David K wrote: Living the dream

Yes we are One of our winter visitors hails from Norman Wells. Last year he flew his cub down. I hope he does again soon

DeltaRomeo wrote: Another plus is I haven't had to fly the airlines since.
.

no doubt
It's been what seems like forever since the 911 spawned changes in commercial air travel, but I still can't seem to get through a cattle drive style TSA line up without doing something wrong? shoes on or off? what do you mean my toothpaste is too big? Who am I killing with that? I despise commercial air travel and will no longer do it barring an absolute emergency .

NineThreeKilo wrote:

My favortist pilot moved on to fly a Challenger 650. I will live that life vicariously through your posts and his texts. It's an amazing realm of flight. Unfortunately I will probably 'time out' before I get there.


tcl, One of our boys worked as a wildland fire fighter and flies as well. Your amazing photos bring make me wonder how many cool things he's witnessed that just never came up in conversation.

tcj wrote:My story is not why do I fly but why did I fly. A few years ago I realized that I wasn't flying enough to stay as sharp as I should be, so I quit flying and sold my airplane.

Bravo

Flyhound wrote:I built lots of these and managed to fly each example until it was destroyed in a crash.

I think you were a crop duster in another life probably no surprise I get a lot of 'crazy crop duster' comments in spite of all that, I can't imagine working up the nerve to get in some of the flying machines others do. And can't imagine how much more 'pure' some of those modes are. Simply amazing!

Dog is my Copilot wrote: I don't see myself ever wanting to give it up and I do fear the day when I am too old to continue flying.
Anyway - great thread - I have enjoyed reading everyone's responses. We are so lucky to get to fly these amazing machines.
Josh

Me tooo... And ya know, I always feared flying for work would change how I felt, so much so that I kept the two apart for the first twenty years... almost twenty into the marriage (flying and work) and I don't know what took me so long.

aftCG wrote:And that's how it is for me with flying. I could say something corny like "I feel like I was put here on earth to fly" but I really just love being in the air.

This photo captures that sense of satisfaction quite well

skyward, you were there, and then you left

Lucky, yes we are , As much as I prefer not to visit 'the big city' when I go to Alaska, I always make a few days available to overnight at the Millennium waking up to breakfast watching floatplanes venture out all morning, a walk around hood, and a visit to the museum. Glad your dream came true.

Zzz... flying for zen, that leads to chicks for write offs that's an interesting take on it

My wife has always wanted to reach out to the families of the roadside grave markers. She wants to know their stories, to chronicle them to share their story. Starting this thread was was a bit of a selfish thing, I'm glad others are enjoying the stories along the way.

Take care, Rob

Rob wrote:

David K wrote: Living the dream

Yes we are One of our winter visitors hails from Norman Wells. Last year he flew his cub down. I hope he does again soon

DeltaRomeo wrote: Another plus is I haven't had to fly the airlines since.
.

no doubt
It's been what seems like forever since the 911 spawned changes in commercial air travel, but I still can't seem to get through a cattle drive style TSA line up without doing something wrong? shoes on or off? what do you mean my toothpaste is too big? Who am I killing with that? I despise commercial air travel and will no longer do it barring an absolute emergency .

NineThreeKilo wrote:

My favortist pilot moved on to fly a Challenger 650. I will live that life vicariously through your posts and his texts. It's an amazing realm of flight. Unfortunately I will probably 'time out' before I get there.


tcl, One of our boys worked as a wildland fire fighter and flies as well. Your amazing photos bring make me wonder how many cool things he's witnessed that just never came up in conversation.

tcj wrote:My story is not why do I fly but why did I fly. A few years ago I realized that I wasn't flying enough to stay as sharp as I should be, so I quit flying and sold my airplane.

Bravo

Flyhound wrote:I built lots of these and managed to fly each example until it was destroyed in a crash.

I think you were a crop duster in another life probably no surprise I get a lot of 'crazy crop duster' comments in spite of all that, I can't imagine working up the nerve to get in some of the flying machines others do. And can't imagine how much more 'pure' some of those modes are. Simply amazing!

Dog is my Copilot wrote: I don't see myself ever wanting to give it up and I do fear the day when I am too old to continue flying.
Anyway - great thread - I have enjoyed reading everyone's responses. We are so lucky to get to fly these amazing machines.
Josh

Me tooo... And ya know, I always feared flying for work would change how I felt, so much so that I kept the two apart for the first twenty years... almost twenty into the marriage (flying and work) and I don't know what took me so long.

aftCG wrote:And that's how it is for me with flying. I could say something corny like "I feel like I was put here on earth to fly" but I really just love being in the air.

This photo captures that sense of satisfaction quite well

skyward, you were there, and then you left

Lucky, yes we are , As much as I prefer not to visit 'the big city' when I go to Alaska, I always make a few days available to overnight at the Millennium waking up to breakfast watching floatplanes venture out all morning, a walk around hood, and a visit to the museum. Glad your dream came true.

