Backcountry Pilot

Introduction

In a region as remote as the mountainous north coast of British Columbia, access is limited to only floatplanes or boats, making the proposition for guiding outfitters a dicey one. To operate in this environment tests the mettle of the most experienced mountain float pilot, where critical decision making is everything.

In this multi-part series, we'll take a look at how I approached the business of operating in such a remote territory, how I chose an appropriate aircraft, and how I maintain perspective on risk and reward in flying one of the most challenging backcountry zones in the world.

The ultimate bush ride, De havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver on a 2,000' long alpine puddle we named Laurel Lake, North Coast of British Columbia.

Background

From 2015 to present, I operated an outfitting operation in one of the most remote and rugged areas of British Columbia: the Great Bear Rainforest an hour south of Ketchikan, Alaska. This Pacific coastal 2,100 square mile, or 1.3 million acre road-inaccessible territory screamed to me as a pilot, hunter, and mariner.

In the outfitting business you offer remote, wild, and untouched places and experiences, and territory 601101 has that all in spades. Its remoteness acts as a deterrent to many potential operators, as remote means planes and offshore ocean boats only on B.C.'s North Coast, and that means expensive whether you buy your own or hire them. Then of course if you buy them, you have to learn to use them.

Touchdown on Laurel Lake in the Beaver.

As soon as I bought the territory, I started shopping appropriate floatplanes. Bush flying here means operating on floats as the conventional smooth tops, gravel bars, and flats largely don't exist.

Already well into a commercial aviation career in helicopters, I knew a few basic things from hanging myself off rotor blades in BC that translated to fixed-wing mountain flying. Power is life, fuel is life, and in the choice of aircraft, everything can be compromised save that which affects the single most dangerous aspect of mountain flying. For those of us on the north coast, that was takeoff from the alpine mountain goat hunting puddles at and above the tree line. These little lakes can be smaller than 2,000 feet of usable water, often with additional dangerous characteristics. Many are set in a tight bowl, a cirque of high mountain peaks that force one-way-in and one-way-out. The more of these little lakes you can access the more of the territory you can use. Helicopters are rightfully prohibited in BC for hunting, and there is nothing up on top of these mountains that can be landed with wheels due to our fractured and very steep rock.

Overview of Laurel Lake, a short alpine puddle that puts airplanes to the test. Not work safe for the 185.

An oddball airplane for the mission

A modicum of altitude, short water, and extreme remoteness meant I needed a plane with gobs of power, long legs, and excellent STOL characteristics at altitudes up to 7,500'. That pretty much is the Beaver.

Unfortunately, the artificial and unfair constraint of money is a factor for most considerations in life, making the Beaver out of the question even though we hired them weekly and knew all too well that it was the perfect machine.

There are few, if any, replacements for the Beaver. It does what it does very well, but it's not cheap.

Next on the list to consider, and the plane I'll likely buy next now that we no longer goat hunt was the Cessna 185.

While I love the type, it just couldn't do the little alpine goat lakes safely. It cruises very well, has good range and payload, and I like flying it. But in the most dangerous aspect of the flying it is beyond marginal. It simply does not want to lift two people and a mountain goat out of 2,000' of water at 5,000' MSL in August. We learned this well from hiring 185s in the hands of excellent mountain pilots, and getting a clear picture of the capabilities and limitations when they wouldn't do our lakes.

The Garrett motivated 900 HP Cessna Caravan in the company of some of the highest peaks in the Coast Range, Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia. We found the “SuperVan” to be the equal of the turbine Otter all considered for our work, much to our surprise it's an outsized performer and the cruise speed is welcome.

Alas, an oddball appeared on the screen, the 300 hp Wilga 2000. A surprisingly sturdy airframe, with a surprisingly big strutless wing and incredible visibility, the Wilga and its stick control and high-seated, high-viz European layout immediately spoke to the rotary pilot in me.

The Wilga PZL-104 in a more modern Lycoming-powered form, known as the Wilga 2000.

