I haven't been on here for awhile so I thought I should post my latest low time pilot adventure.
When I left Alaska for Costa Rica, I left my Sportsman in North Pole. In May I returned to get it. My plan....to fly it to Panama.
I wanted to beat the Hurricane/Rainy Season, but alas that was not meant to be. Ran into all kinds of problems including a round with skin cancer. Finally got everything cleared up and on July 8th, I gassed up and headed south. I departed from North Pole. First stop was Cordova. Wow...lots of seagulls in Cordova!! Made it out of there without a bird strike and headed for Yakatat. Fueled in Yakatat and headed south for Ketchikan. Got a little dicey getting to Ketchian. Finally got thru the low cloud bank into Ketchikan where I spent the night. Got to celebrate the 4th of July twice as Ketchikan's fire works were rained out and they had them the night I was there. Cool display!
Next morning the weather was good and I headed for Anacortes, Wa. stopping in Port Hardy BC for fuel. Got to Anacortes with no problems and about 30 minutes later Customs showed up. They held me hostage for awhile. Moving me away from the plane and sweeping everything with a geiger counter. Now I don't have a problem with this, but the geiger counter was going off every time they pointed it at me!! They were asking me questions about surgery, instruments in the plane, etc. We finally detrmined I had a military compass in my survival vest.
I finally got cleared and given a warning ticket. I guess I screwed up. Aparently even though you have a confirmation for landing you ar supposed to call them and let them know your actually going to be there?? And I was right on time to!
So my plan in Washington is to pick up the set of EDO2440 floats I bought, mount them to my Sportsman, remove them and ship them to Panama.
Well.....that took a bit longer then anticipated. After I got the paint stripped off the floats (They were Green and my plane is red) I discovered there was corrosion I couldn't live with. So I decided to replace the bottom skins. Holy Crap!! That turned into on of the hardest things I've ever done! Took me a month. All the while I was working on the floats the weather was beautiful. Now it is time to leave and the weather is crap.

I decided to change my plans as now It's th end of August and well into Hurricane/Rainy season. So I decide to fly to the East Coast (Pa) and stay with my daughter for awhile. I finally got thru Snoquallmie Pass and into Stevensville, Mt where I have a friend I wanted to visit. I got stuck there for 2 days. Weather broke and looked good so off I went. As I approched Livingston, Mt the weather went to shit. I found the airport and put her down in the grass. 3 hours later, it looked good. Off I went. As I was coming up on Laurel, Mt., clouds started dropping again....fast. I was kinda following I 90 but cutting corners. You can see the highway winding across the buffalo grass. There is a ridge runs east/west just north of Laurel. As I was coming up on the ridge, it disappeared in the fog. I swung west and followed it to I 90 and the Yellowstone River, then down river to Laurel. Could not find the airport? And it was getting real ugly. I found a nice big pasture and set her down, tied her up and walked to the highway. A lady and her hubby picked me up and took me to town. I spent the night there as it was not looking like it was going to cear up. Next morning it was blue bird skies.....but not for long. I made it to NW Iowa and flew into the soup again. Landed in Rock Rapids and ended up overnighting there.
Next morning it was spotty, but Iowa is dotted with small airports about every 30 miles. So off I went. Took me 2 more days to get across Iowa! Then I hit low ceilings in Eastern Ohio. Waited that out for a couple a hours and caught a break and made a run for Pa. Made it to Clearfield, Pa and got caught in the soup again. Landed at Clearfield and made a new friend there. He loaned me his car for the night as he was on duty as a chopper pilot for an Emergency Life Flight Co.
After checking the weather I knew I was stuck here for awhile. Tropical storm Lee was stretched out from New England to Louisiana. So I called my daughter to come pick me up. The plane sat there for a week before I got a break in the weather to go get it. I finally got it back to Sunbury, Pa.
I'll be here till the new year, so if anyone in the area wants to check out the Sportsman, let me know. Also if anyone want to help me plan the next leg of my journey to Panama, let me know.

Cool Adventure!!

Chickenair- we need a sprotsman at (OH82) for the Ohio Bush Planes fly-in the weekend of Oct 1!!!

Go to Ohio immediately, the Graham Field fly-in is too much fun to miss.

Man your probably tired of flying after all that. I'd love to check out your sportsman. I was not to far from Sunbury last weekend. Just checked it out and your about 77 miles due North. If you wanna come down this way I have a 900' grass strip and now that the crops are coming off there's plenty more spots. I'm going out to John's next Sat morning. But after that we could try and hook up.
Nick W.

patrol guy wrote:Chickenair- we need a sprotsman at (OH82) for the Ohio Bush Planes fly-in the weekend of Oct 1!!!

I will see if my daughter can figure out what to do with the grandkids for that weekend. Now I don't mind being Grandpa, but ever since I got here I've been more of a live in Nanny getting the kids off to school, picking them up, feeding them etc. My daughter doesn't get homefrom school/work until 10PM almost every freakin night! Really cutting into my flying and beer drinking time.
And then we have this crappy weather since I've been here. I swear I'm a rain magnet!

Any good Bow hunting nearby?? Archery Season opens this weekend!

Foxflyer wrote:Man your probably tired of flying after all that. I'd love to check out your sportsman. I was not to far from Sunbury last weekend. Just checked it out and your about 77 miles due North. If you wanna come down this way I have a 900' grass strip and now that the crops are coming off there's plenty more spots. I'm going out to John's next Sat morning. But after that we could try and hook up.
Nick W.

Where are you? 77 miles due south must be around Mechanicsburg/ Carslile area. Shoot me some Lat/Lon or a designator. I'll slip down that way one day.

Zane wrote:Go to Ohio immediately, the Graham Field fly-in is too much fun to miss.

So....is this my permission slip to land there??

chickenair wrote:

Zane wrote:Go to Ohio immediately, the Graham Field fly-in is too much fun to miss.

So....is this my permission slip to land there??

For his weekend, it's come one come all as far as I know. Good folks and a great time with some cool planes.

yes - come one, come all.
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