Zzz... flying for zen, that leads to chicks for write offs that's an interesting take on it

My wife has always wanted to reach out to the families of the roadside grave markers. She wants to know their stories, to chronicle them to share their story. Starting this thread was was a bit of a selfish thing, I'm glad others are enjoying the stories along the way.

Take care, Rob

Thanks

The flight levels are fun, thankfully work also lets me do some low and slow

Freedom!
It just feels wonderful to be in the air.

I fly because I was born into it. My old man was a crop duster, A&P, AI, instructor, had all the ratings. By the time I was 13 I had time in just about everything that flew. One of my morning routines was to go get the mail.....in an R22. I'd fly to the mail box, scoot close enough to where he could lean out the door and grab the mail, fly back to the hanger and head off to school. HIs goal was for me to solo in everything we could round up when I turned 16, AT302, C188, C185, C172, RV4, R22, C206, C140...lofty goal for sure. That however all changed when he took off in the 185 one day to pick up some friends to head to breakfast. Didn't make it to the first stop, lots of speculation to what really happened, but it was foggy. After that I took about a 15 year break from flying when finally, my wife pushed me to get back into it. What I didn't know at that time was how much I had needed aviation over those 15 years, and how much "therapy" it would provide. Now I fly out of the same old strip and keep my plane in the same old hanger. Every time I take off or land it reminds of the old man and the lessons he taught.

tcj wrote:

contactflying wrote:I covered those young loach pilots in the air cav. They were a courageous group taking the highest percentage loss of any soldiers in Vietnam. They loved the OH6-A because it was the most maneuverable. They flew single pilot with their crew almost exclusively because highers didn't like sitting in back with their ear inches from a screaming transmission.

Contact, they called you guys " The High Bird" or sometimes "The Snake".

A friend of mine flew high cover in Snakes, he always talked about the OH6 guys as "...when they got shot down, we'd roll in..."

I wrote this for a local magazine:

Flying in the Brainerd Lakes Area is to experience the sublime beauty of water and atmosphere.

In Summer, the seemingly endless lakes reflect the deep blue of the sky. On windy days, they are streaked with rows of foam and whitecaps, gusts visibly marching across the water to rattle boats and reeds. At other times they are glass mirrors, giving the impression of windows into another world just beyond.

In Fall, the threads of land between lakes become suffused in color, first in bright reds and oranges, then turning to gold and deep red in October’s first weeks. Later, as the trees bare and ice begins to form, rafts of Bufflehead ducks appear, the last migratory waterfowl before the vapored waters are stilled in frozen silence.

Winter brings a new white world to explore by air: skis and fat tires replace the floats of summer and restaurants can often expect to see aircraft alongside snowmobiles parked on the lake.

Spring completes the cycle. Watching from high above, dark lines being to appear on northern shores progressing slowly to the almost translucent blue of early season ice out. Fellow fliers of the avian kind fill the air urgently heading north and the land begins to turn green again. Witnessing these changes in the creation from above brings a new perspective on the world and a deep appreciation of Minnesota’s Lake Country.

I grew up flying right seat with my mother. She was a member of the 99s, and I was the only one of three kids who was interested in joining her as we went on fly-ins to places such as Flat and Chisana. I loved every moment! It took me longer than planned, but at the age of 20 I got serious about learning. I was crazy fortunate, as I was able to fly her 172XP for free and she hooked me up with her friend Tom Wardleigh who agreed to be my instructor. I was one of his last students, and I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to learn under someone of his experience and stature.

For the ensuing decade+, flying her 172 was mostly just a way to get places. I didn't fly much - maybe 15-20 hours per year, mostly centered around fishing for reds in Illiamna and taking friends and visitors for short flightseeing tours. I enjoyed flying, but I didn't love it.

It's a longer story than I have room for here, but I started to learn how to fly my father's cub in my late 20s. Due to circumstances beyond my control, that was put on hold for several years. In my mid-30s he told me that I could fly his plane if I wanted to, otherwise he was going to sell it. Twist my arm?

Flying his cub is what made me truly fall in love with flying. Instead of feeling like I was in a machine that flies, I felt like I myself was flying. I was hooked. I flew more hours in the next few years than I had in the previous 15 combined. I eventually bought the plane from my father, and I continue to fly it as much as I can.

But if I'm being honest with myself, I still fly primarily for the reason I started - to get to places where I can have adventures. More than anything, I love wild places. I love being truly alone. Hunting, fishing, backcountry skiing...the details of the adventure don't matter as much as the solitude. And flying a backcountry capable airplane gets me to places that would be difficult to access otherwise.

I don't have all of the pictures on hand that I'd like to share - the ones that really capture why I fly. But these are a few of the moments that flying has provided me. And I'm really damn thankful for that.































None of these memories would have been possible without an airplane. Yes, I enjoy my time in the air. But I'm not quite the aviation purist that many on here are. It's what is on the ground that is truly special to me.

Very nice Brian, well said!

The stories, photography, poetry, and artwork in this thread have been nothing short of amazing and humbling.
What an awesome group Zzz has assembled.

Take care, Rob

This is an awesome thread!