I arranged a test flight, and we hit a little walled-in, one-way-in, one-way-out mountain lake in the winds of the day. The Wilga absolutely surged off the water, flew like an extension of the pilot, and inspired massive confidence, needing less than a quarter of the water available with 75 gallons of fuel aboard.

The Lycoming 540 up front is rock solid and I've seen a fleet of fifty of them make TBO in Robinsons at work. The wings each held just over 50 gallons apiece, and this specimen had less than 400 hours TT.

The major drawbacks are: interior space is extremely limited, cruise speed is 100 kts on a good day, and fuel burn is 17 gallons per hour leaned. You could slow down and use less fuel, or speed up and use tons more.

The plane really hits a wall above 7,500' density altitude, and climbing slows after 6,000'. Getting to 13,000' from sea level required half an hour or more loaded, and likely twenty minutes of it was above 7,500'. And it uses a lot of fuel there.

But a "goat lake rocket" it definitely is, and will do any lake the Beaver will; more if only taking one passenger and a backpack. The biggest difference in how the Wilga operates versus the 185 is in the initial part of the takeoff run, where the slatted big wing and fat chord chewed it out of the hole and on step in a blink of an eye, from extremely low water speeds. This early boost makes lakes possible that the 185 would still be fighting to get on step at the halfway mark.

The Wilga At Rest: Quiet night on the water for GELX, our 300 HP Lycoming-motivated PZL Wilga 2000.

Weather flying the mountains on floats

In the actual point-to-point flying, the limitations are: weather, fuel, and terrain. Our fall weather during the late hunting season is appalling to use an extremely kind term; the rest of the words for it aren't kid safe. You are constantly sucker-holing, knowing you're in a short-lived, limited bubble but it's the best there will be, yearning for the clear days of August.

I don't miss having to go places in sideways rain, along big sheer rock walls, without the ability to stop— something I enjoy in my day job flying the heli. For this reason I do as little late season flying as possible.

The King of The Mountain, standing his ground. As hunting outfitters, we pursued goats, which required landing some high postage-stamp sized lakes.

The mountain floatplane pilot knows a thing or two about commitment: there is often only the point of your departure, and the point of your destination available. In between those two points, a line exists where return fuel is no longer available, and the destination becomes the only option. In poor weather, one has to make that call well before the point of commitment, and stick to it. Many, many times I have turned back despite the schedule headaches it would cause. It never felt good, but it sure beat the chance of being in an irredeemable situation and thinking of the family back home in the last minutes in the plane.

I'm here to admit I've been close to that point before. In this article I will try to avoid the pilot's habit of avoiding the blame— no one learns from that. The three worst decisions I've made in fixed-wing flying all occurred in poor weather. If I was to make rules to live by for the mountain float pilot, weather minima would be top of that list, as it affects everything else: safe approach and departure, adequate fuel, and a rock solid plan B.

Basically, if there are options, poor weather removes nearly all of them.

Here's some food for thought: In much of aviation it's unimaginable to have no alternate destination, and in fact would be cause to terminate the planned flight immediately. What if the weather closes in behind you, and your destination is no good due to weather, waves, or winds? What if you meet unforeseen challenges, and have to take a longer route? This is the point of commitment, and I've been on the backside of it, unfortunately. The way forward narrows to the eye of a needle, perhaps metaphorically and sometimes literally. Being hyperaware of this limiting of options is mandatory for survival.

Dinner at 6,500': Mountain top BBQ on the hot stone slab, our local tradition.

Live to tell in the mountains, again

On one particular 400 NM flight a late departure was forced by "four-letter weather" (pick your favorite expletive), or what coastal float pilots here refer to as a "square mile viz"— 1/4 mile in every direction. For the last 150 NM or so, it remained marginal, perhaps slightly better, and not measured in fractions.

