long that the swimmers have a person counting lengths for them. Here, Gwenyth is holding the count down underwater as Cedric approaches the wall, so he can read it and see how many lengths he has to go.


By now, I was a complete basket case. Standing up was about all the work I could do, so luckily that was about all I was trying to do. Oh, and officiate swimming. Good thing it was only freestyle. Cedric managed to swim his first 1650 faster than Gwenyth had done in her first one in December, but she finished a couple minutes faster than he had. That gave them both times to work from.

We went home and I slept, again, the sleep of the dead.

The following day was a little less of an issue, but I actually didn't fully feel recovered until another two days had passed. These big adventures can wear a guy out.

But I'm ready now, for another one. Too bad I'm broke. Might be a while.