I haven't answered yet because I can't conjure my usual flourish for prose. Been in a mental rut with being sidelined for so long that it's hard to be too enthusiastic about it anymore. But I will say that my love for flying is primarily the exhilaration. Since my first open cockpit ultralight lesson in '96 I have been obsessed with being off the ground. I want bugs in my teeth and dry eyeballs and a touch of fear. I like machines and operating them. I like learning and knowledge.

I have a lot of friends who fly primarily for the utility of it—going up to Canada to fish, or going somewhere to hunt or mountain bike. Their imparted advice is always extremely pragmatic and well-reasoned: "The Skywagon pencils out as the best hauler" or "The Super Cub is the best for getting the most stuff out of the shortest strip." It's always a solution to an equation that accomplishes some ancillary goal and I rarely hear descriptors that involve a love for pure flying.

I don't think that way (as a primary approach) and proudly embrace a little irrational reasoning where aesthetics or exhilaration come into play. I'm not looking for a means to an end, I want to chase a feeling. Sure, sometimes that ends up having to pencil out in such a way to arrive alive in the mountains or somewhere far away.

The other day there was a guy flying a powered parachute in circles around my lake at 500 ft. He had skis on the gear. I got more excited by that thing that anything else in a long time. Just seemed so pure, for living in the moment. He wasn't gonna travel far, wasn't worried about weather, really. Just boring holes in the sky really slowly. I used to do that a lot in the Twin Oaks Sport Cub and my buddy's Rans S7. Was really soul-soothing.

Adding a few photos to my why I fly story.

170DT, what exactly is the Bushcruiser? Is it a modded -12? A variant of the Bushmaster?

ZZZ, it's a stretched pacer, bushmaster clone, but along with the aft stretch it has 11" added between the firewall and panel, that allowed for cessna style sliding seats and the panel moved farther forward compared to a traditional Pacer. Beefed up Cub wings and tail feathers with a 360 and constant speed.

A few more Bird's Eye View photos.

Thomas Fire, Alpine Ranger District Apache-Sitgreaves NF, Arizona, June 2003

Fire camp


Blow-up on the Mogollon Rim


The Arrow Tree


Close up of the top




Landing at Kit Peak Observatory, Tohono O'odahm Nation west of Tucson, Arizona, Alambre Fire, July 2007


Concrete weight used to balance the weight of the mirrors in the large telescopes when they were transported up the road to the peak.


Fire Camp in the Canelo Hills west of Fort Huachuca Arizona, May 2009


Perfect Circle. This is an indication that the fire burned in uniform fuels, no wind, and no slope

As a kid I always wanted to fly helicopters in the coast guard. Dropping rescue swimmers and such. To me that looked pretty damn cool and you're helping people out. Was never into the idea of the military though, so never followed that dream.

After college (2013), I did a summer mountaineering in the Wrangells in Alaska. We were being resupplied by Kirk Ellis and Paul Claus every week or so. I did not know the reputation of these guys at the time, but thought their jobs looked pretty great. We had to backpack in about a week and a half to get to the glacier so Kirk brought us ropes, skis, ice axes, etc etc, all in his 4 place cub. It was impressive. Of course when Paul brought us food on the glacier in his otter, he carried all of it in one load along with 6 swiss tourists riding along that he happened to have at his lodge.

In 2015 I got my first engineering job and could pay for private pilot. By 2018 I had everything up to CFI and quit my engineering job to do seasonal flying in Alaska. Not quite as full circle as Henny, but this next summer I'll be flying turbine otters on skis so that feels like a nice return to the original catalyst.

This is more why I started flying. Not sure why I continue. It's pretty enjoyable I guess.

Pictures from the mountaineering summer:

A few more photos.

H-12 fire May 2010. Ted Turner's Vermejo Park Ranch Near west of Ratone New Mexico. The meadow is 9,000 feet elevation and the low spot on the ranch. It's 600,000 acres of whats left of an original Spanish land grant.

Fire camp kitchen


The house.




Fire camp at the Warm Springs Agency


P-3 Orion Submarine Hunter


Black Bear on the White River trail


Smoke Bear from Shitike (pronounced Shi-Tike) Fire Lookout


Shitike Lookout


The Osborn Fire Finder


The Lookout and his Son


Equipment left at a Drop Point burned over.

StillLearning summed it up for me (above ) .
“FREEDOM “ .

I fly for fun, and to look at my crops during the growing season. My dad has flown for fun since the 60s, so he got me into it. I got my license in a cherokee, but fell in love with flying and tailwheels with dads 90 hp champ. Going up for a 15 minute flight after work is about the most relaxing thing a person can do.

tcj,

I remember that arrow tree!! Drove by it on my way to northern AZ on an archery Elk hunt. Wondered if it was still there.

WWhunter wrote:tcj,

I remember that arrow tree!! Drove by it on my way to northern AZ on an archery Elk hunt. Wondered if it was still there.

The last time I saw it was in the spring of 2015. I was told by a guy that was on the Bear Wallow fire a couple years before that the Arrow Tree had burned in that fire. He was wrong.