The entire flight was typically 3 miles visibility and low ceilings in the passes— not great but it was workable. Unfortunately, the second half of the flight took me through rugged mountains with very few options to land. I had no spare fuel in cans aboard due to a full load of gear. Couple that with the shorter late fall days of the north, where you should be parked by 16:00, and I discounted making any fuel stops as it would likely mean overnighting there.

On takeoff, the tower notified me that they could see something venting from my wing, and I could see a stream from my starboard fuel cap. It was thin and disappeared if I rocked gently to port even slightly, and it didn't get any worse in a right bank. The cap was in place, "it was just weeping" I told myself. After an hour it had stopped as I burned the right tank to reduce fuel level. Leaky caps in the Wilga weren't uncommon, and to make matters more entertaining, the fuel gauges never worked right either despite spending thousands to fix them. All the same, the venting stopped and the needle bounced around at appropriate levels on the right tank. I switched to burn the left tank to reduce the imbalance — also a limitation in the Wilga as the tanks are very outboard and must be kept close in weight. There is no "both" fuel selection in the Wilga.

Dead End Lake: I spent days here once due to the wicked combination of an east facing valley, glacial downflowing air, and the resultant permanent strong tailwind. Always pack a lunch in the mountains.

Things were still good as I passed the last stop for fuel, options for which are very sparse in B.C. In that last leg, with maybe 1.5 hrs direct to my destination, I was set to arrive with an hour's reserve judging by the fuel flow on the panel. But I had to work a low, circuitous route in the low visibility while looking for a way through the larger rocks in this part of the journey.

The low fuel indicator light started for the right tank as I banked and turned through the notches in the mountains. Not uncommon in the Wilga, but what was uncommon was the engine suddenly stuttering. I switched to the L tank which by now wasn't particularly well-supplied either. On a new more level leg, I cocked the plane gently with rudder and aileron to put the fuel at the pickup for the right tank, accepting the drag increase to use the last of the right tank. I decided to run it dry so I knew I didn't leave an ounce of fuel. I also didn't want to be switching to a nearly empty tank on final if the left went dry.

At this point, I wasn't concerned, but it definitely had my attention.

Maybe fifteen minutes into this new plan, the engine nearly quit. I switched back to the left tank. Well, at least there's no guessing on the right. And fifteen minutes closer was somewhat helpful.

Fifteen more minutes, after I switched tanks, I got a fuel light flicker on the left tank. Maybe fifteen more minutes and the light was steady again. Fortunately it ran much longer on the left after the light.

The Wilga annunciates warnings in a female Polish voice of surprising conviction, and she didn't let me forget the predicament I had put myself in.

"LOW FUEL!"...repeated ad nauseam.

A View To The Top: Water flows ever when frozen, this ancient river of ice has been flowing for tens of thousands of years, and our adventures took us to the very top of it.

The continued junk weather ahead and large, looming mountains offering no chance of climbing over them on the shortest route left me forced to continue the scud run through the passes I'd boxed myself into. To make matters worse, most of the lakes along the route at this altitude were frozen already, and those that weren't frozen weren't approachable.

Alas, when terrain dropped away twenty minutes from my destination I held at the ceiling to maintain maximum gliding range and started looking for any appropriate body of water. There were none except a fast moving river that was only five minutes closer. The Wilga glides like a helicopter autorotates, around 4:1 on floats, and I started measuring on Foreflight four times my AGL with my fingers and checking the radius. I was now nearly inside the glide range to my destination, and I could see it.

That last stretch was one of the longest of my aviation career, and as soon as I was solidly inside glide range, I relaxed a lot. It was an odd feeling being happy to deadstick it in. In that last stretch I cocked the aircraft the other way to hopefully collect the last of the fuel, and brought it in at 80 kts, where the Wilga is happy power off on a descent. Its high drag means you have to carry that speed into the flare then bleed it off until an appropriate touchdown at 50 kts, which I did with the engine idling. I touched the water, punched the roof and hooted and hollered. Surprisingly, it idled all the way to shore, but the tank was bone-dry on inspection. I didn't drain the rest to know, but I was within a couple gallons (maybe ounces) of empty I'm sure.

