Where in Texas did you find all of those hills?

Fly Hound, the pics of mountains are in the Big Bend region of Texas where elevations range from around 2000' to 8751'

BRD - Nice landing in the glassy water. That mirror surface can kill the inexperienced.

SKALYWAG - Beautiful pictures of the Lone Star State.

BRD wrote:

glassy water...

Nice, BRD. As a float newbie, isn't that approach a little steep for glassy water? Did a glassy water landing with 185 Bushbird back in August and he had me approaching very shallow, long, at a minimum rate of decent with a fair amount of power. I'm thinking maybe you were close enough to the shore that the glassy water wasn't as much a factor? Or maybe you had a brief disturbance on the water surface that let you drop it in like that?

Hey Zane, sorry I wasn't able to get up to see you guys at Eveleth last month, too many things going on. When you get back here again next year let's try and get a flight over to Trout and Bluewater north of Grand Rapids.

As for that steep approach into glassy water. The size of the usable water and the surrounding hills/trees dictate your options. So you are using visual cues like the small swamp just before you get to the lake - that dock off the right wing, lily pads etc to determine height. Then you keep the nose above the horizon until you touch the mirror. (or bounce off of...

In bigger water situations you often don't have as readily available visuals like in the above - so the approach will of necessity be longer and flatter with power like Brian correctly taught you. You really have ZERO depth perception in big glassy water.

Here's an example of landing on a bigger mirror. This is where the long, flat, power on approach is really the only way. No visual cues at all.

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/face ... D263l9HKFb
This was my loop, probly 2-3 hrs, checkin the waterfalls from all the recent rains. Pretty cool flight.
Left DRO, headed up over Lake Vallecito, up the Pine drainage,/Emerald Lake, down the Piedra, over to Pagosa for lunch, down the San Juan, up the Lower Blanco, down to Navajo Lake, flew by a couple buddies places and back to the barn.
It was a good day
Gary

A 35 mile flight to check the conditions of an access road leading up to a 8,000' peak, where I'll be driving the crane next week. The recent rains had me concerned but all looks good. Lot's of playing around there and back of course......then I had a strange thing happen. Before landing back at my place, I decided to overfly the site of a job I did Sat in town, to take a picture of the new building for my friend who owns it. Very close to the Poky airport, but out of their sphere of influence, so I didn't have to contact them but I did tune in to moniter the trafffic. At one point I was concentrating on my aerial photography while maintaining a legal and sane altitude over the congested area when it dawned on me I had heard a position report. About 3 miles from me. Then I heard it again, and it was a guy in a Albatross. Not until I heard it a third time did I think, wow that's a pretty rare bird to hear in the pattern! At the same time of course I was keeping an eye out for whatever, and then I saw it, first thinking it was a big soaring bird. Something didn't quite jive though so I looked again and turned into it, and got more confused, while the Albatross pilot is continuing his chatter as he did a couple flybys for the tower guys, so a lot going on, or so it seemed at the time.

As I closed with the UFO, I finally got a good visual on it, a big cluster of helium balloons, like 15 or 20! By the time my killer instinct kicked in I was past them but came within 20' of them. However, now fired up, I whipped the plane around, and then suddenly came to my senses... I was over the Home Depot and the towns biggest mall, right at 1,000' agl, and rather then rile up any ground bound observers with a spirited attack on the balloons, though well within my legal rights, I gave them a pass and having got my pics flew sedately away. It just seemed like the thing to do, too many non pilots maybe watching, non pilots with video cameras, plus in the back of my mind was the fact that maybe getting in that big cluster of latex and string could take down my S-7 Not really, but it did occur to me, that and combined with the location over town and I passed, and am damn proud of my restraint! The Albatross, BTW, is owned by a guy out of Driggs, I looked up the N# on my smart phone while flying home. I had already wrote the # on my palm for later then realized I could find out right now via the phone , well the heck away from any traffic by then. Fun flight all in all.

Courier guy: I guess it was a Grumman Albatross amphib rather than a Bowlus Albatross sailplane. Doesn't Jimmy Buffet have an Albatross set up as a big flying camper?

I saw that Albatross in Driggs when we were passing through there last month, he was departing just after we had parked. That is a cool plane.

Flew out to Happy Camp (36S) from Grants Pass for a little breakfast. No grass, but a fun little "mountain" approach.

Went on a nice 1 hour jaunt around Tanana Flats with Brett (UH-60andC-180) on Saturday. I pulled the pictures off my phone yesterday but got busy helping some friends and didn't get them posted up. I'll try to get them up this evening.

It was super beautiful, just a little sprinkling of snow in the hills, clear skys and exceptional vis. We could even see McKinley from up here!

And Brett's 206 is an awesome airplane!

My point and shoot seems to be on its last leg and didn't do so good with picture quality. But the trusty iPhone came through in a pinch with some pretty good quality shots as long as I kept the prop disc out of the picture.

Last week I flew from Anchorage to Nulato, had to pass the Spires so tried out the gopro on the 210.
It's posted on another post but thought I would put it here also.
Hope you enjoy

These are the ones from Saturday.

Again, iPhone pics, so not the best but not terrible.

The vis was so good you could see McKinley from just off FAI! The pic doesn't do it justice.



This one's from just over Gold King. The colors were amazing!




A shot of the Japan Hills.




And another.




The Salcha River valley.




Pole Hill and Firebird FLS inside the Yukon Training Area




Here's a shot of the Chena Lakes just across from the flood project.



It was a great flight and Alaska was certainly showing off some colors!

Innocent bystanders witnessed an airplane land in the river and naturally called police...the pilot was greeted by popo back at his hangar and let off on a warning since he apologized and had been experiencing "mechanical difficulties" high oil temps and low oil pressure to be precise.

First real off airport in the cub today

Not as cool a location as most of y'all, but its my first time camping with the plane.

The Mountain View Arkansas Airport had a designated area for camping flyers. I thought that was cool! Saved me a ton in expenses. The trip started on a Friday and I started out waiting out a rain storm that was making IMC, I finally decided to try after it had moved through, though none of it was convective, the visibility was near zero. I made it from my home airport to mountain home and landed because less than a mile in front of me was a wall of gray going from cirrus to the "mountains" of Arkansas. I waited another 2 hours and decided to turn back. Saturday, was beautiful and I made it to Mountain View with baby butt smooth flying.

I was only 13 minutes away, yet I had to turn around and go back before dark (new to me plane, not a dependable night flyer yet)


First morning after getting up.

Looks like you had a memorable experience on your first plane camping adventure.

You made a wise decision in not pushing yourself, and were rewarded with great weather the next day.

Headed home to work...hunting season begins!

Did a balloon drop for a birthday party on Saturday then had a nice flight home after the party with my little girl. Great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

whee wrote:Did a balloon drop for a birthday party on Saturday then had a nice flight home after the party with my little girl. Great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Damn you and your teaser shots.

Sounds like a cool day!

Yeah, Whee. That don't look like no silver Luscombe to me...