The imaginary passenger

This is a story of poor judgement at many junctures, rather than an exciting tale from the cockpit, and it's not one I'm not proud of. What were the points of decision in the accident chain that I dismissed?

First and foremost, weather. This forces your hand on every decision thereafter. I knew it was marginal at my destination, but talked myself into the idea that I had options. It's a floatplane, and a very capable one, I'll just pick a spot and wait it out if it gets really poor.

Well, I'd neglected to consider it was late fall, cooler than usual, and all my options were frozen at the pass altitudes. And those that weren't weathered out were far off my route. If I stopped for fuel, my flying day was over; a motivating factor in pushing on.

Second, and the actual emergency here: fuel. It was a situation brought on by poor pilot decision making based on the first point: the weather. The distance I was flying was a major factor, and I shouldn't have departed knowing A) The weather was poor, and would require more fuel. Usually 400 NM for the Wilga is no big stretch in good weather— this wasn't good weather. And B) I had, and was aware of a fuel leak, from which I lost much more than I believed. This should have prompted a landing at my point of departure, rather than playing with the plane to see if I could reduce the fuel leak and talking myself into continuing.

The extreme southwest of the territory. With 2,100 square miles, or 1.3 million acres, we'll never see it all even with the help of great planes like the C208.

I treat this episode as an accident, as the entire recipe was there. I just got lucky. I could have easily ended up trying to pancake the floats on a scree slope. All of it was forced by my poor weather decisions, and I had many opportunities to stop before that line of hard commitment. Like many, I take greater risks when flying solo, and this shouldn't be the case. I'd never have attempted the flight that day with a passenger, and that right there should have been my red flag.

I now carry an imaginary passenger at all times, to whom I have to explain my decision to push the weather over a huge distance, to continue with a fuel leak, to pass up fuel. The reasoning for each would sound asinine to an informed passenger, as they do to me now. I'm approaching age 40, and 5,000 hours of remote flying in British Columbia. My appetite for risk has been declining steadily from age 35; maybe that's my youth leaving, but more than likely it's having just built the life experience to begin to properly understand one's own vulnerability. You're able to do more difficult flying with greater experience, but you can easily keep yourself at the risk factor of a new pilot if you continue pushing.

My fondness for the Beaver cannot be overstated. Climbing into it with a load is a comfort when the cirque walls tower overhead the water's surface.

Conclusion

These pilot's hard lines and imaginary passengers aren't just for flying, they're techniques I've applied to boating the north coast, hunting grizzly and other game in the mountains, and even parenting.

Coming to understand the consequences of your decisions and continually weighing them takes a good deal of maturity I'm embarrassed to admit I'm slow to grasp at my age. It's easier with an imaginary passenger to trade an immature technique for a mature decision.

My other close shaves offer much less for interpretation, such as attempting to depart downwind out of a small walled-in lake with downflowing glacial air (Dead End Lake, pictured above) which I aborted in time when the situation became clear. I spent several days there eating freeze-dried rice and chicken waiting for a wind switch. I like to think I listened to the passenger there.

Another time, a low canyon turn in near zero visibility where I lost altitude and found myself uncomfortably close to the bottom, I failed to listen to the passenger.

Up next...

In the next installment, we'll get into proper mountain flying and what the passenger says about those tight situations and how to stay out of them.

I passed on an opportunity last year to be a mountain course instructor at BC's top helicopter mountain flying school. Frankly I didn't feel I was ready yet, or that my passenger had seen enough.

As for floatplanes, my Wilga is gone and fetched a good price, which will allow us to get into a nice Cessna 185 for more casual operations. We no longer hunt mountain goats, having sold the hunting side of our operation, but we've retained the viewing and tour licenses, and are thrilled to start a new era with less pressure to land in terrible, high, tight places in poor weather.

The learning won't stop, and the imaginary passenger won't be left behind. Stay tuned.